Stormont House Agreement: Implementation

James Heappey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

It is a pleasure as ever to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on securing the debate. I had wanted to speak at length about the perception of amnesty, but there is not time to do that, so, as an ex-soldier who served in Northern Ireland twice and in Iraq and Afghanistan twice, I will focus on what I believe is the impact of these inquiries on those who are serving or may serve in the future in our armed forces.

Retrospective investigation over actions taken in battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland breaks the covenant that the Government, Parliament and the nation has with our armed forces. Those who have served feel betrayed, those who now serve are concerned, and those who might have served now might not. However necessary the Government might insist that these inquiries are and however fair and proportionate the investigatory process is designed to be, merely the prospect of it is enough to make those serving now hesitate before pulling the trigger. In battle, that hesitation costs lives.

Those who serve now do so inspired by this nation’s relationship with its armed forces over the centuries. To defile that relationship is to diminish our military capability now and in the years to come.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Kris Hopkins)]

First, let me say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on not only the content of his speech, but the honesty and the power with which he communicated his feelings on this very important matter. I also congratulate colleagues on both sides of the Chamber who either intervened or made speeches. I will mention a couple of those briefly before commenting on the Government’s position.

Let me recognise my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) and the passion with which he speaks, as a former soldier—I speak as a former soldier as well. When I look at the hon. Members who made contributions, I see that it is a mix of people; some have served, and some represent communities that suffered terrible violence over a long period. Some people represent areas with soldiers. Some people serve on Committees. There is huge interest in, and a huge commitment to, trying to find resolutions to some of the challenges that we still have in Northern Ireland. The House should be very proud that it can bring together people with knowledge and a determination to resolve some of these issues.

There are difficult issues to address. I compliment my opposite number, the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), because we can just be sucked into a narrative that says that soldiers are always right. I served in Northern Ireland, and I was extremely proud of the professionalism with which my colleagues served. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers served very bravely. However, to answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) about the way the world is looking at how we treat our veterans, one reason why our services are regarded as such a professional body of people is the high standards that politicians, our military and the public expect from soldiers. It only takes one person to commit an act that undermines that reputation, so it is important, regardless of whether someone is a soldier or a terrorist, that if they have committed a wrong or there is a thing to be answered, it should be answerable.

[James Heappey]

A number of people have said that the military are held to a higher standard, and rightly so, but they are held to that higher standard at the time of the engagement and in the immediate aftermath. They are investigated by the Royal Military Police and the Special Investigation Branch there, in theatre. What does not need to happen is the investigation 40 years later of people who have done their duty and long since stood down.

[Kris Hopkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will just say that I sat and listened to the former Prime Minister’s contribution on the Bloody Sunday investigation. I have to say that I refused to accept a narrative that I had heard for many decades about what had happened, and there was clear wrongdoing, so there are moments when we have failed and we should hold our hands up and not just capitulate to a romantic message that we are always right in the military.

I want now to focus on what we are proposing, because the key message that I got from today’s debate was the passion with which the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley wanted to get that proportionality and balance back into what is happening at the moment. The Stormont House agreement addressed many things relating to legacy and the shape of the Assembly, but for us in this debate it was about the formation of the historical investigations unit and addressing some of the issues that people have talked about: the care of our veterans; reform of the Northern Ireland inquest function; ensuring that victims and survivors have access to high-quality services; implementing the comprehensive mental trauma service; seeking an acceptable way in which victims can gain a pension; and giving victims and survivors access to advocate-counsellor assistance. It is vital that progress is made on all of that to address the legacy of the troubled past, and we need political stability to be able to drive that forward. The Government want to put £150 million on the table. We want to create a period of five years in which we will work our way through and address the 90% of murders that were carried out by terrorists, and balance and proportionality will be brought back into the system.

There are huge numbers of former soldiers who were murdered and whose cases are not being investigated at this time. Nearly 200 soldiers were murdered, and those cases are not being investigated at the moment because there is no mechanism in place. When people talk about injustices against soldiers at this time, that is because of the present system. I would like to talk about what is proposed. When I was here just a few weeks ago, there was more resistance to what was suggested in relation to the historical investigations unit. I think that there is now an idea, an understanding, of what we want to actually do in putting that proportionality in place and ensuring that those 3,500 people who were murdered and the families of those people get some justice.

One conversation that has come about has been about an amnesty—an end to this whereby we just draw a line. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley read out a long list of people and of events that had occurred—terrible events in which people were traumatised and damaged and will be for a long time. They want justice. There is not a line to be drawn. Whether an act was perpetrated by a terrorist or whether a soldier was involved, people want their moment in court, when they can get an understanding of what happened.