Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Debate between Jim Allister and Gavin Robinson

Monday 19th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson]

My hon. Friend is right. Máiría Cahill was defending me from outrageous suggestions directed towards me in a tweet by Michelle Gildernew, who had the temerity to do so knowing that Máiría Cahill had confided in her in the 1990s and she did nothing. I thank Máiría for her steadfastness and her courage over many years on the issues that she has raised.

New clause 21 is another attempt by the official Opposition, among many others on the amendment paper, to ensure that any process understands the context of operations, the environment in which people served, the rules of engagement, the pressure and the threats. How often do we hear people talk of Bloody Sunday and never mention the days that preceded it—I say that not as an excuse or a challenge for what happened—and the two police officers who were murdered? Those two police officers, patrolling that city on a cross-community basis, were murdered on the streets.

I often remember a gentleman who was in the end very senior in the Reserve Forces and Cadets Association for Northern Ireland saying to me, “Gavin, I remember one day being out the top of the Land Rover. I heard a clink, turned around and thought I was going to be shot because two of my friends had been killed the day before. I nearly shot until I realised it was an elderly lady putting out two milk bottles.” What he was trying to indicate to me was that as a young, 20-year-old man he was so perplexed, scared and petrified—knowing he had lost friends yesterday, wondering whether he would get home that afternoon and not knowing the answer—that when he heard that clink first thing in the morning, he thought he was next and he nearly shot an unarmed civilian. Thank God he did not, but he shared that story with me so that I could understand. So I support new clause 21 entirely when it talks about “contemporaneous Rules” and the environment in which people operated.

The Government have tried to meet us on equivalence in some ways in their new clause 31, which replicates amendment 56 tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and amendment 10 tabled in the name of the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim. New clause 9 has been proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), who has put in efforts about “on the runs” and putting those beyond the pale. I understand that the Government have moved their position on that, but they could engage and support rather than always tabling their own new clauses.

New clause 5 deals with support for former members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I make no apologies for saying that support for the Royal Ulster Constabulary should be before this House. We talk all the time about veterans, and rightly so. My grandfather served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, although not during the troubles. He served his community. Some 302 officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary served their community and paid the ultimate sacrifice. It is was right that they were honoured with the George Cross, but it was wrong that they were so disgracefully dishonoured through the changes that were brought about in policing. Yet here we are, just weeks away from celebrating or acknowledging 25 years of renewed policing in Northern Ireland, with questions around support for the police.

I listened very carefully to the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn). I acknowledge that he has engaged with many victims, but while he was speaking I received a text message from a member of a victims’ group who had hoped for a visit from him when he was Secretary of State. He did not visit, although he sent a junior Minister. I remember visiting that same victim on the main street in Omagh. He served as a police officer on 15 August 1998. He showed me the shop where he was laying bodies that day—28 people lost their lives, as well as two unborn children. He then took me into the entry next door, where he had had to bring other bodies because there simply was not sufficient room in the front of the shop. He and his colleagues have been demonised for years, but this RUC man was weeping when he was sharing with me the pain he still had, although that was not his intention, and the pain he still harboured from those days. He has asked the Government to support him and his colleagues whenever they engage with the Omagh inquiry. He has lamented the fact that the Omagh inquiry is but a partial piece of the jigsaw.

The Omagh inquiry has only the terms of reference that allow it to answer the question, “What could the British state authorities have done to prevent Omagh?” What could we have done to prevent an act of terror? Omagh was blown up because dissident republicans from the Republic of Ireland sought vehicles in the Republic of Ireland, moved through the Republic of Ireland and came to Northern Ireland to destroy that market town. And so they did. But our inquiry will answer only what we could have done to prevent that. Time after time we have raised the issue about the legacy commission’s dates. Why are we, as a House of Commons, still prepared to pass legislation that says that the troubles ended in April 1998, when we know the Omagh attack occurred on 15 August 1998?

Whenever we raise these issues, it is, “Oh, you are just having a go at the Irish. The Irish have promised that they are going to give information,” but no, they have not. As the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said earlier, this issue was raised at the Omagh inquiry last week in evidence given by John Ware, a “Panorama” journalist. He made reference to a call that was received by the Finner Irish army camp in Ballyshannon on 14 August 1998. Colleagues may remember me raising this last week, and the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim raised it as well. The reason John Ware made those comments was that he and core participants felt that the details he was about to outline in the inquiry were with them mistakenly, and that had he not read them out—and had the Irish Government realised they had let them slip—they would have been rescinded. That is why I got a call four weeks ago giving me the details on a similar basis, so that they could not be rescinded.

[Jim Allister]

Further to that, much was publicised and lauded about a memorandum of understanding with the Dublin Government on how they were going to co-operate in the Omagh inquiry, yet we find they were sitting on information and when 50-plus questions were sent to them, they answered two.

[Gavin Robinson]

There is a recurring theme. We were told that the Irish Government would have a Garda legacy unit and that they would answer this mythical telephone, but they do not answer. They do not provide answers, they do not respond to emails and they still have an inter-state case against our Government—they expect much of us but give nothing in return.

On 14 August 1998, a telephone call was made to the Finner camp. According to an Irish army document—handwritten—the call came in at half-past 10, and a male caller,

“who sounded reasonable and did not appear to be drunk”,

said:

“Pay attention to the back roads around Kinlough”—

border control checkpoints 197 and 198—

“Inform the GS and NISF”—

Garda Síochána and Northern Ireland Security Forces—

“road leads to Enniskillen, Irvinestown and Clogher.”

Then he stopped and said:

“Forget Clogher, Omagh, Omagh, Omagh”.

Garda Síochána spoke to the barracks orderly sergeant and the barracks detachment staff, whose names are redacted, on 16 August, when they decided for themselves that it was not a warning—it was—with the most devastating consequences. Ten days later, there was another effort to try to retrofit the call. But why am I mentioning any of this? I am mentioning these things because there was Government knowledge, Garda Síochána knowledge and intelligence service knowledge of the call that came in on 14 August, yet Baroness O’Loan in the other place, who was the first Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, conducted an inquiry into Omagh. For two years, she investigated the Omagh bomb. Was she aware of those calls? No, she was not. The revelation last week was a revelation to her.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)

Debate between Jim Allister and Gavin Robinson

Carry-over motion
Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

rose—

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman—and I am pleased to see that there is a new Deputy Speaker in the Chair, so I do not have to hold myself to the commitments I made earlier. [Laughter.]

I say to the Secretary of State that I am pleased that the Labour Government have accepted that they will legislate on the matter of on-the-runs—again, it is a statement of fact, and I could never comprehend why the Labour Government were resisting such an amendment. So, too, will they legislate to ensure that paramilitaries and former paramilitaries—people who sullied themselves and tried to destroy our society—will not form part of any advisory board to the commission. That is right. I could not for the life of me understand why the Labour Government were resistant to that approach. I am grateful—[Interruption.]. No, it was always indicated that it would not happen in practice, but they would not legislate on the face of the Bill. I say “they”; I mean the Labour Government. I am glad that at least that concession has been given.

I am grateful that the Prime Minister is here, because I want to make a fundamental point, which draws on comments that were opened earlier. It is not often that I agree with the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister), but I am pleased that he referred to what happened yesterday in the Omagh inquiry. It is beyond me—I hope it is beyond every sensible Member of this House—that the Government are still resisting the dates for the legacy commission. The legacy commission has to stop its work on a given date—the date the Belfast agreement was signed—yet the largest atrocity of the troubles occurred just three months later in Omagh. The Government are resistant to allowing the legacy commission to consider the case of Omagh.

Why is that important? It is important because the Omagh inquiry is set up, and its terms of reference allow the inquiry only to look at what the British state could have done to prevent the largest atrocity of the troubles, yet the Irish Government have questions to answer. Yesterday when John Ware, the former “Panorama” journalist, opened up his evidence in court, he referred to the Irish soldiers who received a bomb warning the day before—on 14 August—in Finner base, as has been mentioned. I have every word of that. Will the Secretary of State ask immediately for a copy of that document? He knows that it goes further; he knows that it says clearly that on 14 August they have to inform the guards and the Northern Ireland security forces and that they have to place people on border checkpoints 196 and 194. It was very clear and precise. Why was it opened up yesterday? Because the belief is that, in a 1,500-page bundle, the Irish did not know that they had given it, and they were worried that it was going to be taken back and not opened up.

If the Irish Government had information the night before, at Finner base, that the Omagh bomb was going to be placed in Omagh, as was opened yesterday in the inquiry, that needs to be explored. Yet it falls outside the terms of reference. All we ask in the amendments is that we legislate for ourselves to say that the legacy commission can at least consider the largest troubles-related incident that sits outside the dates of the troubles.

[Jim Allister]

Is the right hon. Gentleman’s point not strengthened by the fact that the Dublin Government, despite a recommendation from the Northern Ireland High Court, have refused to hold an inquiry into their role and knowledge of the Omagh bomb? Therefore, the fact that the legacy commission can never investigate it means that it will never be investigated anywhere.

[Gavin Robinson]

It was Mr Justice Horner, as he was then, who declared in 2021 that there should be an inquiry on both sides of the border to deal with the jurisdictional issues. I say this to the Prime Minister: the legacy commission will have the ability to look at the issues, provided the dates are moved from 21 April 1998 to 31 August 1998. It is easily done, and it is so fundamentally important for those victims and families who suffered at Omagh and who require truth and justice. I make the plea, knowing that I am going beyond the bounds of a carry-over motion debate, that this is so fundamental that we cannot allow this point to pass and for the Government fail those families yet again. Yesterday’s revelation is as stark and as telling as it needs to be. The information shared yesterday falls outside the terms of reference, and yet the legacy commission should and could take on that work.

I intend to revisit this matter next week, but in the interim I implore the Secretary of State, with whom I have raised it on numerous occasions, and the Prime Minister, who I am grateful is here, to consider the import of what was shared yesterday in the inquiry and what was withheld from the Sir Peter Gibson review in the past, when it was emphatically said that the Irish had no warning when they did. The inquiry’s chairman is incapable of drawing conclusions from that because it falls outside his terms of reference. The legacy commission could do that work; it needs to be done.

Family Farming in Northern Ireland

Debate between Jim Allister and Gavin Robinson

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

rose—

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that although the Government say that the effect of the inheritance tax on farms will be pro-growth, it will actually be anti-growth? In order to prepare for the day when a huge tax bill will have to be met, rather than investing in growing their enterprise, farmers are holding back so that they can hopefully make some contribution towards the exorbitant demands that are made upon death.

European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism

Debate between Jim Allister and Gavin Robinson

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

As someone who had the honour of hosting an event on this day for all the years I was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, I commend the right hon. Member for securing this debate. However, does he agree with me that one of the most abiding and insidious hurts to victims of terrorism is the constant glorification of those who made them victims, particularly when it comes to those who sit in Government in Northern Ireland, by their attendance at events commemorating those who were the men of blood and who delivered death and destruction on our streets? Is that not one of the most hateful and insidious things that can be done to a victim, with the re-traumatisation that it brings?

[Gavin Robinson]

I am very grateful to the hon. and learned Member. I have two things to say to him on that. First, I am glad he organised—for 13 years, I think—an event at Stormont to mark European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism. Such an event also occurred yesterday, so his legacy lives on, and I was pleased to attend it, as I have on many occasions in the past.

Secondly, the hon. and learned Member is absolutely right. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet again—we met last week, but I met again yesterday—Margaret Veitch and Ruth Blair, who lost loved ones in the Enniskillen bomb. I reflected with them, and it resonates so much with this point, on the glorification of terror, particularly from those who have a responsibility to live by the Nolan principles and to fulfil the political offices they hold, yet who attend commemorations and glorify those who revelled in terror. The excuse they always use is, “We have a right to remember our dead.” That is what they say: they have a right to remember their dead. Margaret and Ruth lost family members by simply turning up to remember their war dead on Remembrance Sunday in Enniskillen, yet they hear their political leaders say, “We do this because we have an entitlement to remember our war dead.” Margaret and Ruth and their parents were offered no opportunity to remember, rightfully, those who made the sacrifice for freedom in our country.

European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill

Debate between Jim Allister and Gavin Robinson

2nd reading
Friday 6th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister]

The hon. Member might be interested to know that the growth area of the Northern Ireland economy is the services sector, which is the one sector not included by the protocol—it is outside all that. The one sector that is outside the protocol is increasing. There is a clear message in that.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I had not intended to intervene on the hon. and learned Gentleman, but on that point, Invest Northern Ireland, the body charged with encouraging foreign direct investment into Northern Ireland and with growing our economy, cannot point to one example of business investing in Northern Ireland as a direct result of the Windsor framework.

[Jim Allister]

Absolutely. I will return to that.