Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Johnny Mercer Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I ask the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd)—my hon. Friend—to think very carefully about the message that will come from this place tonight if he, in his rightful place as Opposition spokesman, concludes that he cannot support, and indeed, must vote against, some of the amendments tabled in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon).

These issues are incredibly complex, and no one has suggested that they are not, but I ask my hon. Friend to think about the human element of what is going on. I ask him to think about the reality, rather than the legal methods that could theoretically be applied to people who have abused the system: the reality for hundreds of people in this country. Many are in their 70s and 80s, and some are in their 90s. Some will have dementia, and will have no idea what is going on around them. These are people whose families are trying to support them through this process and who, having simply signed up and served their country, have been caught up in a legal system that has totally failed them. We in this place can come up with plenty of calculations to justify not doing something about this, but it will only ever change—at some point—if we show a bit of courage, the sort of courage that they showed on operations on our behalf, and make clear whose side we are on.

No one has seriously suggested any equivalence, although it has been bandied about, between someone who woke up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s or 1980s and whose objective on that day was to take life, to take innocent life, and those young men and women—and they were young men and women, aged 17, 18, 19 or 20—who were asked to serve in a country that they did not want to go to and had never been to before, and to take part in an operation that they did not really believe in, and who ended up being involved in an incident over which they had very little control. There is no equivalence between those two scenarios, but the fact is that the first group have peace of mind and are leading their elderly lives in peace, while the second group are currently receiving letters asking them to contribute to the costs of very aggressive lawyers and the very aggressive inquests that are currently taking place in Northern Ireland.

[Sammy Wilson]

Is it not even more grotesque that these former soldiers can be summoned to an inquest or some legal process and receive no legal back-up from the Army, while those who are initiating cases against them can claim legal aid?

[Johnny Mercer]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Ministry of Defence, and this country—our nation, our Government—have been woefully slow in supporting individuals who are going through this process. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale to think very carefully about the message sent by us —whichever party we are in, we ask these individuals to do our bidding on operations—before voting against amendments that do no more than request a report to start the ball rolling towards a place where there are protections for those who have served on operations in this country.

I will bring my hon. Friend back to the human case of just one individual in my constituency who I have raised time and again, and I make no apology for doing so once more. He has been diagnosed with liver cancer and has been charged; he has turned down treatment so he can fight the case and he will be dead before it comes to court. We are saying as a Parliament, “Thank you for your service,” but we do not quite have the courage to get that over the line and actually show whose side we are on by supporting two very basic but ultimately significant amendments tonight.

[Gavin Robinson]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), and I hope he and his colleagues the right hon. Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) recognise that we will be supportive of their amendments.

I rise to speak to amendment 18. I will not refer to amendment 19; I have signed it so we can take as read that it has my support. Amendment 18 requires a report to be brought forward about the implementation of the armed forces covenant in Northern Ireland. Members may remember that I brought forward a private Member’s Bill on 6 February. It was supported by Members of Parliament right across the Chamber and from right across the country, all of whom accept that the armed forces covenant is a national commitment to those who served us. It does not respect devolution; it does not respect borders. It was our way as a nation of saying the service that individuals have given and the sacrifice they themselves have made, and their families in support of them, is worthy of recognition. As has been outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds), it does not offer preferential treatment, but it ensures that those who served our country so well do not suffer any disadvantage: they are not precluded from accessing services because they have to move around, for example, or they do not lose out in their children’s applications to schools because they were not living within the catchment area at the time of application.

It is fundamentally wrong, fundamentally immoral, fundamentally unacceptable that the armed forces covenant does not apply equally in Northern Ireland. If every Member of this House accepts that to be the case, it is incumbent upon us all to support this Government bringing forward legislation that will ensure no Minister in a Northern Ireland Executive has the opportunity or is given the freedom to abide by their political prejudice and frustrate the implementation of the armed forces covenant in Northern Ireland.