Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Johnny Mercer Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for setting out the measures in the Bill. Since the Bill was deemed incoming, I have taken the approach of trying to find common ground, so that we can move forward; the people affected by the subject of this Bill deserve that. I have not at, any point, tried to tribalise or to party politicise the issues here. I wanted to put that on the record now because I will certainly be going on to criticise aspects of the Bill, but that is not what I set out to do in the first place. I thank the Secretary of State’s officials for briefing me on the contents of the Bill last week. Unfortunately, that was before the Bill was published, but I am grateful none the less.

We all agree in this House that we must find a way to resolve the outstanding legacy issues from the troubles. The conflict touched every family in Northern Ireland: more than 300,000 people lost their lives and tens of thousands were injured, and that was among a population of fewer than 2 million. A thousand of those killed were members of the security forces. Terrorist atrocities were also committed in British cities from Birmingham to Brighton.

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

The hon. Gentleman, for whom I have huge respect, has just misspoken. Three hundred thousand people did not die in the troubles. Three hundred thousand veterans served in Northern Ireland, and 3,500 people lost their lives. I am sure that he will welcome the chance to correct the record on that.

[Peter Kyle]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting the record. Three thousand and more lost their lives in the troubles, and I apologise to the House for getting a zero in the wrong place.

The Belfast/Good Friday agreement sets out that

“we must never forget those that have died or been injured and their families”.

In truth, though, victims and their families were left without a clear path to address their personal tragedies through the peace process. The Good Friday agreement was a staggering achievement, but is ambiguous as to how to eventually address the killings committed during the troubles. While this was necessary to reach an agreement to end the conflict, it left victims’ families wanting. In 2015, following years of failings, the five main political parties in Northern Ireland and the UK and Irish Governments signed the Stormont House agreement. The result of months of painstaking negotiations, it provided a comprehensive way forward on dealing with the past. Its centrepiece was the establishment of an independent Historical Investigations Unit, with full policing powers to work through, in chronological order, outstanding troubles-related cases, and a separate independent commission on information retrieval. Despite Stormont securing the support of all elected parties at the time in Northern Ireland, regrettably this Bill jettisons that approach.

Northern Ireland deserves to look forward to a bright future, rather than living in the shadow of its past. That can only happen when those who have lost loved ones no longer have to spend countless hours searching for answers. The UK Government have a critical role to play in building a brighter future by building trust and acting as an honest broker to find a way forward.

Unfortunately, the Bill does not provide victims’ families with a process they can trust. In fact, it deepens their pain and trauma. Its provisions would set up a new body, the independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery, to provide answers to families about what happened to their loved ones during the troubles. All criminal investigations, all inquests that are not at the very advanced stage and all civil actions would cease and be folded into the new body.

The Government argue that, due to the passage of time, we have a duty to empower that body to grant immunity to killers in return for information they have about their actions. There is still the possibility of prosecution for those who fail to provide an account of their actions to the commission, but the bar for immunity is set so low that it is hard to see prosecutions happening in practice. The commission must grant immunity if three conditions are met: the perpetrator requests immunity, they then give an account to the body that is true to the best of their knowledge and belief, and the conduct they describe would otherwise have exposed them to criminal investigation or prosecution.

I must be blunt. Such a low bar for attaining immunity is offensive to the families who have lost loved ones and, in many cases, waited decades for answers. I will illustrate that concern with an example. Raymond McCord was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in November 1997. His father joins us today in the Public Gallery. There was no coroner’s inquest into Raymond’s murder, no police investigation that involved or reported to his family and no public inquiry. Raymond Sr. went through two court cases to have information regarding his son’s death released. He won, but when he received all the information, he found out that of 303 pages, 296 were redacted. At the same time, his son’s gravestone has been repeatedly vandalised, an action clearly intended to deepen the pain felt by his family.

Across the House, we must consider today whether this Bill offers Raymond’s family as many new rights as it does his murderer. I do not believe it does. Under this legislation, Raymond’s murderer has the right to come forward and, should he tell a basic but realistic account of his crime, he must be given immunity from prosecution—an immunity that stands even if in future that account is proved to be false. He could even go on to write a book about it, and wave at the victims’ families in the street as they pass.

Those are the rights given to Raymond’s murderer, yet nothing in the Bill says that the independent commission must listen to victims, communicate with them or take measures to protect their dignity and health. Those seem pretty basic rights to me, but even that low threshold is not met. The situation I have outlined is not hypothetical. These are real fears that are frequently felt by victims and that cause crippling anxiety. We must be on their side.

Just as disturbingly, the Bill does not prohibit anyone who has committed or covered up acts of sexual violence during the conflict from seeking immunity. Máiría Cahill, who was the victim of years of sexual abuse at the hands of the IRA, has said:

“This bill is, quite simply, disgraceful. Government say they take sexual violence seriously. Yet they are prepared to grant amnesty to those accused of conflict related sexual offences either in NI or England. It is an affront to victims, to justice and is gross hypocrisy.”

Let us be clear what we are talking about here. This Bill could well lead to someone who has committed rape being given immunity from prosecution. None of us can even imagine the impact that such a thing would have on the victim.

I will return to that theme but, before I do, I will talk about how the Government have approached the Bill in the wider sense—namely, the staggering lack of consultation and care given to this incredibly sensitive issue in the way this new Bill was conceived, drafted and is now being legislated. For reference, in 2018 the Government ran a public consultation on the previous legacy proposals, which ran for 21 weeks and received 17,000 responses. That was the right way to handle the issue.

I agree with the words of this Government in 2018:

“In order to build consensus on workable proposals that have widespread support we must listen to the concerns of victims, survivors and other interested parties.”

In comparison, the process for this Bill, with its unprecedented policy of granting immunity for murder and serious violence, has lacked any meaningful consultation at all. The Government published the Bill a mere seven days ago. It is 90 pages long and, in the words of one victims’ group, “heavily legal”. Yet, regrettably, the Northern Ireland Office refused to give detailed briefings to victims’ groups until today’s debate. That has caused not only hurt but confusion about what the Bill is offering. It damages rather than builds trust.

There seems to be a dismissive attitude towards prelegislative scrutiny of the Bill. Let us take the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which was set up by the Belfast/Good Friday agreement specifically to safeguard rights in Northern Ireland. Its advice on the Bill was not asked for, and yesterday it announced that it appears incompatible with our human rights commitments. It read the Bill at the same time last week that the rest of us did. Had it been consulted before—that is, after all, part of the purpose for which it was founded—the Bill could have avoided some of the stinging criticism it is currently receiving.

Similarly, the Bill will have material consequences for the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the judiciary. Both currently manage legacy cases, yet neither seems to have been given advance notice that the Government were planning to strip them of their role with almost immediate effect. The Irish Government, our partners in the peace process and co-signatories to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, did not see the Bill until it was published. They have now said they cannot support it in its current form.

With the greatest of respect to the Secretary of State, consistent polling has shown that the UK Government are now the least trusted actor in Northern Ireland. Rushing these proposals into Parliament here in Westminster has already damaged the reconciliation we are all aiming for. I understand that the Secretary of State is trying his best to find a way forward, but any proposal to deal with legacy must have victims and communities in Northern Ireland at its heart.

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

I have huge respect for many of my colleagues in this House, and I have listened intently to what has been said today on all sides on this issue, on a path that I have walked down for seven or eight years now, whether in relation to Iraq, Afghanistan or the unique intricacies of Northern Ireland. I have seen the difficulty with this issue laid bare today. I was the Minister who introduced the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021 that brought to a close the Iraq historic allegations team. Everyone understands that if people see someone commit a crime they want them to go to prison. Everyone wants accountability. To pretend otherwise is a huge disservice to the victims and those who serve in the security forces. That is to approach the world and this whole problem—it has been approached this way for the past 25 years—not as it actually is but as we would like to see it. We would all like to see those things. We would all like to have seen decent investigations from back in the day that would withstand ECHR challenge now. We would all like families to genuinely have hope of an understanding of what went on and have answers to their problems, but there is nothing we can do about that now. There is nothing we can do. That is not my opinion; it has been tested to destruction in the courts and the justice system in Northern Ireland.

The process of testing that to destruction has destroyed the lives of some of our people who sacrificed the most for the freedoms and privileges that are enjoyed in that part of the United Kingdom today. I am afraid that colleagues in this space have to get real and stick to the truth and the facts. A number of comments that have been made today are, I am afraid, not true. I dearly love my friend the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who is on the Opposition Front Bench. He is a great friend of mine, but what he said about sexual offences is not true. The truth is written in the Bill, and Members can read it.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) made an incredibly powerful speech, but he mentioned collusion. Collusion has never been proved—[Interruption.] Collusion has never been proved in a court of law. If anyone would like to challenge that, please do so now. The suggestion that it happened is incredibly offensive to those who went out there to try to sustain peace.

I urge colleagues to accept that there are no winners here. There are going to be no winners. There is no social media clip that they can send out to the people who vote for them that will suddenly make them think they are the best thing since sliced bread and ensure they get in at the next election. There are no winners in legacy. It is a mess. The whole thing is a disaster. But we have to do what we can to bring some sort of end, finality and truth to this process for the victims. That is what I want colleagues to focus on.

Some Opposition Members have consistently said in the press that people want individuals to get away with murder and all the rest of it. It is a total load of garbage. I have always been clear, from the outset, and I say it again, that all I have asked for is fairness. All this Government are looking to introduce is fairness to all sides. I have never argued for those who operated outside the law to be unaccountable—I argue the complete opposite, because it is a foundation of our society.

There are those who continue this argument. I go out to the trials in Northern Ireland and they ask why I do not engage with them. It is because they are deliberately propelling a false narrative for political ends. That has gone on for too long in Northern Ireland and failed too many people. I am afraid I will not be part of it. To those people I say again today, as I have said many times before, that uniform in particular is no place for those who cannot adhere to the standards set and maintained by the vast majority of those who serve in Britain’s armed forces. We can find that idea espoused most by the operators themselves.

As I have said, the core of the problem is that people see this issue not as it actually is—a complete mess in which the state has failed families and failed veterans—but as they want to see it and as they want their world to be. If they were totally honest with people, they would say, “Do you know what? You’re not going to get the evidence up to a criminal threshold that means we will convict someone for your son’s murder.” I will tell the House why they have not done that: because it requires a level or integrity and courage that has eluded so many politicians in Northern Ireland. That is the reality that is currently being tested to destruction every day in the courts. It is often said that it is not justice they seek but their version of justice. That is not my opinion; it has been proven a number of times—the evidence gathering was terrible.

If it was my family member, I would be leaping. I would be jumping up and down, absolutely furious if my brother, sister, father or mother had been killed in some of the situations investigated by the British state. The soldiers were not interviewed by the police, they spoke to the Royal Military Police and some of the statements were pre-written. It is a disgrace, and I accept that. People will get away with things they should not get away with. We can bemoan that all we like, make speeches and speak to our home crowd as much as we like, but it is never going to change. I tell you now, everybody knows that is true—the judges who serve on these cases, the prosecutors who promise convictions for bereaved and vulnerable families, the so-called community leaders who pump out this rhetoric without a care in the world for the damage they do to the families who are looking for answers.

Of course, for veterans this must end. They hound old men in courts over in Northern Ireland. Two weeks ago, I listened to what exactly the drills were for a GPMG—general purpose machine gun—weapons system at a particular moment in time 40 years ago. There was an old man on the stand and he simply had no recollection. It is a farce, and I tell you now: it looks appalling for Northern Ireland. It looks ridiculous for Northern Ireland, and it loses the credibility required to bring anybody along in the process. For people like me—who, I reiterate, are not protectors of those who break the law in uniform—it fatally weakens the cause.

Attitudes have changed. We cannot let history’s notoriously heavy hand be an impediment to reconciliation, peace and opportunities in Northern Ireland for the greater good. Truth about the past has an important role to play but, as I have said today and pointed out to individual Members, it is about the actual truth, not their version of the truth, and about all the uncomfortable, messy, bloody and disgraceful actions that occurred. It has to be the truth, not their version of the truth.

I wish to focus my remarks on two key groups: the families of the civilians who died and those who sought to uphold the law in the security services—I will come to the veterans in a moment. I am talking about the real people in this debate. They are not trying to get elected all the time. They are not saying ridiculous things in the Chamber like, “British soldiers went to my town to murder civilians”. They are not saying that sort of thing just to get social media clicks—[Interruption.] That is precisely what the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) said. That is exactly what he said, and it was an absolute disgrace. He is a disgrace to this House. These are real people, and they are not like that. They are real people without answers, without parents, without siblings and without loved ones, some of whom are under threat from almost interminable prosecutions.

I accept that the Bill needs work. The Government must overcompensate for the failures of the past, particularly on transparency. We cannot blanket rule out people finding out what happened to their loved ones because of national security. That has been the situation for too long, and the truth has not come out. Time has passed, and we are in this situation now. We must hand this over to the main protagonists, and chief among them are the team at Op Kenova led by Jon Boutcher. Time and again, I have said that the Government must bend over backwards to show what Boutcher is doing in that investigation, and that it should be lauded in all parts of this House. What he is doing requires really difficult skills, and it must be replicated in this commission, so that victims have confidence in what is being done.

I recognise that many Members have come out against the Bill, despite the fact that it has been in the public domain for only 48 to 72 hours, and I genuinely think that that is a mistake. This is an incredibly difficult space. We have probably a generational opportunity to get this right. Legacy is not an amateur sport. It is not about coming out and saying slogans and thinking that it will all go away—Members on the Conservative Benches have been as guilty of that as anybody else. It will not go away, and to imply otherwise is deeply misleading.

Critical to the success of this Bill is how it is handled by Ministers, and I encourage them in their endeavours. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for what he has done. When the Command Paper came out, it was clearly rejected—I was probably one of the few on these Benches to come out against it. But the Secretary of State has had the character to look at it and come back with more realistic and better proposals, and he should be commended for that.

Finally, I want to address the issue of veterans. The Good Friday agreement was an incredible piece of work, ending years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland. However, there is no doubt that the issue of veterans was left on the table, and there are some of us who will never accept that. We are not asking for favours; we are asking for fairness.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. I know that he speaks passionately on behalf of many veterans, and I understand that. He spoke of the Government responding to his concerns. Does he agree that, when the Minister of State rises to respond to this debate later, what we want to hear is a willingness from the Government to consider carefully reasoned amendments to this Bill that take account of very real and genuine concerns that we have about this process?

[Johnny Mercer]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman 100%. We have a job here to go down that route. It must be abundantly clear to families in particular that the powers in respect of information held by the security forces sit not with the Northern Ireland Office but with the commission, which has unfettered access to that material. Any evidence that exists must be allowed to have modern techniques applied to it, as is the case under Kenova, to ensure that the truest accounts—not a version of the truth, but the truest accounts—are given to the families. The commission must have the right to speak to anybody who is still alive and could shed light—the barman in Spain, for instance.

Finally, I do want to address the matter of veterans. This Chamber is not packed today. I tell Members now that there is no other country in the world that would treat its veterans like this. I totally get the emotion in people’s speeches—I genuinely do—but the way that this has carried on over the past 25 years is an absolute disgrace.

I promised veterans before I was in Government and when I was in Government that I would do whatever it took to help them—that I would not allow them to be left behind on the negotiating table, or to be left in that “too difficult” column, as has been the case for decades. Those decades have seen lives ruined and lives ended prematurely. The whole premise of a generation’s sacrifice in Northern Ireland has been questioned openly with almost no defence, save from a few hon. Members, some of whom are here today.

I never served in Northern Ireland and I have no relation to that wonderful part of the United Kingdom, but I know the institution that shaped me. While I know the UK’s armed forces will always have their challenging individuals, as any organisation does, and we must do better in holding them to account, the overwhelming sense is one of deep professionalism, humility, courage, integrity and self-sacrifice. Those values have been tested to destruction and beyond. I have personally seen men die in the upholding of those values.

In this journey, one of the most affecting testimonies I have heard—I realise I am going slightly over 10 minutes, Mr Deputy Speaker, but this is important.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Not slightly; you are well over, Mr Mercer.

[Johnny Mercer]

Okay. I just want those soldiers’ voices to be heard at the end of this. We talked about the two-year limit and the pain that that has caused. Veterans are not stupid. We understand the need for difficult compromise. Peace must prevail and endure; that is ultimately why we sign up in the first place—to protect the peace. However, allowing veterans’ sacrifices to be used as pawns in this political settlement has to end. When I came to this place I could not believe the ease with which those sacrifices were trashed or the ease with which political leaders abandoned those veterans to their foes, who are now invited into government in Northern Ireland, with the full utility of the levers of state at their disposal. Never again must we allow them to rewrite history in their favour.

I say to veterans: the nation is deeply proud of your role in securing peace in Northern Ireland and profoundly grateful for your sacrifice. Whatever happens in the process of this Bill—I urge colleagues on both sides to work with Ministers and I urge Ministers to bend over backwards to get it through—I hope veterans begin to understand that there are some of us in this place who will do whatever it takes to get there in the end.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I will point out one thing at the outset. I am sitting with colleagues from Northern Ireland around me, and while we rarely agree on much—I think they will agree with that—we agree on this. We come at it from different perspectives and we will make different types of speech, but we agree that this piece of legislation goes absolutely against the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland and against the interests of the victims in Northern Ireland. Nobody on these Benches is interested in social media clips or dipping in and out of an issue every couple of months. We have been doing this for a long time; we speak to every single victims group and we try our best to represent them. Some people in this House might not like that, but we will continue to do it.

I have great respect for the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), but he said that there is something in this Bill for everyone. I say this with great respect, but there is nothing in this Bill for the victims and those people who have been left behind by all the perpetrators who destroyed lives and families over many years.

I was interested to hear the comments of the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). He intimated that we have all been fighting with each other and we need the British Government to come in and sort out the problem for us. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened over many years and many centuries in Northern Ireland. The British Government are no neutral observer in what happened, and they cannot be allowed to make the decisions on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. We have already agreed how to resolve this issue: it is called the Stormont House agreement. As difficult as that is, as complicated as it has been, that is the only route that has buy-in from all the political parties and two Governments—at least, it used to have.

Before I came into this Chamber, I met for a cup of tea with a man called Michael O’Hare. His sister was called Majella, and she was 12 years old in 1976. She was walking with her friends to the chapel when she was shot twice in the back by a British Army Parachute Regiment member. Michael does not want an amnesty for anybody.

I was reminded of another case in my own constituency by the fantastic and heartfelt speech by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), who talked about Patsy Gillespie. The IRA abducted Patsy Gillespie from his house, leaving his wife Kathleen and his family at home. Patsy worked in a British Army base. He was chained to a van full of explosives and forced to drive into that army base on the Buncrana Road in Derry. Patsy was killed along with five British soldiers. The people who carried that out will be freed from any concern as a result of this legislation.

I also wonder about the Ballymurphy families. In August 1971, 11 people were killed by the British Army—by the Parachute Regiment, again. Daniel Teggart was one of the victims. His daughter is called Alice Harper. This is what she had to say recently:

“We identified my daddy by his curly hair. Fourteen times they shot him. The next day they blackened his name and called him a gunman. Two years later, my brother Bernard, with a mental age of nine, was killed by the IRA. We want no amnesty for anyone.”

The Ballymurphy families would never have seen the truth that the world got to see about what happened in Ballymurphy if these proposals had been brought in before the result of that inquest.

We hear that the new system will provide truth for people. Well, Columba McVeigh was 17, from Donaghmore, County Tyrone. He was abducted and killed by the IRA and his body was disappeared. His body has still not been found, despite the fact that the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains allows for immunity in these cases. It would have allowed for the IRA to come forward and tell Columba’s family exactly where the body was buried. They have not done that—that is the point.

The idea that this legislation will bring truth to families is absolute nonsense. The pretence from this Government that the legislation is about victims or reconciliation is frankly an out and out lie. This is about politics and a manifesto commitment—about protecting the state, as it always is. It will protect every single perpetrator who committed those crimes in Northern Ireland. I cannot find anybody, apart from Government Members, who believe that this legislation is the way forward. The Queen’s University law school’s model Bill team describe it as unworkable and as breaching international law. Alyson Kilpatrick, the chief human rights commissioner in Northern Ireland, said:

“we are sure that this Bill is substantially, in fact almost certainly fatally, flawed.”

This is an overt attempt to close down access to truth and justice for the victims of our conflict. It rips up the Stormont House agreement—an agreement that people have bought into—and it does not have the support of the parties in Northern Ireland. It has absolutely no support from victims’ groups in Northern Ireland: many have told us in the past few days that they will boycott the processes if they become law.

Others have said that there is no such thing as collusion. I cannot believe that they are still saying that today, given the number of times the police ombudsman has uncovered the fact that there has been collusion in Northern Ireland between the state and paramilitary organisations.

[Johnny Mercer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Colum Eastwood]

Do you know what? I won’t.

The Bill is attempting to close down the police ombudsman’s opportunity to investigate issues of the past. I wonder why. It is also closing down access to the civil route for families. What happened last Tuesday? The Secretary of State announced that there would be no new civil cases after that day. Families who had been told that they were supposed to be at the centre of this were running around with their lawyers trying to get access to the courts before they closed that day. That is some way to treat the people who have suffered the most!

It is all right for the rest of us, who are still here and doing quite well out of the peace process. The people who have been left behind have been treated shoddily by this Government as recently as last week. People who have waited decades for an inquest and are now in the queue for one are being told that they will not have any opportunity to get the proper truth. If this is about truth, why are we afraid of inquests? I just do not understand it.

This legislation is riddled with Government overdrive and there is nothing independent about how the organisation will be constituted. There is no meaningful article 2 compliant investigation. Frankly, it is a recipe for impunity.

I have heard reference to Kenova. This Bill is not Kenova. It is nothing like Kenova. Kenova allowed proper judicial processes and proper investigation processes so that families and the rest of us could get access to the truth. South Africa, equally, it is not, and that argument has been well debunked.

The Government are telling us they want to see access to truth. Let me tell the House about two cases I know well. Paul Whitters was 15 years old in 1981. He was shot in the head by a police officer with a plastic bullet. Despite promises from this Government given to me, his file has been closed for a further number of years. Mr Deputy Speaker, do you know when that file will apparently be opened? In 2084. He was 15 years old. In the same year, 1981, the British Army fired a plastic bullet that killed Julie Livingstone, 14 years old, in Lenadoon, west Belfast. Her file will not be opened until 2062.

The Government are telling us that they want truth and access to reconciliation for victims, but every single thing they have done—whether this Bill, the Ballymurphy inquest or the Bloody Sunday inquiry—has been to protect the state, to deny access to truth and to deny access to justice for those people who do not have the same ability to protect themselves. I heard we have a new shiny headquarters in Belfast for the Northern Ireland Office. Victims were standing outside it today, protesting these proposals. They were also in Derry and at Downing Street, because they believe—to a man and woman, in my experience—that these proposals are absolutely wrong. Raymond McCord is in the Public Gallery. He has had to fight against the state and loyalist paramilitaries to try and find truth and justice for his son, Raymond.

The question is, do this Government really care about Raymond and all of those victims, or do they simply care about fulfilling a manifesto commitment, protecting the state and protecting paramilitary killers, because that is exactly what this piece of legislation will do if it is passed?

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[Jim Shannon]

Thank you. My brother William and I used to go down to my cousin Kenneth’s back in the ’60s. My cousin Kenneth was the one who took us shooting. We were introduced to country sports at a very early age, and it is something that I love today. I have introduced my son and my grandchild to it, as well. It is something that he instilled in us. They were different days in the ’60s than they are today and they were in the troubles. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East for intervening—I should have said that right away. I remember those days with a real fondness.

Kenneth Smyth and his Roman Catholic friend Daniel McCormick were murdered on 10 December 1971, some 50 and a half years ago. I remember that day like it was yesterday, and probably always will. I know it affected all our family up in Clady and Strabane, where we lived. Clady is a wee village outside Strabane. We have absolutely no doubt that the people who were involved in the murder of Kenneth and Daniel McCormick came from or were associated with that village. I could name the names, but I am not going to do so here. I do not think that it is important to do so, but I do feel that hurt.

Daniel McCormick left a wife and three young children. She got £3,500 from the Northern Ireland Office as compensation for the loss of her husband and the father to her children. How does that give us justice? It does not give me justice, and I do not think it gives anyone in this House justice. What I see unfortunately is legislation that does not take into consideration my position as a victim or that of Daniel McCormick’s wife and family.

The family dispersed almost immediately within months. My cousin Joseph went to America, where he has been all his life, with Mariam his wife and the children they have had. My aunt Isobel sold the farm. My grandmother grieved, as did my grandfather. My grandfather died of a broken heart. That is the story of the victims, whom we do not hear much about—but we should, because that is what is really important and that is what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about the four from the Ulster Defence Regiment killed in Ballyduggan. I speak as a man who loved a chat with John Birch, who was born in Ballywalter and was one of the Ballyduggan Four. I was not there, but I was aware and was around at the time he was born. I remember Steven Smart from Newtownards very well. His dad Sammy and I were best mates and good friends. There was also Michael Adams, who worked in a butcher’s shop while I had the business and I knew him from there. He always knew that he was going to be a soldier and he joined the Territorials, which I was in at that time. I remember that well. Again, I had to fight back the tears when I learned that a 1,000-lb bomb at Ballydugan took his life and the life of Lance Corporal John Bradley, whose widow I spoke to recently. No one was ever held accountable for those victims. The IRA did that and got away. Members will understand what my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry said—if there is even a smidgen of possibility of holding them accountable, I want that for my constituents and for the victims I am speaking about.

I am the MP for the son of young John Birch, who came to see me and told me about the grandchildren who his dad would meet only in the next world. He asked me whether he could ever expect to learn who carried out the atrocity that robbed him of his childhood and his role model on that fateful day, 9 April some 32 years ago. This Bill does not give those four victims or their families and children justice, and it does not deliver for them, and I feel incredibly annoyed.

Stuart Montgomery—I knew his dad, Billy, very well; we were friends for many years—was two weeks out of the police training college and was killed by a bomb at Pomeroy along with another police constable. Nobody was ever held accountable. Justice? Not in this Bill. Not for Stuart Montgomery, and not for the others.

I mentioned Lexie Cummings earlier, who was shot by an IRA man when he was having lunch in his wee Mini car in Strabane. He was a member of the UDR. They got the fella, by the way, but the boys made a slight mistake in the summons that meant that when he came to court in Omagh it had to be rewritten. In that time, he got out of the court and on a bike and cleared off across the border. My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry knows the story only too well. That guy is now a prominent politician with a Republican party in Donegal, so Members will understand why I feel sore and aggrieved.

[Johnny Mercer]

I have huge affection for the hon. Gentleman. I can see the emotion and the anguish written all over his face as he talks of his friends who have been victims in the conflict. He wants that 1% or 2% chance of justice, but I ask him with all humility, at what cost? I know that he also feels that aspects of the process are deeply unfair, so at what cost do we keep going down that rabbit hole to get the answers that I know he authentically, genuinely wants to find, but that some Conservative Members feel cannot be found?

[Jim Shannon]

There is no price on justice. I am trying, perhaps haphazardly and not with the focus that I should, to put forward the case on behalf of the victims and to explain why the Bill does not deliver that. The seven people I have mentioned—the four UDR men, my cousin Kenneth, Daniel McCormick and Stuart Montgomery—served this country and wore the uniform that the hon. Gentleman wore. They do not have justice, and I feel annoyed.

I will mention some other examples. Abercorn was an IRA atrocity against innocents who were brutalised, murdered or maimed forever. In the Darkley Hall massacre, people who were worshipping God were murdered. Lastly, I think of La Mon because it is in my constituency. Other hon. Members have spoken well and encapsulated what I am trying to say in my raw broken form. People were burned alive in La Mon. They were members of the collie kennel club—they were not soldiers—but they were murdered, brutalised, destroyed. Their lives were changed forever. I remember that day well. Where is the justice for those victims in this legislation? I do not see it and it grieves me to think about it. The IRA commander who was in charge and responsible for the bomb at La Mon was a prominent member of Sinn Féin. He happens to be semi-retired, but he is still there.

I speak as someone who has watched investigation after investigation seem to focus on one narrative or one viewpoint—focused on 10% of the atrocities, and leaving the 90% wondering why their pain and sorrow meant less. I tell you what: the pain for my constituents is no less than anybody else’s pain, nor is mine either. Who has heard the cry of the ex-RUC, the ex-UDR or the ex-prison officer who has been retraumatised by investigations designed specifically to pursue them by republicans to justify the atrocities that were carried out? I speak as someone who understands very well the frustration of the ex-soldiers being called to discuss an event of 50 years ago, when they cannot remember their shopping list for last week. I understand that—I understand it very well.

I speak as someone in this Chamber who has lived through the troubles, and who has intimate knowledge of the pain and despair caused to so many in Northern Ireland, regardless of their religion or political affiliation. My cousin Kenneth served alongside his Roman Catholic friend—they were best friends; one was in the UDR and one had left—and the IRA killed more Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland than anybody else. So we understand the victims, given the way we feel, the pain and soreness we have, and how we are with the things in front of us. I believe this gives me the right to speak in the Chamber with some authority when I say that this Bill does not achieve its aims.

This Bill does not deliver justice, and it does not answer the anguish or grief of the families I speak for or whom I want to speak about. It does not draw a line under current cases. It does not offer justice to my cousin Shelley Gilfillan, whom my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) knows extremely well. She is involved with a victims group up in West Tyrone. She has mourned her brother for 50 and a half years, as have so many others because their cases do not have a live investigation or a firm suspect who can be asked to give information in lieu of immunity. Those murderers are well covered with their on-the-run letters. The gunman who killed Lexie Cummings had an on-the-run letter, and he got across the border and had a new life. Lexie never had a life after he was murdered in Strabane all those years ago. So the House can understand why I just feel a wee bit angry and a wee bit annoyed on behalf of my constituents, and it is because of how they feel that this legislation, for them, does not deliver what it should.

--- Later in debate ---

[Conor Burns]

That is certainly something that we will happily take a look at. There is no proposal even in the Bill to bring down the curtain immediately on inquests that are under way. For the sake of finding consensus, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I would be more than happy to look at reasonable suggestions.

[Johnny Mercer]

I of course welcome the Minister saying from the Dispatch Box that he will look at x, y and z. Does he understand and does the Northern Ireland Office understand that we have to go further and over-compensate for a past that has failed victims? Families do not have confidence and we must commit to a level of transparency and openness. I know that my right hon. Friends the Minister of State and Secretary of State want to do that, but we need to make that commitment from the Dispatch Box, because we have to bring these families with us.

[Conor Burns]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we have to build on the bits of the current framework that are working, but I accept as I know my hon. Friend will concede, that much of it is not working or delivering for victims.