Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Relevant document: Third Report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Legislative Scrutiny: Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, HC 162.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I remind the House that this is a procedural motion. I encourage Members to focus their remarks on the issue of the carry-over extension. I remind the House that Mr Speaker granted an ongoing waiver to allow limited reference to active legal proceedings relating to historical troubles-related deaths.

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[Chris Bryant]

I too have read the reports that the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to, which of course are very disturbing. There is an ongoing inquiry, and it is not my job to do the work of that inquiry, but it is absolutely the job of the Irish Government to provide all the information the inquiry needs to do its work effectively.

The Irish Government have set out the framework for their own legislation, and we want to see that progress swiftly in parallel with ours. In previous debates, there was some question about whether we had to complete our legislation before the Irish Government were going to do their legislation. To give further assurance, we will require the Secretary of State to lay a written ministerial statement before the full commencement of the troubles Bill, outlining the progress made by the UK and Irish Governments. I have spoken directly to Minister McEntee, and she has now said repeatedly in public that the Irish Government will march in lockstep with us when it comes to legislation, with the aim of having both of our sets of legislation come into force on the same day.

The Bill’s Committee stage will be next week, and colleagues will want to consider all these matters in depth, but I want to end by urging everyone not to underestimate the importance of us enabling families to get the answers they require. We have already heard in this Chamber from our own Members the pain, grief and anguish—and sometimes the sense of revenge and anger—that comes with the fissures that opened up many, many years ago. I cannot tell Members how many times I have heard those same calls, often from people who lost members of the armed forces serving under Operation Banner, and often from people who served in the RUC. When the Good Friday agreement came about, I suppose there was a moment when everybody thought, “We’ve done our work now. Peace has come.” The last couple of weeks have shown that peace can sometimes be a very thin veneer, and sometimes the people who bore the biggest brunt of that peace—who had to sort of suck it up—were the families who had lost loved ones. Those families have never managed to get answers. I do not think we can ever really build a strong future for Northern Ireland unless we fully understand the past, and understanding the past means making sure that we get answers for people.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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[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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Members will be aware that we are pressed for time. I will try to get as many people in as I can, so I immediately reduce the time limit to three minutes.

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[Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)]

It is at times like this that I feel very despondent. I share some of the frustration expressed by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) tonight, because I do not think it is ideal that I am standing here with 180 seconds to try to sum up what this carry-over motion and this Bill mean.

The people of Northern Ireland have heard it all before. This is not perfect, and the manner in which it is being done is far from perfect, but people have died waiting. We have been at this in Northern Ireland for at least 20-odd years. I am not going to stand in the way of any family. I have held the hands of families—families I know from my constituency—people who served, people who were innocent Catholics, and people who were innocent Protestants. No one person is above anyone else. I hope to God that those people in the Gallery understand that and do not go away from this place despondent tonight. I am glad more people from Northern Ireland are not listening to this—I really am—because there has been a lot of grace lacking in this.

Let’s stop playing games. No one has any right above another. It has been many, many years, and many mistakes have been made. All I want anybody in Lagan Valley, Northern Ireland, across the UK and wider afield, where people have been drawn into what was such an intimate, insidious and disgusting conflict, to know is this: you are seen, and you all matter. We are not going to get this 100% right, but if we do not act now, people will die—many already have—without the truth. I will be supporting this carry-over motion tonight.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

With the final one and a half minutes, I call Jim Allister.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

The right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) put his finger on this matter. The genesis of this is important. The previous Secretary of State went to Dublin and entered a legacy framework agreement in September 2025—in good faith, I am sure, on his part—where the Dublin Government promised the fullest possible co-operation. Yet we saw exposed yesterday just how meaningless that is when it comes to the most serious and extensive terrorist attack there ever was, when they sat on the intelligence from the night before that there was a bomb heading to Omagh. “Omagh, Omagh, Omagh,” is what the message said, and it was ignored.

The Secretary of State referred to the fact that there are many cross-border dimensions to this. Yes, there are. The killers of hundreds of people crossed the border, took sanctuary south of the border and were supplied from the south of the border, and yet we are talking about a legacy arrangement where no answers will come from the Dublin Government. They were sent 52 questions by the Omagh inquiry. They answered two of them. That is the extent and scale of the good faith, and yet that Government are still suing the United Kingdom Government in the European Court of Human Rights—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He has now put that matter on the record.