Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation

Debate between Julian Lewis and Alex Burghart

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

No, I do not acknowledge that. I have met victims, and people whose families were heavily affected by terrorism, who supported our legislation.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

It is often said, and rightly, that what is very important is that families should find out the truth about what happened. Which scenario makes it more likely that families will get the truth after all this time? Is it a scenario in which people can be prosecuted on either side, and therefore have an incentive, if they are guilty, to conceal the truth, or is it a scenario such as existed under the legislation introduced by our Government, whereby people are much encouraged to tell the truth about what happened because they know that they will not be punished if they do so?

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. Friend has very succinctly summarised the central argument behind the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023: drawing a line does not mean covering up the past; drawing a line was an opportunity to open the past in a way that the adversarial system was never going to allow. Incidentally, I do not believe that the adversarial system will bring justice for very many people. We must remember that the peace process concluded in 1998, which is 28 years ago, and the troubles, by most reckonings, are deemed to have started in 1966, which is 60 years ago. We have recently seen the case of soldier F, in which one of the longest public inquiries in British legal history presented the most forensic evidence that could be imagined, but the court was unable to reach a conclusion. This means that the chances of any prosecution reaching a conclusion are very limited.

That does not matter, because for many veterans it is the process that is the punishment. We saw that in October last year, when a former SAS veteran, who was accused of having behaved wrongly in 1991, was dragged through the courts. Eventually, the judge in Belfast said the case was “ludicrous” and should never have come anywhere near him, but that individual had been pursued for four years. There are many such cases. If the process is the punishment, the fear of the process is a punishment for so many people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

Yes, my right hon. and very learned Friend.

The truth is that, if one looks back at the debates on the Human Rights Act, one can see that the purpose of section 10 is to make sure that the Government cannot use a remedial order—an incredibly powerful tool, a statutory instrument that can strike down primary legislation—unless the case is fully decided. In this case, it clearly is not; it is open. That is why the Government are acting ultra vires.

Let me return briefly to the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), who represents the best part of the New Forest.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

Oh!

[Alex Burghart]

I meant to say, “the joint first best part of the New Forest”.

The Secretary of State has invoked the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but it is my understanding that when it wrote its report, it was unaware that the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement was being heard in the Supreme Court, and I rather think that that may have had a profound effect on what it wrote.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Debate between Julian Lewis and Alex Burghart

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is entirely correct. The courts have no power to strike down statute; they can advise this House to remove legislation.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

My hon. Friend says that it is highly likely that an appeal would have succeeded. In support of that, I cite the fact that the Defence Committee took evidence in great detail from four professors of law in 2017. They were not talking about that specific legislation, but they all agreed that it was possible and legal to combine a statute of limitation, providing that there was a truth recovery process. A range of people gave evidence, from Professor Richard Ekins on the right of centre, shall we say, to Professor Philippe Sands on the left of centre. It was possible, it was legal, and even if that law was struck down, something similar could have been put in its place.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention; I remember that he made a similar intervention in 2017, and again in 2023, on just that point, based on the work his Committee had done.

The Secretary of State has now introduced a draft remedial order to eliminate those parts of the Bill that are deemed to be incompatible. As he knows—I have written to him twice on this subject—the official Opposition do not believe that that remedial order is appropriate, and certainly not yet. That is because earlier this year the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement was granted permission to intervene in the case of Dillon before the Supreme Court, specifically on the issue of compatibility. On 15 October that intervention was heard, and if those arguments are accepted, the Supreme Court has the power to quash the declarations of incompatibility.

That means that the Secretary of State has no legal basis at this time for that remedial order. He has acted—or rather, if he pushes it to a vote, he will be acting—ultra vires, because under section 10 of the Human Rights Act the Government can only issue such an order unless and until all appeals in relation to the declarations of incompatibility have been “determined or abandoned”. In this case, they have not been, and the Government must not call a vote on the order unless and until they have been. I hope that the Minister will offer some clarity on the next steps during his closing remarks.

The Conservative party has been clear: the European convention on human rights should no longer be considered an obstacle to doing the right thing. It is not a holy text, and its jurisprudence is forcing Governments to do unholy things. Since legal advice of the highest order has now twice shown that the United Kingdom can leave the convention without breaking the 1998 agreement, this is what the next Conservative Government will do.

The current Government have previously said that they have to legislate because the legacy Act did not have cross-community consent, but where is that cross-community consent today? It does not exist. If there had been a cross-community solution on legacy, Stormont would have found it. I suspect that no solution is to be found, which means it is the responsibility of this House to protect those now abused by the system. The Bill will fail to do that. It will not help victims to find out the truth. It will not give comfort to our veterans. It will reopen old wounds and allow infection to come in.

China Spying Case

Debate between Julian Lewis and Alex Burghart

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to release the minutes of the meeting chaired by the National Security Adviser on 1 September 2025, at which the prosecution of the two alleged Chinese spies, since dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service, was discussed, including all actions arising from that meeting; and further calls on the Government to publish the minutes of all other meetings where the case was discussed, whether by officials or with Ministers, all relevant correspondence between the Crown Prosecution Service and the Government and between Departments, including correspondence between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Cabinet Office, Attorney General’s Office, and the Treasury, and advice provided to the Prime Minister relating to the China spy case.

The purpose of this Opposition day debate and of our motion is very simple: transparency—that is all that we ask for. The basic facts are that two men were arrested on suspicion of having spied on hon. Members of this House for China, and the Director of Public Prosecutions has acknowledged that this appears to have been a “gross breach of trust” against hon. Members, yet the case against the two men collapsed because, in the words of the senior Treasury counsel, Tom Little KC, the case was “effectively unsustainable”; it was brought to “a crashing halt” because the Government’s own witness, the deputy National Security Adviser, refused to provide the fatal piece of evidence.

Mr Little had what he called a million-dollar question: was China an active threat to national security? The deputy National Security Adviser repeatedly refused to say yes. The Government effectively refused to say what was patently apparent to anyone remotely alive to the facts of the case. This House has every reason to be told why they refused, and why, for example, the Prime Minister did not intervene to prevent the case collapsing, when we know he was warned that it was unlikely to proceed. It is also reported that the Home Secretary tried to intervene.

We do not call for the publication of this material lightly. We know it is an extraordinary measure to call for the Government to publish documents relating to the formation of policy, but this is an extraordinary event. We have reached this point because the Government have been unable or unwilling to answer basic questions about what they knew when, and why they acted as they did. They have hidden behind civil servants and advisers, when it is Ministers who are supposed to make decisions, and in doing so, they have brought the actions and decisions of those advisers and officials into the spotlight in a way that is most irregular.

Just as worryingly, there has been a persistent inaccuracy and inconsistency in the Government’s statements, to the point where this House can no longer trust a word of theirs. There are a number of examples. First, on 13 October, the Security Minister denied in this House that the mega-mandarin meeting on 1 September, which is the subject of our motion, took place. Last week, the Solicitor General admitted that the meeting did take place. We now know that it was led by the National Security Adviser and attended by the Cabinet Secretary, the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, senior representation from the Home Office and the Attorney General’s office, and the chief of MI5, but we still do not know what was said there, what was agreed or why the Government tried to deny its existence.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I was interested to see that the National Security Adviser was listed as being involved in that meeting. The National Security Adviser is a political appointee—he is a special adviser—and that is usually the reason why the deputy National Security Adviser is put forward to take all the flak. If the NSA himself is participating in policy meetings about this matter, why does he not come forward? Why is he sheltering behind a full-time official who is being hung out to dry?

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. Friend makes a very pertinent point and is personally very experienced in such things. It has been reported that the National Security Adviser chaired that meeting. That is to say that he was taking a very active role in what was going on. That is why it is incredibly important that the Government come clean with us about what happened in that meeting, who attended and what was decided there.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Julian Lewis and Alex Burghart

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is one step ahead of me. It is not that we seek a comprehensive reform of the House of Lords. It is that the Labour party promised that this would come. The Government promised that they would leave the remaining hereditary peers there until they had a plan for comprehensive reform, but that comprehensive plan is missing. Labour is throwing out the stone in the shoe of the accepted hereditary peers and dodging the hard, principled questions about how to ensure that the House of Lords functions most effectively.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

My hon. Friend made a passing reference to a fear that what is going here is a form of gerrymandering. Does he agree that if generous provision were to be made for really active remaining hereditary Members, of whom there are probably quite a few, to be given life peerages on a one-off basis, and on the basis of merit, that would dispose of the suspicion of gerrymandering?

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He strikes at the critical failure of the legislation, which is that really the Government are seeking to remove Members of the upper House who happen not to take the Labour Whip. What we all agree on—or what I hope we all agree on—is that the role of the Lords is that of a chamber of scrutiny, and we must welcome more expert scrutiny. We have seen from the behaviour, attendance and work of hereditary peers that they are an intrinsic part of that scrutiny, so it is highly suspicious that the Labour party should seek to remove them. Indeed, if we set the precedent that the Government of the day can remove Members of one House because they do not agree with them, where will it end? Those Cross Bencher hereditary peers who will be axed by the measures have, as far as I can see, done an excellent job, yet they are not being given another way out such as that suggested by my right hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Alex Burghart

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady will have heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State extend the timescale for T-levels on Second Reading of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. I am sure that she would have benefited from being able to do a T-level when she was at school. It would have given her nine weeks of work placement, and she would have done a qualification designed with employers that would have led to a job in the economy.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Given that section 406(1)(b) of the Education Act 1996 already outlaws

“the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school”,

will the Government take appropriate action without further delay against Brighton and Hove City Council, which is planning to indoctrinate seven-year-olds with critical race theory?