Immunity for Soldiers

Debate between Julian Lewis and Carol Monaghan

Monday 20th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan]

These investigations must not be time-constrained. The idea that after a set period of time a line is drawn under past incidents does not support the families’ need for resolution.

The Chair of the Select Committee on Defence made some interesting points in talking about the report. He mentioned a truth recovery mechanism. Such a mechanism will need to investigate incidents; regardless of what we do, there has to be some sort of closure for families and for victims.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Does the hon. Lady accept that the great advantage of the truth recovery mechanism is that by removing the threat of prosecution, the truth is more likely to come out, so families will find resolution?

[Carol Monaghan]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point; I do not think any of us here want to see 70-year-old former soldiers going to jail. However, in order to get to the truth, there has to be investigation. He has to acknowledge that part of this is tied up with the Belfast agreement; we cannot start to make changes without having an impact on that agreement.

In 2012, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary inspected the role and function of the Historical Enquiries Team. The subsequent report was highly critical of the Historical Enquiries Team, and in 2013 the PSNI announced that it would review all military cases relating to the period from 1968 until the time the Good Friday agreement was signed, in order

“to ensure the quality of the review reached the required standard”.

Surely, when we know the original investigations were flawed—they did not include full, written witness statements and did not take account of all the ballistic evidence—we cannot object to attempts to reach the truth.

This Parliament has a responsibility to support the peace process. None of us wants a return to the violence of the past. Reconciliation and trust are key elements of the process, but if this place were to introduce legislation that prevents still-grieving families from learning the full truth about those who killed their loved ones, that fragile process would be put at risk.

Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Debate between Julian Lewis and Carol Monaghan

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lewis]

I accept the fact that Labour has a problem with certain key figures who have always been opposed in principle to the possession of a nuclear deterrent. However, today is not the day to have that debate. I know that the shadow Defence Secretary and every one of the Labour Back Benchers whom I see opposite are wholly committed to keeping this country safe and strong. If anyone can ensure that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor are not allowed to undermine the sensible policy outlined from the Opposition Front Bench today, it is that cohort of people. I wish them the best of luck in that endeavour.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman described a situation in which we would be able to retaliate if we were attacked. I do not know about him, but if I had been obliterated by a nuclear weapon, I would not care a jot whether we obliterated somebody back.

[Dr Lewis]

I am sorry to have to explain to the hon. Lady that the whole point of our ability to retaliate is to ensure that we are not attacked in the first place. One really does not have to have had more than half a century of experience to realise that that is bound to be the case. I was not going to quote Professor Sir Henry Tizard, whom I have quoted in debates many times before, but it looks like it is necessary for me to do so.

Professor Tizard was the leading defence scientist in the second world war at the time when atomic weapons were being created. In 1945, with a committee of leading scientists, including Nobel prize winners, he was supposed to look forward to see what the future nature of warfare might be. His committee was not allowed to explore the atomic bomb project in detail, but he insisted on putting in this primary rationale for nuclear deterrence, which holds as firmly today as it did in June 1945. He explained that the only answer that those senior defence scientists, with all their experience of the second world war, could see to the advent of the atomic bomb was the preparedness to use it in retaliation, thus preventing an attack in the first place. I am sorry to inflict this on the House again, but he said:

“A knowledge that we were prepared, in the last resort, to do this”—

to retaliate—

“might well deter an aggressive nation. Duelling was a recognised method of settling quarrels between men of high social standing so long as the duellists stood twenty paces apart and fired at each other with pistols of a primitive type. If the rule had been that they should stand a yard apart with pistols at each other’s hearts, we doubt whether it would long have remained a recognised method of settling affairs of honour.”

In other words, if someone knows that they are going to die, for a certainty, if they launch an attack against somebody else, they are not going to launch that attack in the first place.