Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Julian Smith Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

I want to thank all the military servicemen and women who served on Operation Banner. It was not just the military. On every visit to a police station in Northern Ireland, I saw the long lists of officers who were lost. I pay tribute to members and family members of the RUC and to our security services, agents and staff. I also pay tribute to parliamentary colleagues past and present who served in Operation Banner.

I condemn utterly the mindless and needless violence of the IRA, who were, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois),

“one of the most ruthless and vicious terrorist organisations the world has ever seen.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2025; Vol. 771, c. 46WH.]

I also pay tribute to innocent victims of the troubles. The list of atrocities is long, and the IRA principally is responsible for the vast majority of them, along with loyalist paramilitary groups. Neighbours, sons, daughters, husbands—thousands of families were impacted in this smallest part of the United Kingdom.

Given that broader legislation on legacy has been so long awaited, it is important to emphasise the regulations I brought in as Secretary of State on behalf of the last Conservative Government on victims’ payments, which were the first stage of the legacy process. Many people have applied successfully for those payments, but I urge the Secretary of State to promote them to military and other victims and veterans, because I understand that many more people could apply for them. I also urge him to consider what could be put in place for the bereaved, using some of the principles that we adopted to exclude anybody who was injured by their own hand.

I would like to make a number of observations. I pay tribute to those on the shadow Front Bench for representing and standing up for our soldiers and for articulating the clear dangers of lawfare and the rewriting of history. Perhaps our party and this House should have listened earlier to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) when his inquiry presented the option of a statute of limitations, but that would have had to be done as part of a much bigger reconciliation process.

We need to be so careful, when debating the issue of amnesties, to recognise that these were often British citizens killed by the very limited number of armed forces who behaved badly. It was an amazing achievement for David Cameron to have his speech shown in the Museum of Bloody Sunday in Derry. He acknowledged through his tone the wrongs that were committed. They were limited, but they were committed, and we have to admit that that happened.

I urge the Secretary of State to look at further options during the passage of the Bill for strengthening protections for veterans. First, the noble Lord Caine has suggested amending the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 in order to deal with cases where a soldier thought they were acting in legitimate self-defence. Secondly, there are significantly larger volumes of legal aid paid out in Northern Ireland. Can that be looked at? The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) has raised the roving mandate of many inquests. Can that be looked at, to focus those inquests that are coming back under this Bill?

On the commitments from Ireland, I worked very closely and positively with the Irish Government to restore Stormont in 2020 and in 2024, but I remain sceptical as to how far Ireland will go, or will be able to go, in the provision of information to families. Will the Irish Government really be able to open everything up on Omagh? We have to be frank that, given the political headwinds they face, there is limited incentive for them to do that. It would be useful to understand what commitments have been made. We also need to be honest about our security services; there are going to be limits to what they can release—we have to be honest with families about that.

There are various statutory commitments in the Bill, but none on funding. The Omagh inquiry will cost about £50 million, and Finucane about £20 million. There is a risk that day-to-day policing in Northern Ireland loses out in the absence of that funding. On memorialisation and reconciliation, the clauses from the previous legislation remain. Again, who will pay for this, and how will the impossible task of getting consent on these matters be achieved?

I know that many families in Northern Ireland and beyond still want answers, and will hope that they can get them through this Bill. The lack of closure for so many leaves the next generation taking on the baton of grief and grievance. The issue for them is that time has not healed matters, nor has it lessened their pain. I hope that they can be front of mind as the Bill is debated here and in the other place in the weeks and months ahead. I think of the many individuals and families, some of whom are in the Public Gallery today, and I hope, in what is probably going to be the last piece of legacy legislation, that we can all bear those families and individuals in mind.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Speaking limits have dropped to five minutes because too many Members want to contribute. I am doing my best to get everybody in.