Armed Forces Covenant

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is impossible to deliver a balanced discourse on this important subject in two minutes, so let me get off my chest what I believe are some grave injustices which are making a mockery of treating our former soldiers with fairness and respect. Take the case of a former soldier who fired at an armed terrorist,

“whilst bullets rained down in all directions”.

He either fired or waited until the IRA terrorist had killed the other soldiers on guard duty. That soldier received a “certificate of appreciation” from the GOC Northern Ireland—but now he has been questioned about committing possible murder in that attack, which happened in 1972. The soldier is aged 75 and is a Chelsea Pensioner. What in the name of God has happened to decency, justice, fairness and common sense when we are interrogating Chelsea Pensioners for doing their duty to this country?

But it gets worse; two former soldiers are being prosecuted for the alleged murder of IRA killer and terrorist Joe McCann. The soldiers were investigated at the time and were rightly cleared. Will they get a fair trial? Of course not. Of the three soldiers who opened fire that day, one has since died and two RUC officers who may also have fired cannot be found. There are no forensics linking the shots to any particular soldier, so no one knows who actually fired the shots—but that does not matter to the Northern Ireland prosecution service. The Northern Ireland prosecution service is headed by Barra McGrory, the former lawyer of McGuinness and Gerry Adams. You could not make this up if you thought about it.

As the former soldier said, he feels that he is being treated like a terrorist. But of course, he is totally wrong in that regard. If he had been an IRA terrorist, he would have been granted immunity by Tony Blair in one of the grubbiest deals that has ever been done by a UK leader. No wonder that soldier says that he feels betrayed by the Government, with all IRA killers granted immunity and more than 1,000 soldiers being investigated for possible crimes against them. He says, “I’d like a Minister to stand up in Parliament and say something”. I know that my noble friend is not permitted to do that and that it is not his department’s responsibility. That is why I am making this little speech tonight. I am ashamed of what is being done to those brave men who have served us so well. The time has come to stop this betrayal of our soldiers, and to stop it now.