Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Mark Francois Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

That is exactly what I am talking about.

Before I came to this place—I have spoken about it before, so this will not be a shock to anyone—I really struggled with the inauthenticity I saw from both the Government and Opposition Dispatch Boxes. Incidents such as the one that has just been referred to serve to highlight that. Up and down the country, there are people watching this who are veterans of Northern Ireland, of Afghanistan, like me, and of Iraq. They will be thinking, “Have these guys got my back? Do they really get it when they can’t even get the terms right? Does that give me the confidence that the Government will apply themselves to ending this ridiculous charade of prosecuting our soldiers? I’m afraid it does not.”

What happens to the amendments after I have finished speaking is up to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, but I have to lodge again my profound and personal disquiet with the Government’s policy. I feel a personal shame with regard to the historical allegations issue. I feel that I am part of a Government who are essentially promoting a cowards’ charter when it comes to looking after our servicemen and women. My right hon. Friend talked about how he made a political decision to close the Iraq Historical Allegations Team. I worked on that issue for a year before he did that. Every single civil servant and lawyer in his Department told him it could not be done, but he took the executive political decision that he was elected to make and closed it. We need some of that political courage to be brought to the issue in relation to Northern Ireland.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I apologise for intervening because, characteristically, my hon. Friend is making a very good speech. We serve together on the Defence Committee, which is now looking into this matter. We heard at today’s Defence questions that the Ministry of Defence is now looking into this matter, too. Does he agree that we are not going to give up on this? We are going to keep coming back debate after debate, motion after motion. We are going to harry the Government, on behalf of the veterans, until they do the right thing and provide protection for those who protected us.

[Johnny Mercer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I must say that when I started the process on IHAT, I found it a pretty lonely experience. That has now changed significantly. There are people in the Chamber who have campaigned on the Northern Ireland issue for a long time and it is deeply heartening to see the support this issue has got, certainly among Conservative Members. I thank him and others who have been here for much longer than me who have provided me with that support; vice versa, I have given any support that I have been able to give.

The problems with this process are so well known. It is late and I do not want to send everyone to sleep by going into them, but this process does not work for anybody. It does not work for the soldiers who are being investigated or for the families in finding out what has happened. The idea that it does is, I am afraid, for the birds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Francois Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Mark Francois.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

At the second time of asking, Question 7, Sir.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

7. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on legacy investigations into the conduct of armed forces veterans in Northern Ireland.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)]

I have regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence about a number of issues relating to Northern Ireland.

[Mr Francois]

This House knows that, were it not for the bravery of the British Army, the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, George Cross, there would never have been a Good Friday agreement. Yet the Secretary of State's proposals include legacy investigations into veterans—in some cases going back 50 years. Will she agree to give evidence to the Defence Committee inquiry into this matter so that we can ask her how her proposals are compatible with the principles of the armed forces covenant?

[Karen Bradley]

I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend. As I said at the recent Police Federation conference in Northern Ireland, we owe all those who served an enormous debt of gratitude. Without the contribution of our armed forces and police, there would quite simply have been no peace process in Northern Ireland. I want to reassure my right hon. Friend that we are consulting on how to address the legacy of the past. This is a consultation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Francois Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a very important issue. We welcome the report, and the Department for Education is going to be considering it carefully. We do not want to see any child held back from achieving their potential, and that includes ensuring that children with speech, language and communication needs are given the support they need. There has been particular training for teachers to support children who require additional help to communicate, and we will be introducing the education, health and care plans to make sure that children with additional needs receive the right support to succeed in school in the future, but we will look very carefully at what the report has said and obviously respond to it in due course.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Unlike the SNP, I do not want to see Britain rejoin the disastrous common fisheries policy, but I do have some concerns about the fisheries aspects of the transitional agreement that has been provisionally agreed with the European Union. Before she travels to the European Council, will the Prime Minister reassure the House, and indeed fishing communities around the United Kingdom, that we will absolutely and unequivocally take back full control of our waters from 2021?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, the point about the implementation period is that it is the period during which people are able to make the changes necessary for the new partnership we will have. It ensures that businesses, fishermen included, do not face two cliff-edge changes in the way they are operating. By definition—because it is maintaining, as far as possible, the status quo, so that people do not have to make those extra changes—I recognise that it is not the same and will not be the same as the end state when we are able to have a future economic partnership and have a new relationship. As I said earlier, one of the elements that we will be looking for in reassuring the fishing industry and providing for the fishing industry is to ensure that we do take back control of our waters.

Armed Forces: Historical Cases

Mark Francois Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

May I put on record right at the start the Scottish National party’s acknowledgement and appreciation of the efforts of our police and armed forces personnel wherever they serve? Our safety is a luxury bought with their dedication to duty and constant vigilance.

I can appreciate that my opinion on that is not always shared by everyone and that there are people in many places who feel that they have good reason to disagree with those sentiments, but may I say at this point—this has been mentioned—that the planting of a bomb outside a police officer’s house is completely unacceptable? Not only was the officer’s life threatened yesterday, but the lives of others were touched by it, too. Given the nature of the area in which the officer lives, I expect that children play in that street, and it is beyond unforgivable to haunt a bairn’s life.

I cannot get inside the mind of anyone who wants a return to violence in Northern Ireland, and I cannot believe that there will be any great support for such people anywhere. Great praise is, instead, due to the politicians and community activists who have brought Northern Ireland away from those dark shadows and headed it towards a better future. Many I will not have heard of, and some are no longer with us, but it must have taken great courage for enemies to lay aside their greatest enmity and begin the co-operation that we see now.

I have huge respect for those I have met who serve here, those I have met who serve in Stormont, and the few I have met who are councillors and community leaders, who have the courage, the vision and the belief in the future to be able to say to their opponents, “I know what you have to do and where you have to stand to serve your community, and I appreciate that you give me the same courtesy. Where can we find common ground?” There is a future to be had when the people’s servants have that attitude—not that everyone is lovely to each other, I hasten to add, but they are leaders enough to know where that fertile future lies.

I think there is a certainty that the people and the politicians of Northern Ireland can craft a future that will stand as a testament to the courage shown and the personal risks taken in the past couple of decades. In that vein, I think that the SNP’s position is clear. We believe that the people of Northern Ireland have the capacity, the intelligence and the gumption to make a better fist of things there than we can. We have confidence in the institutions of the police and judiciary to serve the people, and confidence in Stormont to reform them if they are not serving well. We also have confidence in the people of Northern Ireland to reform the pants off of any politician who does not have the ability, courage or energy to serve them well.

I appreciate why the motion is before us today, and I certainly appreciate the concerns of soldiers who served in Operation Banner and are now retired. There is no form of polite words, trite phrases or empty platitudes that will put any of this nicely to bed. The resolution to those concerns lies in the institutions in Belfast.

The Ministry of Defence has a duty—which I think it has promised to live up to—to ensure that any of its current or former employees who face legal action as a result of what they did during their service are adequately represented. I was pleased that the Secretary of State was able to reassure us that the commitment given by the MoD at the end of last year remains in place, and I welcomed his assurance that taxpayer-funded legal support will be provided when it is needed.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentioned the institutions in Northern Ireland. Does she accept that had it not been for the bravery and the sacrifice of British troops throughout the Operation Banner period, who helped, in effect, to hold the ring so that one day a peaceful solution could be arrived at, those institutions would not be available to us today?

[Deidre Brock]

I placed on record at the beginning of my speech our acknowledgement and appreciation of the tremendous efforts made by police and armed forces personnel wherever they serve, and their contribution to peace has certainly played a big part in where we are today.

The investigation of incidents in other theatres is a matter for service law and for courts martial, and I have no particular knowledge of those systems, but the duty to ensure fairness and impartiality lies with the MOD. I welcomed the Secretary of State’s comments about legal requirements for fairness, balance and proportionality. The duty to ensure fairness and impartiality in any proceedings in Northern Ireland will lie with the new Stormont Ministers, with the Attorney General, and with judges who sit in the courts there. We must trust them to take due cognisance of all the circumstances in which they find themselves and of the evidence presented to them, and we must trust them to make decisions that are in the best interests of the people whom they serve. If we do not trust them, we will be denying the legacy of all those who worked and laboured to craft a better future for Northern Ireland, and to drag the communities there away from the violence that had plagued them before.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that bears emphasis in the House and further afield. It is important that these issues are made clear to people who might, as time passes and we no longer hear direct reports from Northern Ireland, begin to think that a different narrative had occurred there. That is why it is so important that the institutions that were proposed under the Stormont House agreement—my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley mentioned the historical investigations unit—are set up so that we can have a balanced, fair and proportionate approach to all this.

We need to highlight the fact that 3,000 murders remain unsolved in Northern Ireland and that acts of terrorism were carried out by people such as Sean Kelly, the Shankill bomber, and Michael Caraher, who was part of the south Armagh sniper team that murdered Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick in 1997—one of the last members of the armed forces to die in that period. Michael Caraher received a sentence totalling 105 years, yet he walked free having served just over three.

My right hon. Friend has rightly detailed the efforts made by the then Labour Government, under John Reid and then Peter Mandelson, to go to extraordinary lengths to provide concessions to IRA terrorists with no regard whatever to any kind of proportionality or to doing anything for the security forces. Secret deals were done on on-the-runs, for example. Such concessions had a major debilitating impact on those who were facing down terrorism in Northern Ireland, and our duty now is to convince people that that will not happen again. I share my right hon. Friend’s view that this Government will not repeat those mistakes and that there will be no amnesty and no secret deals to allow terrorists off the hook.

In conclusion, it is important that we get the Stormont House agreement institutions up and running as quickly as possible, that we begin to get back some kind of fair and proportionate system for investigating legacy cases and that we do not—

[Mr Francois]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I apologise for interrupting his peroration. I congratulate him and his colleagues on bringing this important matter before the House this afternoon. Many references have been made to IHAT, and as parliamentarians we all need to learn the difficult lessons from what has happened in that regard. We also have to appreciate the effect that it has had on the armed forces and on our veterans. Surely, after all we have been through with IHAT and given the lessons that we must learn, the last thing we should sanction is a politically motivated witch hunt in Northern Ireland against our own brave servicemen.

[Mr Dodds]

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman was able to make that powerful point. I agree with him entirely. The stakes are high, and there is a responsibility on us in this House to ensure that we build a society that values fairness, elevates justice, treats our veterans properly and upholds the proud traditions of our military and our commitment to democracy. We must go forward on that basis.