Immunity for Soldiers

Richard Drax Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful for that intervention, and for the contribution from the hon. Lady’s constituent veteran. He is right. I do not support an amnesty. I will never support an equivalence between terrorists and those who stand up for law, order and democracy in our country—never. They are not the same, and when we published our report 18 months ago, no member of our Defence Committee supported an amnesty either. When a statute of limitations was proposed, the ask was very constrained. First, it recognised that the state had to discharge its duty under article 2 of the European convention on human rights. As the hon. Member for Beckenham said, all those cases were investigated. Secondly, there was no preclusion of a second prosecution if there was “new and compelling evidence”. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) was right to ask what was meant by that.

The distinction between an amnesty and a statute of limitations is acute, and much more thought needs to be given to it. Where the state has discharged its duty and there has been a satisfactory investigation, and a veteran has been told, “Sir, you have no case to answer. Go home,” they should be allowed to get on with their life, unlike the scores and scores of terrorists in Northern Ireland who live with no fear of prosecution.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I entirely concur with every word the hon. Gentleman says. I pay my respects to our veterans, and also to him for the courage he shows in Northern Ireland, because there is still a threat today; let us make no bones about it. Does he agree that fear of more terrorism is preventing the judicial process from taking its lawful course and bringing these thugs to justice? That is what I think, and certainly what the veterans I speak to think.

[Gavin Robinson]

I think the hon. Gentleman is right, and I thank him for his comments about me. I am one of the lucky ones; I am a member of a party of 10 MPs, but I have not faced what my colleagues or their families have faced. I have not faced the threat that they endured for many years, and I am grateful for that. Society in Northern Ireland has moved on, but fear of invoking something that is wrong cannot be right. It cannot be the path that our Government walk.

There was some suggestion over the weekend and last week that Northern Ireland’s not being included in the statute of limitations was the Democratic Unionist party’s fault. I have heard said over the past six months, “The confidence and supply partners are holding back the expansion of the proposal,” but let me nail that myth today. Anyone who serves with me on the Defence Committee knows my position and that of my party. We will never stand up for an amnesty that equates terrorists with service personnel, but we will work for and provide the protection that our service personnel need.

I have a letter here that we sent to the Prime Minister on 31 October. It states:

“As we have done in the past, we reiterate again that we will vigorously oppose any attempt to introduce an amnesty for the criminal actions of illegal terrorist organisations. There can be no legal or moral equivalence made between the armed forces acting under the rule of law and terrorists who acted outside the law. Affording legal protection in the form of a statute of limitations or similar mechanism to the armed forces and those who served alongside them including the Royal Ulster Constabulary, will not mean an amnesty for anyone. This was the conclusion of the Defence Select Committee and it is a point of view we will uphold.”

I simply want to share that for clarity.

We should not be surprised that we face this challenge. Governments of various hues find it within their gift to respond to the calls of armed service personnel only when the cost of not doing so is higher than the cost of doing so. That is true in my experience of the armed forces covenant in Northern Ireland, where we have Ministers who, because of their political prejudice, say, “I’m sorry; the armed forces covenant does not apply here.” I have shared with Members in this House correspondence from Michelle O’Neill, the leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, who wrote just that when she was Northern Ireland’s Minister for Health—“The armed forces covenant does not apply here.” She was wrong. It was a national commitment. Do we have a Government who are prepared to enforce that national commitment and repay the trust and the service of our armed forces personnel in Northern Ireland? No, we do not—at least, not yet.

When Joanna Lumley campaigned for Gurkhas who sought the right of abode in this country if they had served before 1997, the Government said no continually. It was only in the dying throes of the Gordon Brown Government that they finally acquiesced, because not doing so was causing them too much trouble in the run-up to an election. That is not how we should honour those who protected us.

I want to share some context—for the rest of this debate, not for the rest of my speech—about Bloody Sunday. I recognise entirely what was said at the start of the debate, and I will not go into specifics about the day. I will not breach any of our conventions about what is sub judice and what is not; it would be inappropriate to do so. Bloody Sunday happened on 30 January 1972. Anyone who has taken the opportunity to look at the Saville report and to hear from families and understand the hurt that they have experienced, and who heard our Prime Minister at the time say that it was unjustified and unjustifiable, knows that it was a dreadful day.

In Northern Ireland, 1972 was a dreadful year, with more murders than any other; 258 people lost their lives. I will take the three weeks before 30 January. On 5 January 1972, Keith Bryan of the Gloucester Regiment was murdered by the IRA. On 12 January 1972, Royal Ulster Constabulary Reservist Constable Raymond Denham was murdered in his workplace by the IRA. On 13 January 1972, an Ulster Defence Regiment sergeant and site foreman was murdered by the IRA. On 21 January 1972, Private Charles Stentiford of the Devon and Dorset Regiment was murdered by the IRA. On 27 January 1972, in Creggan in Londonderry, Sergeant Peter Gilgunn and Constable David Montgomery of the RUC were both murdered by the IRA: a Catholic sergeant and a Protestant constable serving together, and returning to their RUC station together, having sought to protect and defend the integrity of our society together, both murdered by the IRA. On 28 January 1972, Constable Raymond Carroll was murdered by the IRA. Only when we hear those names and the range of dates—this was only three weeks—do we recognise the circumstances, and the pressure under which people were serving.

The hon. Member for Beckenham focused his remarks on the yellow card, which was not the be-all and end-all. It was revised in the ’80s because it was seen to be too complicated. When Lee Clegg was convicted in the ’90s, it was changed again. We have taken evidence on the yellow card not being worth the paper it is written on, yet those were the rules of engagement that our service personnel were told they had to abide by.

We had Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday and the Claudy bomb all in 1972. During the three-week period that I mentioned, four members of the IRA were killed. Two innocents were killed as well. On 8 January 1972, Peter Gerard Woods was murdered by loyalists in north Belfast, and on 18 January 1972, Sydney Agnew, who would have been a constituent of mine, was murdered by republicans. I do not see there being a fair reflection of that circumstance, that atmosphere or that experience in any court process today. I am deeply disappointed by the level of legal support that the Ministry of Defence offers service personnel in that situation today.

I am deeply disappointed that, unlike the scores of groups that our Government fund to research cases on behalf of victims and their families in Northern Ireland, our Ministry of Defence does not take an overview from one case to the next; that it does not contextualise the support that it gives; and that there is no equivalence between the documents retained by our state, those used against our state, and those that protected our state.

As I say, today’s petition is opportune. All the contributions this afternoon have asked us to do more. When I asked the Attorney General on 31 January this year whether any proposal brought forward by the Government would apply equally across this United Kingdom, he not only said yes, but said that it would be plainly wrong to do anything else. I hope he is right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore) for securing this debate and for his excellent speech introducing it. I also pay tribute to all those who have spoken. It is humbling to be surrounded by so many hon. and gallant Gentlemen who served in Northern Ireland or elsewhere.

To introduce briefly where I fit in, I did three tours of Northern Ireland. My first was in December 1978. I remember the sergeant-major at Sandhurst saying to me as I left, “Sir, you have time to say ‘Happy Christmas’ to your parents. Then get your arse over to Northern Ireland.” I said, “Right. Thank you very much indeed; that’s my Christmas gone.”

I went over on the ferry with a great friend of mine. The difference between England and Northern Ireland was absolutely marked at that time. I remember getting off the ship, on which we were treated as normal, free civilians—we enjoyed a drink and a chit-chat—and getting into an armed vehicle, which was affectionately known as a pig.

We then drove to our base in McCrory Park, just off Falls Road, where I spent the first six months of my three tours. As we drove to McCrory Park, I simply could not believe that we were in the United Kingdom. It took a huge amount of appreciation for it to sink in that our country was that divided by hatred and violence, as I would soon witness.

On 20 July 1982—after my tour—Lieutenant Anthony Daly was leading the changing of the guard with his men; he was going from Hyde Park barracks to his duty when the IRA detonated a nail bomb in Hyde Park. Another bomb was laid at Regent’s Park that afternoon, which killed members of the Green Jackets, who were performing there. I am sure that we all remember the ghastly pictures of horses and men splayed across the road. Today, there is a commemorative stone for Anthony Daly on the spot where it took place. John Downey, a convicted IRA killer, got off because of a letter of amnesty.

We have heard many examples from hon. Members of how the IRA seems to get away with the atrocious deeds it did, but members of our armed forces who go out to save lives—this point was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), among others, and I wish to reiterate it—

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

On John Downey, the alleged Hyde Park bomber, is it not correct that when he produced his so-called “comfort letter”, the judge abandoned the trial? The Government continue to maintain the fantasy that such letters have no legal power or strength, yet a judge in charge of a murder trial abandoned it when one was presented. Does that not drive a coach and horses through the Government’s case?

[Richard Drax]

It drives a tank through the Government’s case. My right hon. Friend speaks with his characteristic verve and clarity. He is absolutely right: so it does.

To speak personally, my view over many years—I am 61; I served nine years in the Army, and I have been here for nine years—has been that politicians generally, although there are noble exceptions, all of whom are in the Chamber today, simply do not understand the armed services. They just do not get it. I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister, whom I know well; this comment or any I make are not aimed at him but at all Governments, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) said. What is the first thing that happens when a Government come to power and are short of power? They cut the armed services. That is intentional madness. The armed services are an insurance policy that require money to be invested in them. We hope that we do not have to use them but, in places such as Northern Ireland, we do.

If I recall this correctly, we had about 35,000 troops in Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles. We would be pushed to mount an operation on a similar scale today. In fact, as has been said, it would probably be impossible. My message to the Government therefore concerns all those things we say about our armed forces. We repeatedly hear from politicians how they respect the armed forces covenant and all such things, in the Chamber and outside, but when it comes to the crunch, our armed forces are let down.

I will touch briefly on Royal Marine Al Blackman, whom I and many others managed to get out of jail after he had served only half his time. This example is similar to one given earlier. None of the circumstances in which that man was forced to operate—it was in the most appalling conditions in Afghanistan—was taken into account. It is easy for politicians for who have no experience of operational service to sit in an armchair with their gin and tonic and say, “I condemn that man or woman for what they did.” They fail to understand the total picture in which our brave men and women all too often serve.

Mention has been made of the yellow card. I, too, learned the yellow card. I recall—I hope that I have my old memory working—that one of our main concerns was the vehicle checkpoint. We were told, and this often happened, that young boys would challenge Army checkpoints. Young kids and teenagers, not related in any way to terrorism, would try to drive through our checkpoints for a laugh. We discussed that on many occasions—“How do we deal with that?” A car is coming at us at 50, 60 or 70 mph, we have one, two or three seconds to react, and we have a gun in our hands. We think, “Is this a terrorist? Is this a young boy fuelled by drink? Who is this guy?”, then bang, the car goes into the checkpoint, possibly killing or seriously injuring one of our soldiers or a member of the civilian population, and the car drives away. Are we allowed to shoot the person in that car then? The answer we all came to was no, because that person is no longer an immediate danger to us or to anyone else. Had someone been shot in that car, there would have been a kerfuffle, a court case, accusations of murder and all the rest of it.

This point about restraint has been made, but I make it again: those I served with, and the many others I served alongside, all showed restraint, in particular in riots or very dangerous areas. A soldier’s instinct, when going to someone in trouble, is to help; it is not to kill, or beat up. A number of times I saw my guardsmen go to the aid of those on both sides of the community, and as we built up a relationship, the number of cups of tea offered often increased a little, because most Irish people are decent. A few rotten apples, sadly, spoil the barrel.

I absolutely agree with everything that has been said by all right hon., hon. and gallant Friends so far. I urge the Government to stop doing what we do best, which is talking; that is over now. We cannot go on betraying our brave men and women; we tell them that they are brave, but when they come home, we sell them straight into a court, throwing them to the mercy of lawyers et al. That is not on. Finally, justice delayed is no justice at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no equivalence whatever. Whether the other side can now be investigated again or not, it is simply unreasonable, wrong, immoral and a breakdown of our covenant with our armed forces that we allow the investigation of those who have served to continue.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) gave an amazing speech, in which he reflected that there was a time when his blokes thought that he had thrown them under the bus because they were required to go to court. It was clear from his speech the pain that he felt having to look his soldiers in the eye and break that news to them. I suspect that if those soldiers were watching you, Colonel, this afternoon they would have been proud to see someone take the responsibilities of command so seriously years after their watch is done. I found that very powerful.

All of us who have had the great privilege of carrying a commission in Her Majesty’s armed forces, and to have had command of soldiers, sailors and airmen, will relate strongly to the pain that my hon. and gallant Friend so clearly felt. Even now, in another career many years later, we feel we are letting our riflemen, guardsmen and private soldiers down. That is what motivates us all to be here.

The first time I was involved in any such process was in Kabul in 2005, about a year after I had been commissioned. We had been involved in the use of lethal force following a double vehicle-borne suicide bombing. Throughout the afternoon and evening that followed, and overnight as we stood on the perimeter, we went back through everything we did and thought tactically whether we did the right thing. When we got in the next morning, having been relieved, and the first thing we got was a date with the Royal Military Police’s special investigations branch, I was pretty close to throwing punches. But I understand that is a necessary part of applying lethal force on the battlefield. We are trained to live and operate by a higher standard, and we should have nothing to fear when the investigation starts immediately on the back of the application of force like that.

Two years later in Basra, and two years after that in Sangin, that process was commonplace—in Sangin, as a battalion adjutant in the most contested Herrick tour and battle space, I was responsible for an awful lot of initial investigation processes. The immediate debrief could not be accurate, because adrenalin was still coursing through the veins of the riflemen who had been involved. They were emotional because, very often, their friends had lost their legs or had been killed in the very same mission. There was confusion about what had happened because the fog of war was all around them. As they relayed their individual testimonies about what had happened that afternoon, night or morning, often that did not match up with the testimony of the rifleman who had stood immediately next to them, fighting the same contact.

In the process of that investigation, the company second-in-command drafts a report and comes up to the adjutant, who has a look at it; he then goes to the brigade and the legal adviser looks at it, and the special investigations branch has a look at it. Meanwhile, that rifleman would have been deployed on three, four, five, six or seven more patrols in the following seven days, in which there would have been more kinetic activity in which they would have applied lethal force, and on the back of which there would have been more reports by the company’s second-in-command, coming up to the adjutant and so on and so forth. Very quickly, all the details of those missions start to mesh into one—so much so that we had riflemen go to the coroner’s hearings six or nine months or a year after a tour and not recognise the contemporary report of what happened that night when they applied lethal force.

I make that point because days or a year after, those servicemen cannot remember exactly what happened—it is a natural part of how we deal with our mental health to seek to delete and overwrite. How on earth can we turn round to them decades later and replay to them accurate reports made at the time as part of the evidence against, and ask them to account for themselves to try to establish their innocence once again? Some of us have had that moment when a threat is perceived—in a split second we have to decide whether to apply lethal force because our life or the life of another is in danger.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. I wonder whether the judge would have access to such reports by the IRA terrorists.

[James Heappey]

My hon. and gallant Friend is absolutely right: the IRA did not keep such records, which is a great unfairness. Those of us who have had to apply lethal force have taken the decision in a split second, hoping that all our training, instincts and everything we have learned since first going into the Army, Navy or Air Force will mean that we take the right decision. We know there is a danger that we might get it wrong and we need to know that, provided we are in the rules of engagement and can say squarely that we perceive the threat to be there, our Government will stand behind our actions.

The written ministerial statement that may come tomorrow is great news for those of us who served on Operation Herrick and Operation Telic. My tours of Afghanistan in 2005 happened more than 10 years ago; my tour to Basra in 2007 was 10 years ago; and at the end of October, my final operational tour to Iraq and Afghanistan will be more than 10 years ago. That statement should be, and will be, huge comfort to tens of thousands of veterans who served in those theatres.

As somebody who served in Northern Ireland, an MP with many constituents who served in Northern Ireland and a former rifleman with many ex-riflemen friends who served in Northern Ireland, I’m all right, Jack. We must remember that it is not okay—in fact, it makes it worse—to have one statute of limitations that applies to the conflicts that are most on people’s conscience, while ignoring those who fought in Northern Ireland in just as trying circumstances, as we have heard so many times this afternoon. They are left behind.

The legal premise on which my former comrades served in Northern Ireland is not their fault. The failings of any investigation that happened at the time is not their fault. Conversely, the quality of the investigations at the time, which allows vexatious politicians and lawyers to pore over the detail and challenge it decades later, is not their fault. The political situation in Northern Ireland is not their fault. The fact that they pulled the trigger in Northern Ireland rather than in the Falklands, the Balkans, Iraq or Afghanistan is not their fault. The fact that the Government have not yet done anything about this is also not their fault.

This situation cannot drag on any further. A universal statute of limitations across all theatres is required now. This is not an amnesty. Our armed forces are not above the law—we ask of them higher standards than we do of those in civilian life. When they fall short, we punish them in a way that would be draconian in any civilian employment setting. If we understand some of what they do, as many of us here do, we understand why they deserve protection. We ask that they accept unlimited liability in defence of our nation. We must accept the political liability that comes with saying, “Come what may, we’ve got your back.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound]

Fabrication of evidence is not a legal requirement of the British Parliament. We have not at any stage stated in part 3, paragraph (27)(b) of schedule 2, “thou shalt go forth and fabricate evidence”. There are more than enough cases in which people have fallen way short of the high standards of the legal profession so gloriously and elegantly exemplified by the hon. Gentleman.

I have heard many speeches by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), and have never regretted a second that I spent listening to them, because he speaks with profound good sense. Today he gave us the slightly unusual perspective of the man in the caravan in the masonic hall car park. Again, he made the point about the impact of tension on young people. Often in groups of young people in such a situation, one person tends to lead, and if there is one person in a platoon with a contemptuous and contemptible attitude towards the people they are supposed to be protecting, that will often ratchet up. A person will say things that are unforgivable, and other people in the platoon, in the file, or on the mess deck, will be uncomfortable about challenging it. That happens with human behaviour. It is human. It is important to realise it.

We cannot mention too often the name of the late Captain Robert Nairac. We are at the anniversary of his disappearance and death. What a tragic waste of a life it was. It was one of 3,500, by all means, but he was a man who gave his all—everything—for his country, and I do not think that we can forget him.

I found it extraordinarily moving when the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) talked about arriving, as a newly commissioned officer, in civvies on a civilian transport into Northern Ireland, and finding he was in a country—a place—he did not recognise. Is that not part of the problem? On our relationship with “John Bull’s Other Island”, we often do not understand Ireland or the Irish. It would have been even more honest of the hon. Gentleman to say that he had, perhaps, some preconceptions about Ireland, but he had the courage to say that when he arrived there, he did not realise the full nature of the place he was coming to. I think that that shock was dramatic, and what he said was much to his credit.

[Richard Drax]

The shadow Minister is covering all the speeches that have been made with great eloquence. Can he give us a flavour of where Labour stands on what, as he clearly indicates, is a very emotive issue?

[Stephen Pound]

Yes, indeed. The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that our shadow Secretary of State for Defence has issued a statement via something called Twitter that sets out the whole thing. Rather than take up the time of the House, which is short, I shall send him across a copy, which enunciates precisely what we are doing.

The hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) talked about Kabul and about a wider situation. However, what the issue comes down to, and the point I shall finish on, is that I am not precisely sure what the petitioners are asking for. They are not asking for an amnesty or for a statute of limitations, because, frankly, justice cannot be time-expired. We cannot have a situation in which a crime is a crime one day and, a few years later, is not, so I should like to know exactly what they want. If there is one thing that everybody in the Chamber agrees on, it is that this matter has been dealt with without sensitivity, subtlety or good sense. The idea of a cavalcade of police rocking up at someone’s house at 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning is indefensible. We cannot go there, so we need to be much more sensitive. If we cannot turn the clock back to investigate the cases that happened at the time, and if we are going to investigate them now, we need to be sensible. Above all, we need to remember two groups: the veterans, by all means; but also let us never forget the victims.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

It is good to have you looking after the second half of the proceedings, Mr Bone. I echo the repeated compliments and tributes to my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore), who led this tremendously important debate, kicking off a set of angry, passionate and emotional contributions from colleagues, many of whom have served in Her Majesty’s armed forces. Even those who have not—including those who have confessed to being lawyers—have been incredibly understanding and sympathetic to the plight being discussed today. My hon. Friend rightly started by saying that the vast majority of the deaths caused during the troubles were caused by terrorists. A very small minority can be attributed to the actions of Her Majesty’s armed forces.

I should pause to say that, if we listen to veterans, we find that this is not just a question of prosecutions, although those are difficult enough and require a lot of support. It is also a question of the repeated and unending investigations before any prosecution ever happens. In fact, in most cases no prosecution has ever happened but people live in fear of the knock on the door, the cavalcade of police cars turning up at 5 am, and the repeated interviews, which are often, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) eloquently put it, about events that not only happened 30, 40 or 50 years ago, but happened in the fog of war, and were hard to remember, define and record a few days later, let alone decades further on.

We heard a catalogue of worries, concerns and justified outrage, and comments about betrayal, injustice and lawfare. I thought one of the most telling contributions was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who intervened early in the debate. He is a former Green Jacket and I think his point was widely accepted. It was that soldiers went out to protect innocent civilians, whereas terrorists went out specifically to kill and maim. His point was that there should be no moral equivalence between those two purposes. That point has been made many times by other Members during the debate.

One of the most powerful speeches that I have heard in a long time was made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). Equipped with his yellow card, which he had kept all this time since his tours in Northern Ireland, he made the point about decisions made in milliseconds that get re-examined at leisure in peaceful courtrooms many years later. That approach to justice is extremely hard to justify. He also eloquently made a point that others made when he said, “We always acted within the law. If we did not, we should be prosecuted.” That point has been made repeatedly by other people here—in fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Southport made it in kicking this thing off. He said that the rule of law must be applied but that for servicepeople breaches of those laws were a very rare exception and not the norm.

Nobody here is trying to pretend, and I have not heard a single person say, that those breaches of the law should not be treated with the utmost care, gravity and severity, but nor should we pretend that they were common, ubiquitous or frequent. When we try to maintain a sense of proportion and balance, which many people have rightly pointed out is widely felt not to have been achieved, it is essential that we do not forget that central fact.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) made the correct point that sacrifice does not come in different grades. He said that any solution must work under article 2 of the Human Rights Act, and he is right about that. He also made a crucial distinction between an amnesty and a statute of limitations, a point echoed later on, and rightly said that we must do more before, in what I thought was one of the more affecting moments, reading out a very sombre and sober list of names of some of the people killed in just the few weeks before the Bloody Sunday outrages.

The Select Committee Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), was extremely careful in his views. He said that we need to make progress, and in fact we are making some progress, but we have not made nearly enough. He then mentioned the Nelson Mandela approach; I will come back to that point, because it is central to any potential action and solution that we may want to come to later.

I will try to ensure that not only do I leave a few moments for my hon. Friend the Member for Southport to respond, but that at the end of this I suggest some actions that can be taken. People have said repeatedly, and rightly, that words are all very well; politicians, as we all are here, are good at words. I am afraid that as a Westminster Hall debate, this does not end in legislation per se, so we cannot debate a law here this afternoon, but we can at least start to move toward actions, and I hope to be able to propose some of those.

[Richard Drax]

Can my hon. Friend tell us why the Prime Minister excluded Northern Ireland veterans from the 10-year exclusion policy, which I believe is hopefully going to go forward?

[John Penrose]

This was discussed at some length in the urgent question last Thursday, and a number of hon. Members have made the important point during the course of this debate that was also made on Thursday: for people serving on Operation Banner, it did not feel any different. It felt the same whether they were patrolling in Northern Ireland or in Basra or Afghanistan—it did not matter where. The surroundings might have been different, but it felt the same and they felt under the same pressures. I think everyone here has rightly made the point that morally, as a society, we owe Northern Ireland veterans the same debt of gratitude. Not only that, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wells said, no matter what happens, “Come what may, we’ve got your back.” No matter where people served, that should be the outcome.

The difficulty, to answer the point by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), is that in strict legal terms, the legal basis on which the service took place differs depending on whether it was abroad or in the UK. Our challenge as lawmakers is to ensure that the outcome for our servicemen and women is the same. They may have to start from different places, but the destination must be the same; if we cannot do that, we will have failed, and failed really badly.