Immunity for Soldiers

Debate between Robert Courts and Stephen Pound

Monday 20th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Pound]

If there is one thing that has echoed round this Chamber today, it is that there is no equivalence between troops and terrorists—between people who wear uniform and people who wear balaclavas. I am sorry, but I resent the right hon. Gentleman’s point; I think that the attempt to make it demeans the quality of the debate. He was a very distinguished Defence Minister, and he speaks with good sense on many occasions, but that point was slightly unworthy of him.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) rightly spoke about the rule of law. He mentioned something that I still find almost too agonising to think about: the on-the-run letters. I can do no better than quote Mark Durkan, formerly of this parish, who said that he felt those letters blighted the peace process

“with their penchant for side deals, pseudo-deals…shabby deals and secret deals”.—[Official Report], 26 February 2014, c. 249.]

That is recognised on this side of the House, and I hope on all sides. They are not defensible, and we would not seek to defend them today.

The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) raised an extremely interesting point, to which a few others have referred: the almost unbearable tension in the mind of a 17, 18 or 19-year-old person who knows that at any minute something they do could have lethal consequences—against them, or from them. That is the point: it is just as terrifying for them to think of the damage they could do to someone as to think of the damage that that person could do to them. The point that the right hon. Gentleman made about that fear is something that only people who have been in the situation can understand, and I am grateful to have heard what he said. The hon. Member for Strangford talked about the environment of tension, and that is something we need to talk about.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) widened the horizons of the debate, and talked about IHAT and lawfare. I have no case to make for lawfare or those ambulance-chasing scoundrels of lawyers who somehow manage to infest the lower reaches of the legal system like foul leeches, trying to take blood from our people. I have no time for those people who came up with trumped-up cases to embarrass, and in many cases threaten and terrify, people who had served with distinction and honour. I have no time for those leeches, those bloodsuckers, those ambulance-chasing scumbags.

[Robert Courts]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Pound]

I have another half-dozen insults to go. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has today confessed in public to being a lawyer, so if he wants to redress the balance, I happily give way to him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Courts]

I was enjoying listening to the stream of insults, but I feel I should perhaps stick up for my profession and reiterate my point that lawyers just interpret the law as it stands. It is for Ministers to act and Parliament to make the law. If there is a problem, as many of us will accept there is, it is for us to deal with it, and not blame the lawyers.

[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.