Historic Allegations against Veterans Debate
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Stephen Pound
Main Page: Stephen Pound (Labour - Ealing North)Department Debates - View all Stephen Pound's debates with the Ministry of Defence
Historic Allegations against Veterans
Stephen Pound Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I will briefly make three principal points. First, without the bravery and sacrifice of British troops—supported by the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, GC—there would never have been a peace process in Northern Ireland.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is a most distinguished Minister, and I respect him for that. He talks about bravery and sacrifice. He should also refer to discipline. I have never met anyone in the armed forces who ever felt that every single soldier, sailor and airman always acted with total and complete probity. There are some people who breach the code. Does he honestly think that an amnesty, which would exclude every single person, should be allowed? Should he not listen to the words of David Cameron following the Saville report, maybe study Ballymurphy and have a look at some of the incidents that quite clearly have to be investigated? By all means do not penalise the elderly, but also do not try to put everybody into the same category.
Mr Francois
All these cases were investigated at the time. That is exactly the point. They have already been looked into, and the people concerned have already been cleared.
Tony Blair said, “This is not a time for clichés, but the hand of history is upon us”. Well, that hand of history, if it were there, was only there because of the tremendous bravery and sacrifice of all those British Army personnel on Operation Banner for three decades in the run-up to 1998.