Immunity for Soldiers

Debate between Steve Baker and John Penrose

Monday 20th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[John Penrose]

I certainly am. I hope to come on to at least some initial comments about the actions we might be able to take as a Parliament, a Government and a society.

[Mr Baker]

Will the Minister allow me?

[John Penrose]

Very briefly, and then I must make progress.

[Mr Baker]

I am sure we are all concerned to get to root causes, so I hope the Minister will get to the Stormont House agreement.

[John Penrose]

That is indeed one of the points I will make when we come to the actions. I will briefly mention the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who made one of the most emotional contributions; he served, I think, in Northern Ireland himself, and he is absolutely right in his enjoinder that we must all be honourable and do right by our veterans.

One of the most thoughtful examples of controlled anger of the afternoon came from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who said that we must do more. I think everybody here would agree with that. He also said that we are not asking for an amnesty for war crimes and that a statute of limitations, pure and simple, cannot work because there should never be a time limit on serious criminal behaviour, although he also said that something around the announced presumption of non-prosecution looks promising. In a point that I think we would all echo, my hon. Friend was also rightly contemptuous of the false narrative of hope that the legal teams of the lawfare profession are using to manipulate victims’ grief.

I will not go through everybody, but I wanted to say that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) rightly stated the point I was just making: the fact that this is UK law rather than service abroad cannot be used as an excuse for failing to help Northern Ireland service versus service abroad. That cannot stand, and it is a deep injustice.

I am under pressure of time, so I will gloss over some of the other comments, but they were all valid. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset, himself a former Grenadier Guard, made the point that our words must match our actions, and he is right. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells, a former rifleman, asked how legal cases can justly be tried decades later, after the fog of war has passed.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), himself a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and thus a man with personal experience of many of these policy issues, said something that, again, I think would be echoed rightly around this Chamber: no further legal process should happen unless there is clear and categorical new evidence, a point also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who said we should not go anywhere near what used to be called the double jeopardy rule, under which someone cannot be tried twice for the same offence.

What must we achieve? We must achieve an answer that will do several things. Of course it must work for veterans in the armed forces, but it must also work for former police officers, prison guards and wardens too. They are not in the armed forces and they work on a different legal basis, but the answer must work for them as well. It must work for innocent, peaceful Catholics and Protestants alike in Northern Ireland—people who have never served or wanted to serve, but were potentially in the line of fire from some of the actions that look place.

Our answer must work for the victims and the families of the victims. We have heard some of that, but it needs to be emphasised. Most importantly, it must work in court so that, when the inevitable legal challenges come from the lawfare brigade, this thing is robust and stands up; if it does not, we will have failed in our duty to protect our former servicemen and women. There is no point coming up with something that sounds great, but falls over the first time a clever lawyer pokes it in court. That will not stand.

Finally—I have treble-underlined this in my notes—our answer must draw a line and allow people to move on. It must allow not only the victims and the veterans, but the whole society in Northern Ireland, to draw a line. That is why I come back to the point made by the Chairman of the Defence Committee. There is not an exact comparison between Northern Ireland, which is a unique place, and South Africa, but there are many parallels. We must find some way of creating an approach that will allow people to get closure, truth and justice.

What I hope and expect we will do is, first, to publish very soon the results of the consultation so we can all see what people in Northern Ireland genuinely think about the details of the questions. Secondly, promptly after that, I expect us to announce the Government response, which must be actions, not words. The Stormont proposals are a starting point, but there are genuine concerns on all sides about the details of those proposals. They cannot stand as they are, but they are a good starting point and we need to work on the details of how we modify them so that we can bring forward a Bill.

The crucial thing is the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green: when natural justice collides with the law, the law must change. That is what we do here.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Steve Baker and John Penrose

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. and learned Friend, and I would be happy to meet him, our legal team and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield to take their suggestions on board. I am keen to address this, and I know that the Secretary of State is keen to do so, but I am not in a position today to have tabled or accepted an amendment. I ask them to bear with me and have further meetings with us and our legal teams to try to find a way through.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

The Minister is being very generous and carefully considered in his responses. May I just check what he has said? Is he saying that he intends, if he can, to bring forward an amendment, perhaps on Report, to fix this, after these conversations have taken place, given the sympathy he says both he and the Secretary of State have for the amendments, or is he unable to give that promise to the Committee?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baker]

I think what we would say to the hon. and learned Lady is that “appropriate” will follow the plain English definition, which she will find in various places, but what I want to do is move on.

I want to set out why it is important that the test of appropriateness extends to the use of the power in clauses 8 and 17, to which the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber has tabled amendments 205, 207, 208 and 216. For example, leaving the EU, the customs union and the single market may alter the way in which the UK complies with its international legal obligations in relation to taxation, and there will not always be a clear single choice about how to comply with those obligations. Clause 8 will give Ministers the flexibility, as necessary, to make those changes. Using the word “necessary” would risk constraining the use of the power to the extent that where it is appropriate for the UK to adjust our domestic legislation to ensure compliance with international obligations but where there are multiple ways to do so, we might not be able to ensure compliance with our important obligations under international law, thereby undermining the core intention of clause 8.

[John Penrose]

rose—

[Mr Baker]

I shall be here for some hours if I take too many interventions, but I will give way to my hon. Friend.