Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Debate between Suella Braverman and Jim Allister

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Tuesday 20th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

It is in response to discussions by various colleagues. The point is that the contents of the measures that I have talked about are wholly unacceptable. They do not answer the fundamental question about this Government continuing the prosecutions and allowing inquests, investigations and inquiries to continue many years after the act. The Government cannot guarantee that our brave veterans will not be hauled again in front of the courts after they have been exonerated or allowed to proceed. I am afraid that because the Government cannot provide that guarantee, the Bill and the clauses are not fit for purpose.

As Attorney General, I worked to build some of the measures contained in the legacy Act. It was challenging to make it compliant with the European convention on human rights, particularly article 2, and it was working on that legislation that convinced me that the UK needed to withdraw from the European convention on human rights. The legacy Act was not perfect, but it was progress because it brought finality to a lot of the investigations and prosecutions. The reality is that jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights, such as the cases of McCann, McKerr and Finucane, has meant that the interpretation of article 2, on the right to life, has been expanded, extended and, frankly, distorted beyond all recognition, which has given grounds to these endless and repetitive claims 30 years later.

[Jim Allister]

Does the Loughgall case not indicate just how out of control the European Court of Human Rights has become? It ruled that the human rights of those eight wanton terrorists, who were on a murder mission and who got their just desserts, had been breached because of the lack of a proper investigation. There they were, shooting up a police station and the special forces responded, but it was the human rights of the terrorists that had been denied. Is that not an illustration of just how ludicrous and out of control the European Court of Human Rights has become?

Jury Trials

Debate between Suella Braverman and Jim Allister

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

For me, the key question in this matter is this: what will be the impact on public confidence in our legal system? I will answer that question based on my professional life as a criminal barrister practising in our criminal courts. I shall also answer it from the perspective of someone who practised in Northern Ireland, where we had both jury trials and judge-alone trials, called Diplock courts. I have seen and operated both, and I know the public confidence level resulting from those respective types of trials. I have absolutely no doubt that the public have far more confidence in 12 peers making the decision than in a single judge making the decision. It is not that our judges are not intellectually adequate. It is not that they do not have massive legal experience. It is the fact that they do not have the lived experience of 12 individuals who are making a decision about charges against an equal person. That is the genius of the jury system. Those 12 individuals come to the case without preconceptions and without the baggage of anything else, and when they hear the evidence—and the evidence only—they make their decision.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Member is making a good point. I, too, am a recovering lawyer. On the impact of these proposals, does he agree that because of the lack of confidence, what we are likely to see is not a cut in the backlog but an increase in applications to the Appeal Court to overturn unsafe convictions? That is hardly a way to fix the justice system.

[Jim Allister]

Indeed, and I would remind the House that, because of concerns about the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, there was an automatic right of appeal, to try to build some confidence. That automatic right of appeal would not exist, in the main, in the proposals before us.

We are told that this measure will save time. It will not save time. What time would we be saving—an hour to swear in a jury or maybe a day while a jury deliberates? As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) pointed out, a judge who has to make a decision might do so there and then, but he would then have to go away and write it up. He would spend a lot longer writing it up, knowing that it might have to go through the fine-toothed comb of the Court of Appeal, than a jury would spend reaching a decision. There will be no time-saving. In my experience, the loss of time and the delays in our courts come primarily from delays in providing disclosure and from witnesses not being available. None of that will change under this new system. What will change is the body blow to confidence in the judicial system and the legal process.

For me, the Government lost this debate today when the bottom fell out of their case and the Minister had to say, effectively, that this was not about delay but about an ideology. It is an ideology that ill fits this House and an ideology that the House should most convincingly reject.