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I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and for giving advance notice of it. He will of course be aware that the combination of statements is not a matter for the Chair—the Government determine statements—but I am sure that the Foreign Secretary has heard his comments.
I thank the hon. Member for her point of order. Members should receive timely responses to their correspondence with Ministers, and it is disappointing to hear that the hon. Lady has experienced such a significant delay. Ministers themselves are responsible for the timeliness of their responses, and I hope that those on the Treasury Bench have heard her concerns and will pass them on to the relevant Department. Members may also wish to raise their concerns with the Leader of the House during business questions every Thursday.
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. He is right to say that written questions are an important way in which Members may hold the Government to account. As he will have heard me say earlier, Ministers themselves are responsible for the timeliness of their responses, but I hope that those on the Treasury Bench have heard his concerns and will pass them on to the relevant Department, in this case DEFRA. Both the Leader of the House and the Procedure Committee may also take an interest in these matters, so the hon. Member may wish to raise his concerns with them.
I thank the hon. Lady for giving advance notice of her point of order. She has corrected the record, as she did this time last week, and I hope she will not see this as a regular method and opportunity to reiterate her political points.
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. I think that he has raised two points. As we heard in an earlier point of order, the combination of statements does not help, and those on the Treasury Bench will have heard my comments about that; it is a matter for the Government when they decide to schedule statements, and, indeed, the issues and subjects to which they will pertain. As for the second point, regarding the timeliness and the length of statements, I do think it important. It is always regrettable when not all Members can get in during a statement. However, on regular occasions throughout the statement, I exhorted Members and, indeed, the Foreign Secretary to make questions and answers short. We would have been able to accommodate many more Members if others had listened to that guidance.
Order. The hon. Lady has an important ten-minute rule motion, and there are far too many private conversations preventing me—let alone the rest of the House— from hearing her comments.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He is of course right, and were Members to refer to the guide on courtesies and behaviours in the House, they would find advice on whether questions, and indeed interventions, should be read, particularly from telephones.
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows better than to use the word “you” in those circumstances.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does she agree that that depleted confidence comes against the backdrop of all the pressures that she has discussed, including the pressures from the Government to increase house building, and the opportunity that farmers see to replace arable or pastoral farming with a new cash crop in the form of solar, and that ultimately, depletion of morale is probably the worst affliction on the farming community, because, regardless of other considerations, there is a risk that there comes a point when most farmers say, “We just can’t do this any more”?
Does the hon. Lady regret that the Liberal Democrat manifesto said that the Liberal Democrats want to build even more houses than the Labour party?
I want to give the Minister an opportunity to answer a question that I have asked several Ministers in the main Chamber. My constituents and I do not dispute the need for more housing in the country, nor do we dispute that it needs to be located in areas where people want to live, but what would she say to my constituents living across Bromsgrove and the villages—an area that is 89% green belt and 79% rural—when I tell her that, as a result of choices made by this Government, our housing target has increased by 85% while the housing target in adjacent Birmingham has decreased by more than 30%? Every area has to take its fair share, but does she agree that that is a grossly unfair imbalance?
The oil refining industry employs tens of thousands of people and is crucial to our energy security. It is also a key part of the ministerial brief. The sector is under immense pressure, so can the Minister tell the House when he will meet industry representatives directly?
T9. In west London, the development of data centres, other industries and, indeed, much-needed housing is hampered by the fact that the national grid cannot supply enough power. Under the current plans, it will be many years before the grid will be able to cope. What action is the Minister going to take to make sure that west London can contribute to the growing of the UK economy?
Madam Deputy Speaker, “The hon. Gentleman knows the answer: we are looking carefully at whether other countries should be added to the enhanced tier, but we will take that decision in due course and bring it forward in the normal way.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 638.] That is what the Security Minister said when I asked him for the fourth time last month why China is not included within the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. So I will ask the Minister for the fifth time in as many months, and I am hoping he will offer some clarity this time. Given the range of measures he has just announced, what would it take for the Government to deem China to be a threat, and when will he assess whether China should be added to the enhanced tier?
Whereabouts in the Bill does it say what the Secretary of State said about the victims and survivors group? If it does not say what he told us, will he amend it to ensure that it does?
I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of her statement. His Majesty’s Opposition welcome the passing of the US-drafted resolution at the United Nations Security Council yesterday. The US has shown consistent leadership on the middle east, and for that we are grateful. Hamas must now release the final three deceased hostages. We keep their loved ones, and the families of all the deceased hostages, in the forefront of our thoughts. We cannot even begin to imagine what trauma they have endured. Key to yesterday’s resolution was a mandate for the International Stabilisation Force, but can the Foreign Secretary set out exactly what Britain’s contribution will be to that force? The Government speak about the need for the force to be deployed quickly, to avoid a potential power vacuum being filled by Hamas. What is Britain’s contribution? Are we looking at technical assistance, the sharing of expertise or intelligence, funding, action on the ground, or all of the above? It is important that the Foreign Secretary is clear and precise about those details. Will she also update the House on which countries are expected to participate, and say what their contributions will be? Of course, the removal of Hamas from power and their full disarmament are vital if we are to turn this ceasefire into a sustainable end to the conflict and the cycles of violence. Following yesterday’s vote, what practical contribution will the UK make to those efforts? The Foreign Secretary will be aware that there are several points in the US President’s plan specifically on that, so where does the UK dock into those initiatives? Has she identified which areas the UK will focus on as a contribution to the broader transitional day-after plan? Can she at least confirm that a fundamental curriculum and education overhaul in Gaza, and indeed the west bank, will be a key focus? We have seen huge strides elsewhere in the middle east in that domain, and this must now be a moment of reckoning for the curricula in the Occupied Palestinian Territories—that is vital if we are to build a sustainable peace. On the immediate humanitarian crisis in Gaza, what practical actions is the Foreign Secretary undertaking with the Government of Israel to achieve the surge in aid for innocent civilians that we all want to see? Specifically, which crossings does she believe will need attention? What is the quantum of designated British aid that is not getting over the border into Gaza? Have specific proposals and solutions been conveyed by the British side to Israeli Government counterparts on how to address the bottlenecks that we all want to see resolved? Turning to the situation in Sudan, in El Fasher and elsewhere we continue to witness atrocities, suffering and human misery beyond words, all in plain sight of a watching world. Accountability must be administered. In the immediate term, the UK should be trying to spearhead a step change in the level of pressure on the warring parties to agree a comprehensive ceasefire. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has argued, we need heavy new sanctions on key operators, and action to deter entities, individuals and businesses whose support continues to sustain the conflict. Will that be forthcoming, and what discussions is the Foreign Secretary having on that with counterparts in the US, the EU, the Sudan quad and others? Will she also update the House on the Government’s response to US efforts to bring about a humanitarian ceasefire, and say what role Britain is playing in that? On the dire humanitarian conditions, it was confirmed at the Dispatch Box earlier this month that the shifting of frontiers in the conflict is affecting aid delivery. How has the situation evolved in the past two weeks, and what levers can be pulled to try and smash through obstacles to aid delivery? Finally, on day-after planning, will the Foreign Secretary update the House on efforts to build up the capacity and capabilities of organic civilian political groups, to give Sudan the best chance of moving to stable civilian government after a ceasefire? We have seen what the US has achieved through the UN Security Council on Gaza this week, and I hope that similar initiatives will be possible with regards to Sudan. As penholder, the UK Government have a special responsibility, so will the Foreign Secretary confirm her next steps on the UNSC? As the conflict moves from bad to worse, we must shift gear.
The IRA’s campaign of terror against the British people was one of the darkest chapters in our history; the shields of Airey Neave, Ian Gow, Robert Bradford and Sir Anthony Berry demonstrate that. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the armed servicemen represented here today defended us, and it is the job of this Parliament to ensure that they are now defended?
Thank you, Mr Speaker. “The skills, infrastructure and experience built by Scotland’s oil and gas sector are vital assets that must be safeguarded and redeployed as we accelerate the transition to clean energy.” These are not my words, but the words of Scottish Renewables. Why are the Government pursuing a strategy that is decimating that very industry and costing jobs across the country?
It is a bit rich for a Minister to come here, on the day that further jobs are being lost as a direct result of the Government’s policies, to talk about their clean jobs plan as if that will somehow mean anything to the workers at Mossmorran, Grangemouth and all the other sites that have lost jobs as a direct result of Government policies over the past few years. I understand why the Minister will not listen to me, but surely the Government must start listening to the renewables sector, the trade unions or their own Great British Energy, and use next week’s Budget to start reversing their damaging anti-growth, anti-jobs and anti-Britain tax and ban on North sea oil and gas.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given the very serious news coming out of the Mossmorran plant this morning, and given that the news broke after Members were able to submit an urgent question, might you inform me, and indeed the rest of the House, how it might be possible for the Government to bring forward a statement on the situation today? Hundreds of workers, the entire community and the wider energy system need to know as soon as possible what the situation is and what the Government are doing to resolve it.
I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. Since the Government came to power in July 2024, over 15,000 manufacturing and industry jobs have been lost. Only this Labour Government would recognise that as a success. The Minister says that he is saddened. That is cold comfort to the workers losing their jobs today. Energy-intensive industries are in decline across the United Kingdom. Oil refineries and petrochemicals plants are facing the economic and fiscal realities of choices made by this Labour Government at Ineos in Grangemouth, at Prax Lindsey in Lincolnshire, and now at Mossmorran in Fife, where Exxon has told us that there is no competitive future due to the current economic and policy environment. The Minister tells us that this was a commercial decision, and that the numbers did not add up. Er, yeah—due to Labour’s decisions. Honestly! He mentions the decline in the ethane supply in the North sea. He almost gets it. The Government’s destructive tax-and-ban policy in the North sea has led to disinvestment, and has undermined the petrochemicals industry and its ability to secure low-cost ethane. That is damaging our energy security, detrimental to our petrochemicals industry, and utterly devastating for Scottish oil and gas workers. The Labour party simply does not get it. Also, the carbon tax—£20 million per annum for the Fife ethylene plant alone—was crippling. We are suffocating industry in this country, and these are political choices. Industrial emissions are mobile. If we decrease our domestic carbon emissions by crushing British industry, we are simply exporting our climate obligations and increasing reliance on imports of plastics, fuel, ceramics, glass, bricks, concrete and more. We must find a way to decarbonise without decimating our domestic industrial base. Simply forcing industry abroad does nothing to reduce global emissions; in fact, it does the opposite. The high cost of energy and this Government’s war on the North sea are killing industry in this country. We simply cannot afford this Labour Government. Although the closure will be felt most acutely in Fife, the repercussions will reverberate across this country. For the first time since the UK invented polyethylene, we will not be manufacturing the primary component in this country. That is shameful. Industry has already warned that closures like Grangemouth, Prax Lindsey and now Mossmorran risk forcing downstream operators to import resources at higher cost, undermining their competitiveness. We are not just talking about 400 jobs at Mossmorran; the impact of this will cascade down the supply chain. The domino effect is taking place already. Altrad, Bilfinger and KAEFER all announced redundancies at Mossmorran when Grangemouth closed earlier this year. Allowing another major industrial plant to close sends the signal to investors that under this Government, UK plc is closed for business. We are losing domestic industrial capacity at a terrifying rate. The Minister claims that this is not symptomatic of British industry as a whole, but the drumbeat of job losses and plant closures tells a very different story. He talks of support for jobs, but unemployment has risen every single month since this Labour party took office. The closure will be felt by workers in Fife, but make no mistake: the crisis facing industry is stamped “Made in Whitehall”. The Government have said in the House that they are ready to provide assistance to workers at Mossmorran, yet we still lack clarity about the support for the future of Grangemouth, and the status of the National Wealth Fund moneys promised by the Prime Minister. Can the Minister update us on the £200 million fund for the future of Grangemouth? We have not seen one penny spent so far. The Prime Minister’s promise looks like empty words yet again. What proposals have been brought forward, and when will workers have certainty about the future of the site? This Government are taxing jobs, increasing the cost of energy and driving British industry off a cliff edge. Britain cannot afford this Labour Government; frankly, Scotland cannot afford this Labour Government. I feel very sorry for the Scottish Labour MPs who have been whipped in to defend this Government’s position tonight. This is not a just transition; it is anything but. This is the wilful de-industrialisation of the United Kingdom. The Government are offshoring carbon emissions and driving up reliance on imports, and British workers are paying the price. Will the Minister outline the support that his Department intends to provide for the workers at Mossmorran, and provide an update on the Nation Wealth Fund moneys for Grangemouth? Does he agree that British industry is at a competitive disadvantage, due to the crippling industrial energy costs, the jobs tax and the carbon tax? Will this Government finally see sense, see what everybody else sees, and change their policies on the North sea?
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—I promise I will not make a habit of this. I am a bit worried that the Minister may have inadvertently misled the House, because he said that in his earlier conversation with the chairman of ExxonMobil, Paul Greenwood, he had pointed to no policy decisions by this Government as reasons for closing the plant. I and other Members also had the opportunity to speak to Paul Greenwood today, and he did give four reasons for the closure. The first two—the market and the cost of running an old plant—were, he said, not policy decisions, but the third and fourth certainly were. The third was the carbon tax, which is costing that plant £20 million, and the fourth is the sharp decline in ethanol production in the North sea due to the accelerated downturn directly due to Government policy. Will you give me some advice on how the Minister might go about correcting the record?
The Minister stresses the importance of mindset, so can he tell me whether it was a failure of mindset that underpinned the failure to secure the prosecution of two alleged Chinese agents? Why should parliamentarians now trust that he has the mindset to keep us safe?
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton is a coastal constituency with a strong forces tradition. Many of my constituents served in Northern Ireland and are now terrified of being pulled into a process that continues with no end. Does my hon. Friend agree that we owe those veterans a process that is fair, proportionate and final?
Last year, 2,000 acres of farmland in my constituency were approved for solar by the Government, and now a further 2,000 are being eyed up immediately next door. Together, those plants will build the first UK solar city, bigger than the Vatican and Monaco put together. When will the Government bring forth the land use strategy, and when will they impose minimum compensation for those who are currently losing their countryside and their communities?
My heart goes out to the missing crew member, their ship’s company, and their loved ones at home. Let us all hope for good news. I thank the Minister for advance sight of this statement, and for his time last week, but the revelations today are no surprise. They are the latest in an ever-growing list of actions by the Chinese Communist party to interfere in our sovereign affairs and try to undermine our democracy and our country. The pernicious nature of this threat should not be underestimated. I welcome the Minister’s plans for a new proscription tool to counter foreign interference, and the fact that the Government have completed the work that we started of stripping surveillance equipment manufactured in China from sensitive sites. On education, however, the plans to discuss foreign interference with vice-chancellors are quite inadequate. I have had those discussions, and faced nothing but naivety and intransigence. They are also useless unless the Government are willing to use their teeth to defend those institutions that are under attack. Earlier this month, Norway and Denmark alerted us to the existence of dual-use kill switches in Chinese-made electric buses. These switches allow China to switch off buses and bring chaos to transport systems. Can the Minister give an update on the investigation of our bus networks, and the chips that have been placed in Ministry of Defence vehicles, which require our members of the armed forces to be silent while travelling around our country in defence of our nation? On academic freedom, Sheffield Hallam University was blackmailed by Chinese security services into cancelling research on state-sanctioned Uyghur slave labour. What update can the Minister give on the police investigation into that, and the coercive campaign? Will he admit that it was a mistake for his party to cancel our university free speech provisions, and will he convince the Government to reintroduce them, now that the threat is on the front pages of our newspapers? It is only by drawing a red line and taking action to establish some form of deterrence that we will see threats abate. In the face of this hostility, the Government appear to be delegating difficult conversations to officials. On the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, the Government saw fit only to call in a senior official to have a conversation with a Chinese chargé d’affaires. Last week, Hongkonger Chloe Cheung said that the Government were not keeping her safe. The Government’s response to a bounty being put on her head, and to kidnap notes being delivered to her neighbours, asking them to take her to the Chinese embassy, was the same rhetorical tap on the knuckles. This is insufficient if the Government seriously want to deter further attacks on our country. We Conservative Members recognise the threat from the Chinese Communist party, and we want to work with the Government, so we have a few suggestions. The Minister today stated that the Chinese Government are using proxy organisations to interfere in, and commit espionage against, our democracy. That is literally why we introduced the foreign influence registration scheme. Instead of carrying out their communications plan and holding the private, closed-door meetings announced today, we urge the Government to put China in the enhanced tier of the FIR scheme. In opposition, Labour supported our National Security Act 2023, yet in government, it refuses to use it as it was designed. That is perverse. Why vote for a defensive tool, only to leave it on the shelf when we are under threat? The decision on the new Chinese embassy is expected shortly. We would refuse permission for that embassy. If the Government will not, will they at least require the Chinese Government to pay for sensitive underground cables to be re-routed away from the embassy? We hear that multiple Government visits to China are planned before Christmas and the new year. Will those now be cancelled? What message does it send when, despite an attack on this House and our Parliament, Ministers are happily jetting off to stride down red carpets with the Government responsible? Finally, we need a comprehensive audit of our vulnerabilities across our society and our economy. The recent export controls on critical minerals demonstrate China’s willingness to weaponise its economic heft. We need to know where our vulnerabilities lie, and to increase our resilience accordingly. That means publishing the shelved China audit, because how can an entire civil service base its posture on a document that most will never be allowed to read? It needs to be published. Sensitive parts can be redacted. As for the possibility of the Chinese authorities taking any offence at its contents, the contents are down to their actions, not ours. We face an acute threat to our democracy, and in the face of that threat, we have yet to see repercussions for the Chinese Communist party. To defend our nation, the Government must have a firm policy of deterrence. Justice was denied last month, but the Government have the tools and the ability to act. When will they take action to make it clear to the Chinese Communist party that it will not get away with attacks on our democracy? The Government can cancel the Joint Economic and Trade Commission talks, impose sanctions, cancel propaganda visits to China and put the Chinese Communist party in the enhanced foreign influence registration scheme tier. When they do any of those things, the Opposition will be here, ready to help. Until that time, the Chinese Communist party will think that our country is unwilling to deter future acts of hostility and unwilling to defend our democracy or our country.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Scrutiny in this House requires timely and meaningful engagement by Ministers with shadow Front Benchers, but, disappointingly for me, as the shadow Safeguarding Minister, responses from the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), have been woeful. There has been an average 48-day wait per letter written to her, and, at worst, the longest wait for a response was 97 days. When I chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee, my own Government responded within 10 days to all letters received. What advice can you kindly give, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how we, as Front Benchers, can receive responses in a dutiful and timely manner?
I thank my hon. Friend for setting out the wrongs of the Bill so clearly. A number of veterans called my office yesterday in great distress. One of their concerns is what the Bill means for future recruitment to the armed forces, which so far has not really been covered in this debate. They believe that if people sign up willing to give the ultimate sacrifice, their country should stand behind them. Will my hon. Friend set out why the Bill risks so heavily future recruitment to the armed forces, and therefore why that is another reason that this Bill is absolutely wrong?
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill because, by removing the conditional immunity scheme introduced by the last Government in the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, and reintroducing inquests and restoring civil claims for Troubles-related incidents halted by that Act, the Bill will lead to veterans once again being dragged before the courts facing potential prosecution for incidents that happened decades ago, while former paramilitaries are largely untouched; because the Government’s published list of so-called protections for veterans remains unclear and not fulfilled by this Bill; because the Government has not confirmed which of these protections will also apply to former paramilitaries; because the Bill does not prevent former paramilitaries holding key roles associated with the Legacy Commission; and because the Bill risks undermining the morale of, as well as both recruitment to and retention within, the armed forces at a time of significantly heightened international tensions and threats to the national security of the UK.” I would like to start by paying tribute to those brave souls who served in Operation Banner—the longest and, surely, one of the most difficult operations that our military forces ever undertook. I know that some of them are in the Gallery today, and some of them are sitting behind me. I would like to thank them with my whole heart for the service they gave and extend that same thanks to the brave men and women of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The generations who have come after cannot fully understand what they went through, what they saw and what they did for peace. The last Government chose to draw a line under the litigation of the troubles, and today that line is being erased. Our legacy Act was a response to the emerging legal reality—no less true than it was three years ago—that the legal system was ceasing to provide meaningful answers to victims, while dragging veterans through the courts in clearly vexatious cases. The process itself had become a means of punishment, and time is reducing the chances of convictions. We created a new means of providing victims and their families with information—one that offered the opportunity to claim conditional immunity in return for information retrieval. That process is now up and running, and thanks to the excellent work of Sir Declan Morgan, to whom I pay tribute, I understand the ICRIR is currently considering about 250 cases and is taking on more every month. Confidence is growing; it is working. But the Bill before us today strips out the conditional immunity introduced by the legacy Act and reopens the door to vexatious litigation against veterans, while leaving it very unlikely that terrorists will be prosecuted. The Secretary of State himself has confirmed that there have been only five terrorist convictions in the past 13 years, and as time passes, the chance of successful prosecutions will reduce further and further. In the past year alone, we have debated the manifest failings of the current system in this House: the terrible decision in the Clonoe inquest; the 1991 incident in court in Belfast last month, where a special forces soldier was acquitted by a judge, who said the case was “ludicrous”, but not before the man in question had been investigated for four years; and, of course, the case of soldier F, where no conviction was possible, despite one of the longest inquiries in British political history. The legislation before us today will perpetuate disappointment for victims and despair for veterans. The Government are claiming that they have no choice but to legislate. They are making that claim for three reasons. The first is that they object to conditional immunity. The second is their belief that the legacy Act is incompatible with the European convention on human rights, and the third is the fact that the legacy Act lacked cross-party support.
It was never given a chance because this Government dropped their appeal—something I will return to shortly.
No. Let me start with conditional immunity. The legacy Act provided immunity to individuals in return for their providing an account to the commission that was true to the best of their “knowledge and belief”. That is the immunity to which the Government are now opposed, but I am afraid that that objection is born of acute political amnesia. This House will know that the Blair Government accepted that the price of ending the conflict was a departure from the norms of criminal justice in Northern Ireland. They gave us the early release of 483 prisoners, 143 of whom were serving life sentences, including, it must be said, the man who in 1984 tried to kill the entire British Cabinet; the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), which limits prison terms to two years; the decommissioning of weapons legislation, which allowed for the destruction of forensic evidence that would have led to convictions; and an effective amnesty for all those who provided information to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains—in short, immunity in return for information. We also had the controversial letters of comfort—156 of them. One was received by John Downey, thought to have been the Hyde Park bomber, the case against whom collapsed on the production of his letter. It had apparently been issued in error, but nevertheless that letter effectively granted him immunity from prosecution. Even if, as Labour now claims, the on-the-runs were not intended to grant immunity, the use of the royal prerogative of mercy on at least 13 occasions certainly was. Even if that was not enough, it was very much the intention of the last Labour Government to create a scheme for immunity. We know that because in November 2005, Peter Hain, now Lord Hain—the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—brought legislation to this House in the form of the Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill, which was explicitly intended to create immunity from prosecution for terrorists. That was on the face of the Bill. The now Secretary of State was in the Cabinet at the time; he will have been supportive of that legislation—legislation that he now refers to as a moral outrage. That Government eventually dropped the legislation, not because of opposition in this House, but because of the opposition of Sinn Féin, who withdrew their support once they discovered that the scope was being extended to cover the security forces and the police.
I hate to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but if he goes back and looks at the news stories from the time, he will discover very clearly that Sinn Féin withdrew their support for the Bill once the Labour Government decided they would extend the scope of the Bill to cover security forces and police officers. The republicans never wanted equity; they wanted a one-sided agreement that would privilege only the terrorists and not the Army. I say all that to highlight the absurdity of Labour’s opposition to our legislation, and to remind the House that the proposals presented to us today are the opposite of what Labour believed was necessary, in the words of Peter Hain, to complete the peace process 20 years ago. No doubt the Government will say, as the Secretary of State already has, that they have no choice but to change our legislation because it was found to be incompatible with the European convention on human rights. But that is only partially true. While it is the case that the High Court in Belfast found that conditional immunity was incompatible with the ECHR, I am sure that the Secretary of State knows that that court, despite its considerable strengths, is not the summit of the UK legal system. The last Conservative Government were appealing the court’s finding, but when the Labour Government came into power in July 2024, they dropped that appeal and they have never explained why. They had every opportunity to take it to the highest court in the land, and they declined to do so. In legal circles, the finding of the High Court in Belfast is considered highly disputable. Why? Because the law strongly suggests that if the same logic was applied to the peace process legislation that I have already mentioned—the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997, and the Northern Ireland (Location of Victims’ Remains) Act 1999—then all of that legislation would be deemed incompatible with the European convention and would have to be struck down.
As ever, my right hon. Friend is entirely correct. The courts have no power to strike down statute; they can advise this House to remove legislation.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention; I remember that he made a similar intervention in 2017, and again in 2023, on just that point, based on the work his Committee had done. The Secretary of State has now introduced a draft remedial order to eliminate those parts of the Bill that are deemed to be incompatible. As he knows—I have written to him twice on this subject—the official Opposition do not believe that that remedial order is appropriate, and certainly not yet. That is because earlier this year the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement was granted permission to intervene in the case of Dillon before the Supreme Court, specifically on the issue of compatibility. On 15 October that intervention was heard, and if those arguments are accepted, the Supreme Court has the power to quash the declarations of incompatibility. That means that the Secretary of State has no legal basis at this time for that remedial order. He has acted—or rather, if he pushes it to a vote, he will be acting—ultra vires, because under section 10 of the Human Rights Act the Government can only issue such an order unless and until all appeals in relation to the declarations of incompatibility have been “determined or abandoned”. In this case, they have not been, and the Government must not call a vote on the order unless and until they have been. I hope that the Minister will offer some clarity on the next steps during his closing remarks. The Conservative party has been clear: the European convention on human rights should no longer be considered an obstacle to doing the right thing. It is not a holy text, and its jurisprudence is forcing Governments to do unholy things. Since legal advice of the highest order has now twice shown that the United Kingdom can leave the convention without breaking the 1998 agreement, this is what the next Conservative Government will do. The current Government have previously said that they have to legislate because the legacy Act did not have cross-community consent, but where is that cross-community consent today? It does not exist. If there had been a cross-community solution on legacy, Stormont would have found it. I suspect that no solution is to be found, which means it is the responsibility of this House to protect those now abused by the system. The Bill will fail to do that. It will not help victims to find out the truth. It will not give comfort to our veterans. It will reopen old wounds and allow infection to come in.
With all due respect to the hon. Lady, who I enjoyed working opposite, the last Government did not offer delay and dithering; we offered firm legislation. What she outlines, I am afraid, is an unrealistic view of the future. We have seen many cases come forward and very few convictions, and the people who suffer in that process are veterans. They are veterans like the gentleman I referred to a moment ago, from a case in 1991—four years of investigation, with a ludicrous case at the end. What is happening today is that victims are being promised something that will never be delivered, and veterans are being told that they do not matter.
I am going to make some progress. We will have plenty of time in Committee to discuss our particular concerns with this legislation, but I will raise a small number of them today. First, the Bill deliberately shifts the focus towards criminal prosecutions. Clause 36 states that investigations are “to be carried as a criminal investigation unless…there is no realistic prospect of information obtained…being provided to a prosecutor.” I suspect that those most likely to be prosecuted will be veterans. Secondly, the Bill creates a five-year time limit for family members and victims to request an investigation, but there is no such time limit for public authorities. Can the Minister tell us why not? This could rumble on forever. Thirdly, the Bill pays lip service to not repeating previous investigations, as the Secretary of State said, by saying that the Legacy Commission will do so only when repetition is “necessary”—that is in clauses 30, 31, 36, 51 and 84—or when “duplication is essential”, as in clause 36. I imagine and I fear that some lawyers will have a great deal of fun with those words. How long before every attempted reinvestigation becomes “necessary” or every attempted investigation becomes “essential”? I believe and I fear that this is no protection at all. Fourthly, the protections for our veterans here are a mirage, not just because they are largely available already, but because they clearly apply to terrorists as well as veterans. Fifthly, in the past few days I have received a lot of communications from veterans about the role that Ireland will play in the new commission. I am sure that they will be reassured by the Secretary of State’s remarks in his opening speech that Ireland will have no formal process within the Legacy Commission. But what is clear that the Bill makes provision for the involvement of international figures. Will those international figures be given access to national security information? Will the Minister please be clear about that in his closing remarks?
I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and then to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson).
I concur greatly with my hon. Friend’s remarks, and I will return to them in a few moments.
The right hon. Gentleman raises interesting and important points. We are concerned about the question of who will have access to sensitive national security information within the legacy commission’s framework? It would be good to have clarity on that from the Minister later. Sixthly, there was some confusion on the Labour Front Bench recently about whether former IRA personnel would be able to serve as a legacy commission officer or as a member of the victims and survivors advisory group. Perhaps when we get to Committee the Minister could clear that up and provide legal guarantees that that will not be the case.
The Labour party is in power in Northern Ireland—it has formed the Government of the United Kingdom. As my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) said, it would be good to get legal guarantees about who will be able to serve on the legacy commission and the victims and survivors advisory group. Lastly, veterans have been asking publicly for the inclusion of the word “veteran” in the Bill. They do not consider themselves victims or survivors; they consider themselves veterans, and they hope that the Government will recognise them as such in legislation.