Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,779 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

1. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

   Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

   I was attacking equivalence. The reality is that if we get rid of the legacy Act right now, we will go back to a one-sided process where veterans will be pursued but nobody in the IRA will come in front of the courts. Many of them have these ridiculous letters of comfort given to them, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said. That equivalence is a distraction. I want to see those people prosecuted, but are we going to get witness statements from people who have run to and hidden in other countries? I doubt it very much.

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2. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

   Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

   I was going to come to that point. My right hon. Friend guessed what was on my mind—not that it was that deep for him to get to it. That was the whole reason why, in the end, even though we had our doubts, we supported the legacy Act: because we thought that, on balance, there was at least the likelihood of getting to the bottom of many unexposed cases, and of the deaths and violence that took place, knowing full well that those from the IRA will never be prosecuted for it and we will never know otherwise. The Government cannot proceed unless they are able categorically to clarify that legislation will protect veterans from the vexatious pursuit that has been so much in their minds and worries throughout this period. If we cannot give them that—if the Government cannot legislate for that—then there is no purpose in getting rid of the existing Act. That has to be the point. The Government may not like it, but they must face this reality: there cannot be pursuit of veterans if previous inquiries, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington said, have cleared them of whatever the charge was before. This repeat process that has been taking place, on absolutely no evidence whatever, is what has caused all the worry for our veterans. If we care about our veterans, we should not rush to change the existing legislation until we can confirm protection for these brave men and women who served their country so loyally, on behalf of civilians in Northern Ireland. If we cannot find a solution, it is ours and the Government’s duty not to tamper with what exists, for fear of destroying the one protection we have given those veterans.

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3. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Sir Desmond Swayne

   Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

   When Jack Straw introduced the Bill that became the Human Rights Act 1998, he made it clear from the Dispatch Box, in terms, that Parliament was not under any obligation, in any way, to introduce a remedial order after a declaration of incompatibility by a court. There is no need to win another court case. Parliament is supreme. The Act stands.

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4. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

   Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

   That point cannot be overstated, because many Northern Ireland veterans already suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems. I speak as a vice-president of the mental health charity Combat Stress. The very idea that there are people who are nowhere near a prosecution or potential prosecution but are now haunted by not only the trauma of their service but the possibility that they will be dragged to a court and exposed in some way, with their families saying, “Daddy, did you really do something wrong?”—it cannot be overstated how utterly brutal this is. It is a deliberate campaign by those who are trying to bring these prosecutions.

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5. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

   State of Climate and Nature

   I am as passionate as the Secretary of State about achieving net zero across the world and about the decline in species in our natural environment, but that cannot be the only thing we worry about. I do not know whether he has had time to read the “Fiscal risks and sustainability” report produced last week, but it shows that the cost to the public Exchequer of achieving net zero will be 21% of GDP. We know that an argument is going on inside the Government and inside the Labour party about this very issue. This is a question of balancing the risks, because if the Government run out of money because they are overspending, there will not be any money to spend on reversing climate change.

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6. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Simon Hoare

   Deprived Areas: Funding

   It is often harder to see because it is more sparsely spread across larger rural areas, but I remind the Minister of what I know he knows: deprivation exists in our rural areas. Can I urge him to ensure that this does not become an issue of north versus south or urban versus rural, but that the Government use taxes to address deprivation wherever and whenever it arises, including in my constituency?

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7. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Simon Hoare

   State of Climate and Nature

   As a sponsor of the Climate and Nature Bill, I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement this afternoon. He is right to highlight that this is a national crisis, and many of us across the House are right to point out that it cannot be ignored and that inaction has too great a cost, but he will be aware that the costs are politicising this issue for many people in this country. Legislation is before the House regarding where and how pension funds are invested. Can he assure the House that he is talking to Treasury and local government Ministers to ensure that the maximum amount from those pension funds—particularly, but not exclusively, the local government pension fund—can be invested in green energy projects? That will widen the investment base and therefore hopefully reduce costs, depoliticising the issue and resulting in the greening of our energy generation that we all want to see.

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8. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Simon Hoare

   Privilege

   I beg to move, That (1) the transcript of unreported oral evidence taken from Mr Baxter by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in private session on 11 November 2009 be referred to the Committee of Privileges; (2) the Committee consider the petition from the Secretary to the Omagh Bombing inquiry in relation to that evidence and take any advice it considers necessary; (3) the Committee’s powers, including the power to report and publish evidence if it considers it appropriate to do so, shall apply in respect of that evidence; (4) the Committee report to the House on the actions it has taken and any other matters it considers relevant by 30 October 2025; and (5) if the Committee considers the evidence should remain unreported, the Committee’s report should include a recommendation on the desirability or otherwise of the release of the evidence to the Omagh Bombing Inquiry. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing this debate today. I raise the matter as a former Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, a current member of that Committee and the current Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which by dint of shadowing the Cabinet Office overlooks the Inquiries Act 2005. I have worked closely with the current Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), on the motion. We simply hope to take the procedural step needed to enable the important work of the Omagh bombing inquiry to be effective, while in tandem respecting the rights of the House. On Wednesday last week, my hon. Friend for Gower—for she is a friend in respect of this work, as well as in many other respects—presented a petition from the secretary to the inquiry asking for access to unpublished Committee evidence. We must not forget what lies behind this motion, so let me quote from the 2008 report of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee into the Omagh bombing: “On Saturday 15 August 1998, a 500 lb car bomb exploded in Market Street, Omagh, County Tyrone, killing 29 people and two unborn children. The bombing caused more death than any other single atrocity committed during, or since, the Troubles in Northern Ireland. More than 250 people were treated in hospital and hundreds more were also injured. The Real IRA claimed responsibility for the attack three days later. No one has been convicted of causing the bombing.” Like colleagues across the House, I think it is important that we remember and honour those innocent people who were killed and injured that day. Questions still remain and the inquiry seeks to answer them—let us hope that it does so.

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9. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Simon Hoare

   Privilege

   I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. If this place is not a champion of justice and its pursuit as a high court of Parliament, what is it?

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10. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Simon Hoare

    Privilege

    I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I endorse it entirely. My hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) and his Committee will look at the motion, if the House decides to pass it this evening, and I know he will have heard that. I echo what the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has said. I hope that if the House agrees to this motion, the Privileges Committee will look favourably on the request and do so in a timely manner. The inquiry was established in February 2024 by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Its task is to investigate whether the bombing in the town of Omagh in August 1998 could reasonably have been prevented by UK state authorities. As part of its terms of reference, the inquiry was specifically asked to look at “the allegation made by Norman Baxter”— a former senior investigating officer in the investigation into the Omagh bombing— “in the course of his evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee on 11 November 2009, that police investigators into previous attacks in Moira (20 February 1998), Portadown (9 May 1998), Banbridge (1 August 1998) and Lisburn (30 April 1998) did not have access to intelligence materials which may reasonably have enabled them to disrupt the activities of dissident republican terrorists prior to the Omagh Bombing.” I quote that because I think it is germane to our considerations. The inquiry has established that some of the evidence taken from Mr Baxter by the Committee has not been reported to the House, so it remains unpublished and inaccessible. That is effectively the kernel of this motion. The petition asks for access to that evidence. We find ourselves in the strange position whereby in setting up the inquiry, specific reference is made to that piece of evidence submitted, but because of a procedural problem here it was not published and is therefore not on the public record. That is why the inquiry has asked for the evidence. At this stage, I express my gratitude to both Mr Baxter and the inquiry team. They immediately realised that if the evidence had not been published, it belonged to this House. They sought advice from the House authorities and received it. They have been careful to ensure that they have acted properly throughout. There are two issues here. The first issue is that if a Committee wants to publish evidence, it must report it to the House and obtain an order to publish that evidence. If it wants material to be available to Members but no one else, it can simply report the evidence to the House. Evidence that is reported but not published is available to Members in subsequent Parliaments, but unreported evidence is accessible only to the Committee to which it belongs and in the Parliament in which it was taken. Once that Parliament is over—which, clearly, it is—no one has access to unreported evidence until the archives are open. There is no wriggle room here, hence the reason for this motion and the detailed explanation—I am sorry to detain the House. If a Committee wishes to see unreported evidence from its counterpart in the previous Parliament, the House must refer it to that Committee. If anyone outside the House wants that evidence, they must petition for it, as the secretary to the inquiry has done. That is what this motion seeks to advance. It is very hard for the House to decide whether to release evidence that it has not seen and cannot see before the decision is made. It is particularly difficult in this case, as that evidence may contain sensitive information. Accordingly, the motion invites the House to refer the evidence to the Committee of Privileges. That Committee can undoubtedly consider the matter and probably take advice. If it is advised that there is no reason not to publish the evidence, which was taken more than 15 years ago, it might simply decide to publish it—I hope that it can and does. Otherwise, it can consider the matter and report to the House with a recommendation on what would be appropriate. The House can then make an informed decision subsequent to the work of the Committee of my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire. The second issue is that article 9 of the Bill of Rights says: “That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.” That means that courts should not evaluate what is said in this place. That is not simply a matter of us being free to speak freely in Parliament; it extends to all those who participate in our proceedings, including our witnesses. It is clearly important that people should be free to give evidence to the House and its Committees without fear of legal consequences. This is also a matter of the constitutional separation of powers between Parliament and the courts. A “Place out of Parlyament” does not mean anywhere outside Parliament: it has been taken to mean something with powers like those of a court. The ban on impeaching and questioning means not that no use can be made of parliamentary material, but that the use must be careful. The Omagh statutory inquiry is like a court: it has power to take evidence on oath, and its Chair may direct people to attend as witnesses and/or to produce documents if requested to do so. The House authorities consider it a “Place out of Parlyament”. For that reason, the House authorities regularly contact statutory inquiries to draw their attention to the important provisions of article 9. I am delighted to note that the petition is clear that “the Inquiry has taken advice on the application of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights to its proceedings and will be mindful of the privileges of the House.” I am confident that Lord Turnbull, who has the onerous task of chairing the inquiry, and his team recognise the issues; their behaviour demonstrates that. I expect that if the Privileges Committee considers the petition should be granted, the key issues that the inquiry is invited to consider will be informed by the evidence without impeaching and questioning. I trust it will be possible for us to assist the inquiry in its work. I hope that I have made as clear as I possibly can the genesis and importance of this motion, the lacuna that it seeks to fill and the requirements that this House has quite rightly guarded jealously for a long, long time on how evidence submitted to it is treated. I hope I have made clear and impressed on the House the importance of its passing this motion, and I urge it to do so. As I said in answer to the right hon. Member for Belfast East, we set a timeline in the motion to the Privileges Committee, but I know that it will tend to it with expedition. I hope colleagues will agree to this motion, which will allow informed consideration of all the issues. It will hopefully bring justice or clarity to justice, as we have discussed with regard to the inquiry, which is looking into that terrible crime that blighted the lives of so many and ended the lives of so many prematurely, including two unborn children.

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11. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Simon Hoare

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    As my right hon. Friend knows, I have a huge amount of respect and affection for him, and he is right to refer to the inalienable rights that a British citizen has in terms of access to justice and so forth, but surely he must accept that individuals facing deprivation of citizenship will have crossed a threshold of behaviour, or allegiance, so alien to our traditions, so alien to all the rights and responsibilities accrued over the decades of British citizenship, that in essence, in the court of public opinion, they will put themselves way beyond the pale when it comes to those issues. It would be an extreme hypocrisy for those who most seek to undermine our way of life to demand all the rights and privileges that they have sought to undermine, and possibly destroy, through their actions or foreign allegiances.

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12. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Simon Hoare

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    Surely the fact that a remedy is not available to all does not mean that it is not a remedy. If we wish to argue for the two-tier approach, we can think of instances in which mental capacity has come into play, particularly in respect of capital offences, when those existed here. In abstract theory, that was a two-tier approach to justice, determined on the grounds of mental capacity or lack thereof. Surely remedies do not have be applicable universally to be applied fairly and within the law.

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13. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Sarah Bool

    Planning System: Community Involvement

    22. What plans she has to increase community involvement in the planning process.

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14. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Sarah Bool

    Planning System: Community Involvement

    In Towcester, when the DHL development was going through planning, more than 1,100 residents submitted objections to the council, thousands signed petitions, I spoke on their behalf as their MP against the plans and locally elected councillors voted 11 to one against it at the strategic planning committee meeting, but it was ultimately approved on appeal. Residents, naturally, are losing faith in engaging in the system. The Minister referred in a written question to there being a more democratic plan-led system taking in larger numbers of voices. In our case, how many more residents would need to be involved to have an impact?

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15. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Rebecca Smith

    Topical Questions

    It is my understanding that South Hams district council is in an arguably more sound fiscal position than the neighbouring Plymouth city council. What can the Secretary of State say to reassure me that local government reorganisation will not mimic either a forced marriage or a bad marriage where the fiscally prudent one bails out the other?

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16. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Housing Delivery

    Lord knows who the Housing Minister is talking to, because time and again, developers have said that he cannot achieve his target of 1.5 million homes. As he knows, I have severe doubts about his ability to meet such unrealistic housing targets, and I suspect the Opposition will be proven right. However, if he does succeed, the quality of new homes must be maintained. Will he do what the New Homes Quality Board is calling for, and ensure mandatory board membership for developers of all shapes and sizes, and an empowered ombudsman, so that home occupiers are protected?

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17. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Homelessness Prevention

    Recent figures provided by CHAIN report a record 13,231 people sleeping rough in London—a 19% increase in the year since this Government took office, and a 63% increase since Sadiq Khan took office as Mayor of London. What conversations has the Minister had with the Mayor of London to tackle this failure in leadership, and will she commit to eliminating rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament? After a year of this Government, it has gone up.

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18. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Paul Holmes

    Homelessness Prevention

    What about this one?

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19. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

    Draft Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am pleased to respond to the draft regulations on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. Let me start by saying that if the Minister thinks that progress stalled under the last Government, this Government’s abolishing and then reinstating the winter fuel payment has been a funny way of getting around that. By expanding the warm home discount scheme, the Government are broadening its reach to 6 million households across the UK, up from the 3.4 million households that currently receive the annual £150 energy bill rebate. We should do everything that we can to tackle fuel poverty, but we must ask ourselves what the best way is to resolve the root causes of the energy bills crisis. Under the warm home discount scheme, the Government are funding support for people who cannot afford their bills by pushing up green levies on everyone’s bills. The impact assessment for this legislation clearly states that the scheme expansion will increase everyone’s bills by £15. The Minister did not mention that when the expansion was announced, but the Government should be honest with the public that they have deliberately take a decision that will increase everyone’s bills. Higher green levies will pay for an increase in the overall cost of the scheme from £600 million to £1 billion. It is hard to see how this expansion will achieve the Government’s solemn manifesto pledge to cut energy bills by £300 before the end of this Parliament. We are seeing this approach play out across energy policy: the Government raise the cost of energy with their unrealistic decarbonisation policies; energy-intensive industries then suffer under the highest industrial energy prices in Europe; and the Government step in with subsidies to help them cover the cost that they created to begin with. It is madness, and we are now seeing the same thing done for families. In public policy, the simplest solution is often the best. In the case of fuel poverty, the Government can help everyone afford their bills by delivering abundant and cheap energy, but they are piling on costs through their Clean Power 2030 plan. That will increase the price of carbon to £147 per tonne, which will, in turn, increase bills for every family in the country. We have already paid £700 million so far just this year to turn off wind farms when there has been too much wind. We now hear that we are going to pay solar farms just the same to turn off in certain circumstances. The National Energy System Operator forecasts that these constraint costs will hit £8 billion in 2030 because of Labour’s plans to build more renewables than ever before. Instead of rushing ahead to build a system entirely dependent on unreliable and expensive renewables such as wind and solar, we should be going further and faster with nuclear and expanding oil and gas exploration in the North sea. Instead, we are importing fossil fuels from Norway, drilled from the very same seabed that we could exploit, while insisting that we are too good and too green to do that for ourselves. All of this is a choice. The Labour party chooses to increase energy costs, including for people on low incomes, with reckless targets and arbitrary mandates. We will abstain on these regulations, but the unavoidable fact remains that this Government are increasing energy bills for the poorest when we ought to be making energy as cheap as possible for everyone.

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20. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

    Draft Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025

    rose—

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21. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

    Draft Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025

    I will go first, then, and allow my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) to ask a superior question. The Minister is talking about fossil fuel prices and how the Government want to take us away from them. We have had an exchange in the past couple of weeks about when the price cap was lowered because of the fall in wholesale gas prices. When that happened, the Labour party put out literature saying, “£129 off your bills, delivered by Labour”. When I put that to the Minister, she disowned that language and used her own words. I understand why; she is an intelligent and principled person, and that poster from Labour was neither intelligent nor principled. Will she apologise for that and say that it was wrong?

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22. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

    Topical Questions

    Can the Deputy Prime Minister guarantee that no Muslim Brotherhood affiliates will participate in the consultation on the definition of Islamophobia?

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23. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Point of Order

    I thank the right hon. Lady for prior notice of her point of order. Has she notified the Secretary of State of it?

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24. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Point of Order

    Ministers are responsible for their answers, not the Chair, but the point has been made by the right hon. Lady and Ministers on the Treasury Bench will no doubt relay it back to the Secretary of State.

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25. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Privilege

    The hon. Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) have tabled a motion for debate on a matter of privilege, which Mr Speaker has agreed should take precedence today.

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26. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Privilege

    I call the shadow Minister.

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27. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    I remind Members that in Committee, Members should not address the Chair as “Deputy Speaker”. Please use our names when addressing the Chair. “Chair” and “Madam Chair” are also acceptable.

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28. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    With this it will be convenient to consider: Clauses 1 and 2 stand part. New clause 1—Independent review— “(1) The Secretary of State must, within one year of the passing of this Act, commission an independent review of the effects of the changes made to section 40A of the British Nationality Act 1981 by section 1. (2) The review must be completed within two years of the passing of this Act. (3) As soon as practicable after a person has carried out the review, the person must— (a) produce a report of the outcome of the review, and (b) send a copy of the report to the Secretary of State. (4) The Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a copy of the report sent under subsection (3)(b) within one month of receiving the report.”

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29. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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30. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    I call the shadow Minister.

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31. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    Mr Malthouse, do you wish to withdraw the amendment?

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32. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

    I call the shadow Minister.

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33. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Richard Holden

    Financial Assistance to Industry

    I should declare that Ford’s UK headquarters is in my constituency. Will my hon. Friend also reflect that there is a real issue here for not just cars, but commercial vehicles? I am thinking particularly of the Transit, Ford’s best-selling international medium-sized van, which is known the world over and is a real staple of the UK. Is it not the case that we need to look at this issue in the round and that, when it is down to tradesmen what they want to buy, they need to be confident and comfortable in purchasing the product? At the moment, that is the only element providing significant profitability for Ford in the UK; removing that and essentially replacing it with a subsidy seems the wrong way around.

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34. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

    You sent them letters of comfort.

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35. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell, as we debate this critical petition, which has over 176,000 signatures, some 6,000 of which were added today. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who introduced the debate so ably. It is a privilege to have in the Public Gallery some 30 veterans who served their country bravely in Northern Ireland, including five from the Royal Hospital Chelsea. For obvious reasons, these veterans have a very strong interest in our proceedings today. I say to them, and to all those who served alongside them, “Thank you for your service.” For context, some 300,000 British soldiers served in what became known as Operation Banner, the British Army’s mission to uphold the rule of law in Northern Ireland. Of those, well over 700 were murdered, and thousands more suffered life-changing injuries, at the hands of both republican and so-called loyalist terrorists. If we include the UDR and the RUC GC, as the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), the leader of the DUP, rightly said, the total comes to more than 1,400 dead. The previous Conservative Government introduced the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 to try to assist the community in Northern Ireland to move on from the difficult history of the troubles and to provide protection for many of those veterans from an endless cycle of investigation and reinvestigation, often inspired by Sinn Féin. The Labour party’s election manifesto stated their intention to repeal that Act in favour of new legislation, although no such legislation has been forthcoming, even in draft form. Labour has even sought to claim that the legacy Act somehow protected alleged IRA terrorists from prosecution, when it was the Blair Government that famously handed hundreds of such men letters of comfort so that they could not be prosecuted anyway—and, even if they were, they would only get a maximum of two years, even for murder, as brilliantly pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis). Pending new legislation, the Government have produced a so-called remedial order under the auspices of the Human Rights Act 1998. By this method, they seek to remove some provisions of the legacy Act that, they state, have been found in the lower courts to be incompatible with the 1998 Act—even though the incoming Government could have appealed to the UK Supreme Court but, seemingly deliberately, did not. The net effect of that remedial order is twofold. First, it would allow the conveyor belt of coronial inquests in Northern Ireland to resume, a number of which have led to verdicts against the soldiers—at Clonoe, for instance—

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36. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

    No. My right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) brilliantly highlighted Clonoe in his very moving speech. The remedial order would also remove the clauses in the legacy Act that currently prevent Gerry Adams and several hundred of his associates from attempting to sue the British Government, and thus the taxpayer, for compensation. At Prime Minister’s questions on 15 January, the Prime Minister faithfully made this promise: “We are working on a draft remedial order and replacement legislation, and we will look at every conceivable way to prevent these types of cases from claiming damages—it is important that I say that on the record.—[Official Report, 15 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 324.] Nevertheless, the remedial order, pushed through the Joint Committee on Human Rights barely a month later with Labour and, I am sad to say, Liberal votes, remained unchanged, and still does. These proposals have evoked considerable concern, not least from the Royal British Legion, which stated in its briefing note: “The Royal British Legion calls for the Government to urgently provide clarity and their intent regarding the process of legacy prosecution. We believe that the anxiety and uncertainty created by the current situation is unfair and is having a substantial negative impact on veterans and their families.” I cannot speak for the Royal British Legion—but, having met the organisation recently, were the Government to proceed with this ill-advised course so obviously injurious to veterans, I cannot foresee the legion standing idly by. Moreover, the three Veterans Commissioners for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who are neither ill-informed nor naive, recently issued a powerful joint statement that “we stand united in our firm support of the motion to be debated in Westminster on 14 July…we are deeply concerned by the prospect of retrospective legal action being taken against veterans who were carrying out their lawful duties, often under immense pressure and threat.” Incidentally, the Government have been dragging their feet for months on their absolute promise to create an English Veterans Commissioner, and we now know why. Indeed, we now understand that the British Government and their counterparts in the Irish Republic have been negotiating some form of sordid backstairs deal, part of which, we fear, will lead to further attempted prosecutions of veterans while assisting Gerry Adams in return. This form of Government-sanctioned lawfare is self-evidently a case of two-tier justice at its worst, and that is why we on the Opposition Benches are utterly against it. Will the Secretary of State therefore provide absolute clarity on whether the Government still intend to proceed with a remedial order, which would likely result in a high-stakes vote this autumn, or whether they now intend to go straight to primary legislation instead? Our veterans, who unlike the provisionals never received letters of comfort from the Blair Government, and many of whom now effectively have a sword of Damocles hanging over them yet again, deserve a straight answer from the Secretary of State this afternoon. In addition to the powerful moral argument against this misguided policy, as made by many of my hon. Friends and others today, there is also its potential adverse effect on recruitment and retention.

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37. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

    No. Who would wish to serve a Government—

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38. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

    Later.

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39. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

    Who would wish to serve a Government who may ask them to risk their life fighting for the state, only to be prosecuted in a courtroom half a century later? As General Lord Dannatt, a highly respected former Chief of the General Staff, put it so well: “Why would any sensible young person think of putting on the Queen’s uniform if they thought they could be tapped on the shoulder years after an operation and questioned over false allegations?” The Secretary of State will already be aware from his colleagues in the MOD, some of whom have a distinguished special forces background, that this process is having an adverse effect on morale in the special forces community, and in the Army more widely. It would be an act of sheer folly, and aid to our enemies, to continue with this act of military self-harm so that, put bluntly, even fewer people will join the Army and even more will leave. This is therefore not just morally but operationally mad, and a gift to our adversaries to boot.

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40. 14 Jul 2025·Parliament·Mr Mark Francois

    Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

    I will answer the hon. Gentleman on recruitment. If it had not been for the brave men sitting in the Public Gallery, there would be no Good Friday agreement. Thank God they joined up and had the courage to serve. I say to the Secretary of State, in all candour, that what he is doing is wrong. Many of the soldiers who served bravely in Northern Ireland were recruited from so-called red wall seats, from Blackburn to Bury and from Bolton to Burnley, and they served in proud regiments in Northern Ireland to uphold the rule of law. Surely the Secretary of State will not try to dragoon Labour MPs through the Division Lobby to throw veterans to the wolves while doing Gerry Adams a favour. The events of the past fortnight show that Labour Back Benchers can no longer be taken for granted—and surely not on this. How could they possibly go back to their constituencies and look local veterans and their descendants in the eye after voting for such a pernicious proposal? Perhaps I can conclude with a poem. It is by Rudyard Kipling, and is called “Tommy”, about the ordinary British soldier and the ingratitude of his country after he had fought for it in war. Perhaps the Secretary of State will recognise the final stanza: “For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!” But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot; An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please; An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees!” Secretary of State, these brave men fought against the IRA, one of the most ruthless and vicious terrorist organisations the world has ever seen. They did their duty to their country. They defended us. Do not aid and abet their former mortal enemy. Let these brave men live out their lives in peace.

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