Lincoln Jopp

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1. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Topical Questions

   West Surrey unitary authority wrote to the Secretary of State asking her to change the name of that authority to West Surrey and South Middlesex—a move that I thoroughly support. The local government Minister wrote back to them and said, “It’s nothing to do with me; just change your name yourself.” Will the Minister confirm what his spokesman said to the BBC, which was that, “West Surrey Council has the power to change its own name to include Middlesex if it chooses to do so, and we’ve set this out in a letter to them”?

   Hansard source
2. 28 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   The Global Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Sanctions Regulations 2026

   The Minister said the purpose of sanctions was to deter, disrupt and demonstrate. Would he like to give the Committee the two best examples he has come across of who the parties were and what they were deterred from doing, and who the parties were and what they were disrupted from doing?

   Hansard source
3. 27 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   UK Nationals Detained Abroad

   When President Trump met Xi Jinping last month, the US President raised with the Chairman the case of imprisoned British citizen Jimmy Lai. Has the Minister had a readout from that conversation, and what can he tell us about his own efforts to bring about Jimmy Lai’s release?

   Hansard source
4. 19 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   National Resilience

   When this issue came up in the Defence Committee last week, the Secretary of State said that the national conversation should leave the public “alert but not alarmed.” I personally think the public need to be a bit more alarmed, so I was reassured when the excellent General Sir Roly Walker said last week that “very soon, the political leaders of this country will start to have a frank conversation with the citizens of this country about just what is going on, and where the risk lies,”.<span id="751" class="column-number" data-column-number="751"></span> When the Secretary of State starts that conversation, will he make it as cross-party as possible? It is important that this House sends a strong message to the country about the threats we face.

   Hansard source
5. 19 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

   The Secretary of State is being very generous with his time. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) asked a very specific question about the Loughgall inquest and whether any of this paperwork and legislation will stop it from going ahead. Last Tuesday, in the Defence Committee, I asked the Secretary of State for Defence that question and he gave me a pretty definitive answer, so I am intrigued to hear the answer of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

   Hansard source
6. 19 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

   I must start by declaring an interest: this legislation would affect me, because I did four tours of Northern Ireland, serving in the Scots Guards. The first was in Belfast in 1992. We lost Guardsman Damian Shackleton—murdered by the IRA. We lost Guardsman Andrew Wason—murdered by the IRA. We also had two guardsmen who were subsequently convicted in a Diplock court for murder and given life sentences for a judgmental shooting situation in north Belfast. On that tour, as a platoon commander, I remember being at a pig point just outside the Divis flats—basically, a vehicle control point, stopping ingress to and egress from the city centre. My road man, who was the guy who stopped the people at the checkpoint, called over to me. He had his hand on the driver’s shoulder. He said, “Say to the platoon commander what you’ve just said to me.” This guy looked me in the eye and said, “I’ve got a bomb in the back of this vehicle.” Now, fortunately, I knew that he was lying, but the drill at the time was that you grabbed a hold of this witness, took him out of the car and did not let go until the bomb disposal people turned up, because they needed to question them to find out what the situation was and how long the vehicle had been taken away to get the bomb in the back of it. The IRA’s tactics at the time were all designed not only to kill and maim, but to put the British forces and the police on the horns of a series of dilemmas to make their job incredibly difficult. On my second tour, I was an operations officer in east Tyrone, on a tour that spanned the ceasefire. Right up until midnight on the day the ceasefire kicked in, the IRA was trying to mortar, bomb and murder our people in RUC Pomeroy. I was then a company commander, accompanied by my wife and children, and we were based out of Ballykinler. We would go away for five weeks at a time, predominantly to south Armagh and Portadown, particularly Drumcree. My last job was for two years as a policy officer in Headquarters Northern Ireland in Lisburn.<span id="861" class="column-number" data-column-number="861"></span> Through that progression, the challenges I faced and the insights I gleaned were very different. By the time I got to the top—John Reid was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the time—we were doing the demilitarisation of south Armagh and the Golf towers. There was the Downing Street declaration. I asked my boss, who was a brilliant civil servant, “Who won?” He did actually answer that question, but the answer he gave me is probably not something that would help our debate today. Suffice it to say that the Good Friday agreement left that out there as a question—who won? That was necessary; it was a peace agreement. It was very important not to rub people’s noses in it—that one side had very clearly won and another side had very clearly lost. Because of that grey area, people subsequently have sought to use various ways of answering that question not just to relitigate the case, but to rewrite history. I particularly remember an instance when Stormont had to be recalled to debate the colour of flowers. It was Easter recess, and someone had put some flowers in the lobby at Stormont. Everyone had to be recalled to debate the colour of the flowers. That sounds absurd but, of course, the colour of those flowers was an answer to the question, “Who won?” The trouble is that our considerations today are not as apparently innocuous as the colour of flowers. Our debate is about the way in which those four guardsmen I mentioned went to Northern Ireland, received orders and had rifles strapped around their necks. They were given very few powers additional to those of a private citizen. They were told to go out into the streets of the United Kingdom and protect the police while people tried to kill them. It is in that context that I see the Bill and the amendments that have been tabled. What we are witnessing is an extension of the troubles by other means. The Secretary of State, I think in good faith, has been attempting to bring various parties together and ensure that this legislation has—I think this was the phrase of the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn)—the confidence of all parties. The trouble is that it does not. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), various veterans’ organisations have said that they do not have confidence in this legislation or the amendments to it. The former Secretary of State said that “if we wait for the perfect, we will never do this.” Well, I do not want perfect, but I do want something that protects our veterans from the rinse and repeat. This is not it, as the Secretary of State well knows. I introduced a private Member’s Bill that said there should be no new investigations, inquiries, inquests or prosecutions unless there was new compelling evidence in the eyes of a Supreme Court judge. The Government successfully talked that out, so our Front Benchers have brought forward new clause 21, which essentially re-presents it. I wish that the Government had taken me up on the offer, and simply had it as one of their amendments. This is the crucial amendment that has the support of all the veterans organisations—because they wrote it. That is how I know they support new clause 21. The word “essential”, which has been substituted for “new and compelling”, does not do it for me, because I heard the Secretary of State on the radio this <span id="862" class="column-number" data-column-number="862"></span>morning, saying, “‘Essential’ to my mind means completely new evidence or a new forensic procedure,” but that is the Secretary of State’s interpretation of it. Who is to say how this non-legalese word “essential” will be interpreted in the future? There are just far too many cracks in the pavement into which our service personnel could again fall and be rinsed and repeated. The fact is that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has admitted that the Bill does nothing to stop the Loughgall inquest going ahead. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Defence confirmed that when he came in front of the Defence Committee last week. I asked him whether anything in the amendments trumped the requirement under the framework for Loughgall to go ahead, or whether the inquests would automatically be restarted. I asked, “will the interpretation of ‘essential’ be, ‘Well yes, because we have committed to it in the framework’?” The Secretary of State for Defence said, “In terms of those particular inquests, there is just not a way of circumventing that particular issue that is consistent with our treaty obligations. With the amendments we have laid, we have got to a place where it deals with some of the fundamental concerns that I as a Member of Parliament, let alone colleagues, had.” So both Secretaries of State admit that these amendments will not stop that inquest going ahead. The combination of veterans’ groups not supporting the Bill and the fact that, by their own admission, the Government cannot get round what they have already given away in terms of those inquests means that I cannot support the Bill, and I will be supporting new clause 21.

   Hansard source
7. 19 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

   Funnily enough, I have not actually approached the Supreme Court, but that is the sort of thing the Secretary of State should have been doing, because that is what the veterans told him would be a sufficiently high bar for them to have confidence in this legislation. Hon. Members across the Committee are being asked to vote tonight. I was going to ask the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) whether, when he was considering all the people affected by this legislation, he thought that the 1,572 veterans in his constituency just do not matter. All hon. Members have veterans who live in their—

   Hansard source
8. 19 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

   I do not think it is a poor point, because we all have to make judgments in this place and to vote with our conscience.

   Hansard source
9. 19 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

   Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

   I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She is right, of course, that there is not one homogeneous group, but the closest we can approximate to that is the veterans’ organisations that have come together and spoken with one voice, saying that they do not think there are sufficient protections in the Bill for them not to suffer the rinse and repeat. For that reason, I will be supporting new clause 21.

   Hansard source
10. 16 Oct 2026·Parliament·Lincoln Jopp

    Heritage Public Houses Bill

    On the subject of custard pies, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    Hansard source