Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill

Second Reading

14:13:00

Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am grateful to the sponsors of this snappily-titled Bill, who are the deputy Leader of the Opposition, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart); the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge); the shadow Justice Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy); the shadow Housing Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam); the shadow Minister for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois); my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) and for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst); the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Devon (Ian Roome); and last but definitely not least, because he has been such a massive advocate and supporter of this, my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis).

Members will know that one of those sponsors is a Liberal Democrat and another is a Democratic Unionist party Member. I did try very hard to get a Labour Member to sponsor the Bill, but to no avail, and I am very sad about that. Equally, I notice that we do not have here any Members of the self-styled patriots, the Reform party. They do not even have a defence spokesman. I suspect, though, having watched the television last night, that they will have quite a few defence lawyers!

I would like to apologise to the hundreds of people across the country who have written to their MP at my request, asking them to be here today and to support the Bill; I am incredibly sorry that the Government so disliked the Bill that we have had four and three quarter hours of the House in fervent agreement with itself, albeit on a very important issue, which means that I get 15 minutes at the end. This is a tactic. I feel very sorry for those veterans sitting in the Public Gallery, who have been here since 9.30 this morning expecting to hear a debate in support of our veterans. They will be as confused as I am as to why the Government so dislike this Bill.

The reason I am quite so discombobulated is that the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who thought this issue was sufficiently important to make it a resigning issue, has sadly not thought it sufficiently important to be here today. He said that the Government’s Northern Ireland legacy Bill is not fit for purpose and that

“It risks failing the very veterans it claims to protect…people who did their duty under conditions most individuals in Westminster will never have to imagine.”

The good news is that I do not have to imagine. I declare an interest: this Bill would affect me, because I did four tours of Northern Ireland. I spent three and a half years of my life trying to bring peace to that place.

What I will do, because I am incredibly time constrained, is this. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway is under orders that at 28 minutes past the hour, he will make a discreet tug on my jacket and that at 29 minutes past he will positively yank me to the Bench in order that the Bill does not fall.

The Bill is very simple. In a nutshell, it would place into law that there could be no further investigations, inquiries, inquests or prosecutions of Northern Ireland veterans unless and until there was new compelling evidence in the view of a Supreme Court judge. It is really that simple. The Clerks have done all the hard work on the wording, as have the generals and the veterans’ community to bring forward the Bill today.

The Government are promising us that they will bring forward protections for our veterans via amendments. Now, given that this Bill will not really progress today, maybe the Minister would consider taking the Bill, lock, stock and barrel, and simply re-presenting it to the House as one of the Government’s amendments to its own Bill, because I think it is completely reasonable. I cannot remember which US President said it, but it is amazing what you can achieve when no one is worried about who gets the credit. I do not mind whether the Government want to take credit for this. I would be the happiest veteran in the country if they simply took my Bill and made it one of their amendments.

I know the Minister for Veterans and People well, having served on the Defence Committee, and that is my entreaty to him. The reason why— [ Interruption. ] I do beg the pardon of the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen); I made the unreasonable assumption that it might be a Defence Minister replying to the debate. I have outlined, in a nutshell, what the Bill does and why it is important.

When I was getting ready for my first Northern Ireland tour, we were training, and they had invented a thing called the coffee jar bomb. It was lethal. It was a Nescafé jar with a length of scaffolding in it and what was affectionately known as “shipyard confetti”—nuts and bolts—as well as some plastic explosives and a plunger switch, which is the sort of thing in a fridge door that turns a fridge light off. That would be rigged up, in the shape of a coffee jar. It would then be carried to a riot and often slung over a wall, so that there was no line of sight, when troops were known to be on the other side.

The coffee jar bomb was designed to kill and maim, but it was also designed to put us troops on the horns of a dilemma. If a soldier saw someone with a coffee jar in their hand, and they looked like they were going to throw it, could that soldier reasonably open fire under the rules of engagement? It could just be a coffee jar.

To prepare for our upcoming Northern Ireland tour in Belfast in 1992—by the way, there was a young second lieutenant called Ben Wallace in the same battalion getting ready at that time—we would have our judgmental shooting tested on a thing called a cine range. In the cine range, we would lie on the floor with our sub-cal rifle in our hand, and a scenario would build up in front of us, whether it was a public order situation or a sniper getting ready to shoot. We knew the rules of engagement and we could see the scenario building up. At the critical moment, when the soldier thought that the threat required it and the rules of engagement allowed it, they opened fire and the action froze, and a tiny pink dot would appear on the screen to see whether they had hit or not. The instructor would then debrief the soldier as to whether they had acted reasonably or could in fact be prosecuted.

One scenario was devilishly difficult. It was a public order scene, with one of these coffee jars was being passed around. At the point of launch, I said to the instructor, “Stop the tape.” The action froze, and I said, “Can I open fire?” My instructor paused, and he said, “Sir, you have chosen a very difficult moment indeed. It is at times like this, sir, that you remind yourself that it is sometimes better to be tried by 12 men than carried by six.”

It was completely chilling, but that is, in effect, what we have done for decades; we have put young men and women on to the streets of the United Kingdom with a rifle strapped around their neck and very few rights in addition to those they have as a private citizen. We have sent them on patrol to try to keep the peace, with bad people on all sides trying to do bad things to them. On that Northern Ireland tour, I had the words of my colour sergeant ringing in my ears—it is better to be tried by 12 men than carried by six—but it turned out not to be true. It turns out that you get tried by one man, in the case of two of our guardsmen who were involved in a judgmental shooting situation; they were convicted of murder and given life.

I raise that to make the point that these cases have been investigated and judgments have been made. What I am seeking to do with this Bill, and hopefully with the Government’s amendment, is to draw a line—a fair line—under the never-ending cycle of investigation, inquiries, inquests and prosecutions that is itself used as a punishment tool on our veterans. Ask any veteran involved in this space, and they will tell you that the process is the punishment.

Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)In essence, what my hon. Friend is doing, very ably, is to try to defend those who defended us. May I place on the record that, in that noble aim, from the Conservative Benches he has our wholehearted and undivided support?

Lincoln JoppI am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know that there is support on the Government Benches as well—I just could not find it when I went out to get sponsors. There are many veterans on the Government Benches, and on the Liberal Democrat Benches, and there is a lot of support for this measure in the country. I hope that the Government will listen to that body of feeling.

Why does the Bill matter, and why should it get the support of the House? It matters because of a very important thing, which is called the moral component of fighting power. The British believe in a model in which there are three components: the physical, which is the guns and the bullets; the conceptual, which is the way in which we fight; and the moral, which is how we fight, why we are prepared to put yourselves at risk for the British citizenry—the man and woman standing next to us—and that we will do our best to achieve our mission, and potentially pay the ultimate sacrifice. The moral component is more important than all the other things. Napoleon, who was a great believer in the model, observed that the moral is to the physical as three is to one. We undermine the moral component of fighting power at our peril. This gave me no joy: someone sent me a meme, which was a real photograph of the former Prime Minister—it was not mocked up—addressing a load of troops who were getting ready to deploy, and the caption said, “We want you to go to Ukraine, where we will ask you to do things we’re going to prosecute you for in 30 years’ time.”

Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)May I first thank the hon. Member for his service in Northern Ireland, and extend those thanks to the thousands of servicemen who came to my part of the United Kingdom to defend democracy and to defend us all from terrorist forces? He mentions moral issues. Is not the greatest flaw in the Government’s Bill the moral equivalence that it creates between the terrorist who wakens up determined to kill and the law and order agent who wakens up determined to defend people from being killed?

Lincoln JoppThere is no moral equivalence in my book between men and women who served their nation in good faith and did a difficult job in a deadly environment, and what the terrorists did. It is worth pointing out, if any hon. Members are feeling queasy about my Bill, that one thing it is not is an amnesty. No one is looking for a free pass here. If, in the view of a Supreme Court judge, there is new, compelling evidence, by all means those cases should be reopened. But we cannot allow this never-ending not-so-merry-go-round of prosecution and investigation of our people to continue.

The trouble is, in Northern Ireland everything is totemic. Because the Good Friday agreement was a peace agreement, it deliberately did not answer the question, “Who won?” So, as an extension of the troubles by other means, this is becoming part of the answer to that question. The more people that can prosecute our troops, the more they seem to have answered that question. We must bring an end to it. I commend the Bill to the House.

14:29:00

Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)I thank the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) for the wonderful way in which he has introduced the Bill today and given us the opportunity to have this conversation. Like many hon. Members, I approach this debate with some significant degree of hesitation because of the weight of the issues we are discussing—the legacy of the troubles is one of those issues where every right hon. and hon. Member must begin with a significant degree of caution. We are discussing events that scarred communities, took thousands of lives, and left behind serious grief. There are families who still do not know the full circumstances of how their loved ones were killed. There are—

14:30:00

The debate stood adjourned (Standing Order No. 11(2)).

Ordered, That the debate be resumed on Friday 11 September.