"Would the noble Lord agree that it would perhaps be better if HMG waited until the devolved Assembly and Executive got going again before a final decision is made?..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"In congratulating the new Secretary of State, may I ask him what he plans to do about stopping the relentless hounding of Army and police veterans in respect of alleged historical crimes when most of the evidence has disappeared? What is he going to do about it?..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"Is it not ironic that throughout the whole Brexit process we have been bending over backwards to treat Northern Ireland the same as the rest of the UK, and we are now about to treat Northern Ireland differently? I understand the sensitivities of the Good Friday agreement and the Stormont …..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that roughly 300 Northern Ireland veterans are fearful of the knock on the door. All the allegations were investigated fully at the time. What is worse is that under the PSNI inquiry they were reinvestigated about four years ago and most …..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"It is a great honour to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), who made an extremely moving speech.
I plan to be brief, but I first want to thank the Secretary of State for Defence, who, in reply to my Question 1 this …..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"My right hon. Friend is 100% right on that point, but we hope very much that there will not be any prosecutions in the future, or any further arrests.
The key point is that our security forces, as has been pointed out, served in Northern Ireland with the utmost professionalism …..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"I thank my right hon. Friend—I will call him a Friend—who makes an incredibly important point. At that dinner, a number of former members of the Royal Anglian Regiment made the point that they were trying to encourage and recruit young people. Can they really do that when those people …..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"As part of the security review, will the Minister look at the case of Dennis Hutchings and other veterans, who have been hounded and charged in respect of alleged shootings nearly 50 years ago? There is no new evidence, so surely the time has come to restore humanity and natural …..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech
"Soldiers were of course subject to the rule of law, including, notably, the sergeant and platoon commander in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who were charged with the murder of two civil rights campaigners, Michael Naan and Andrew Murray, in 1981 and convicted. Many were investigated and some were actually …..." Lord Bellingham - View Speech