Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Could the Secretary of State set out in greater detail for us what the word “essential” will mean in law?

[Chris Bryant]

As the hon. Member will know, the word used in the legacy Act is “necessary”, which is a much lower bar. “Essential” is traditionally a higher bar, and it is used in lots of legal judgments already. The kind of thing we are talking about is where there is a new forensic process that was not available 30 years ago—for instance, we might be able to examine a fingerprint on a piece of shrapnel much more effectively today than we could previously—or where there is literally a new piece of information, and it is essential to be able to conduct the work of the organisation.

Secondly, there is a new provision that the legacy commission must obtain and review any information it needs from the state itself before it considers whether to request an individual to come as a witness.

Thirdly, there is another new provision that the legacy commission must not request information from a witness unless it has considered whether compelling new evidence exists or the likelihood of a witness being able to provide new information.

Fourthly, the legislation will put the protection from cold calling into law and strengthen the provision for remote attendance, ensuring it applies to all aspects of the commission’s work.

Fifthly, prosecutions in troubles-related cases are rare— I expect them to be rare— but to provide greater assurance and confidence in decisions to prosecute, any future prosecutions of serious troubles-related offences will require the consent of the Attorney General acting quasi-judicially. That will apply regardless of whether the offence relates to state or non-state actors. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), who I know was committed to making this change both inside and outside of Government, and who rightly pointed out that there is precedence for this approach and it in no way changes the thresholds required to proceed with the prosecution or the prosectors’ independence in considering the evidence before them.

I have also tabled a number of amendments in relation to the legacy commission’s victims and survivors advisory group, providing clarity that former paramilitaries cannot be appointed to the group and that former service personnel, many of whom are also victims, must be represented.

The legacy Act’s immunity scheme was previously being repealed from statute via a remedial order. To enable Parliament to consider the changes we are making in the round, we will now repeal it through the Bill. This addresses the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, to whom I am grateful.

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[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his comments and the briefing that his team gave mine at the start of this week. At the outset, I want to acknowledge that he and his team have worked hard to try to make improvements to this Bill. I am afraid, however, that the Bill is a mess. That mess is attested to by the fact that we are still debating it when it was introduced a year ago tomorrow and we have yet to breach Committee of the whole House. The mess is attested to by the fact that we are debating a carry-over motion for the second time. It is attested to by the fact that the Government told us in April that they were going to submit their amendments after six months of delay, but published them only yesterday after another six months. We have 144 Government amendments making up a pack of about 300 amendments over 119 pages. This is a mess in the process of becoming a bigger mess.

The Secretary of State has been handed this mess. I know it is not of his making, but he has been given the unenviable task of fixing it. Yet this Bill cannot be fixed, because the fundamentals are wrong. However much one scrubs off some of the worst corners and the worst excesses, the fundamentals are still there. Next week, we will have a chance to debate this legislation and its many amendments, but the amount of time set aside is wholly unequal to the task. For reasons I cannot understand, the Government have effectively denied the House the Report stage. Only an hour has been set aside for Report, and it is inevitable that the Committee of the whole House will eat that away entirely. As a Back Bencher, the Secretary of State was a defender of this House’s role in scrutiny. It is upsetting that we will not be able to give this Bill proper treatment in the Commons and that it will only get proper scrutiny in the Lords. That, though, is only a minor quibble in the face of the problems in the Bill itself.

In simple terms, we cannot support this legislation because it reopens the door to vexatious litigation against those who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles. In the long time in which this Bill has been in the Table Office, a number of cases have come to public attention that illustrate both the problem that requires fixing and the inadequacy of the Government’s response. In November last year, we debated the findings in the case against soldier F from Bloody Sunday.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

Soldier F was found not guilty after the longest and most detailed inquiry in British legal history. Judge Patrick Lynch told Belfast Crown court that even after such an investigation, the evidence fell well short of the standard required.

[Colum Eastwood]

Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?

[Alex Burghart]

The judge said:

“A 53 year old statement cannot be cross examined”—

[Colum Eastwood]

I bet he will not give way.

[Alex Burghart]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I will finish my sentence.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Why did you not say that?

[Alex Burghart]

Because I was in the middle of speaking. The judge said:

“A 53 year old statement cannot be cross examined, nor can I assess the demeanour of a sheet of A4 paper.”

It is becoming vanishingly difficult to get convictions.

[Colum Eastwood]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for giving way, but I would also be grateful if he actually mentioned a victim in his speech. We are three minutes in, and there has not been one mention. He talks about soldier F, who murdered lots of people on Bloody Sunday along with his colleagues. They were unarmed people, as proven by a British Prime Minister-appointed court of tribunal, and as understood, recognised and supported by a Tory Prime Minister. Will he mention some of the victims of soldier F or some of the other victims that we should be talking about tonight, instead of people who were willingly and openly going into streets and shooting people down who did not have a gun in their hand? That is what happened.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman, if he had waited a moment, would have heard me talk about the victims. The victims, who suffered so much, are being given the promise of convictions that will never come. Even when we have the most detailed inquiry in British legal history, no conviction comes, yet this House is now expected to believe that the legislation before us will open the road to all these convictions. It will not happen. It is a promise that will not be fulfilled, but that does not mean that soldiers who did nothing but their duty will not be pulled through the courts time and time again.

In February last year, this House debated the terrible ruling in the Clonoe case from 1992. On that occasion, four men—known terrorists—armed with semi-automatic weapons and a Dushka machine gun attacked an RUC police station and then moved on to commit further crimes. They called themselves an army. They carried weapons of war, they sought to kill and they operated entirely outside the bounds of the law, and yet we were asked to believe that the use of lethal force against them was not justified. The men will now be subject to unjust and unfair scrutiny of the decisions that they had to make in exceptionally difficult circumstances, decades ago.

The case of soldier B, a former SAS officer, has been raised repeatedly in the House. In 2024 a coroner ruled that he had been justified in using lethal force in Coagh in 1991. Then, in 2025, the case was taken to the High Court in Belfast, where it was thrown out by a judge who described it as “ludicrous” and said that it should never have come to court. Despite that, in April this year the case went to the Court of Appeal, where it was again thrown out. Last month an attempt was mounted to take it to the Supreme Court, and that attempt is ongoing. Soldier B has been dragged through the courts for five and a half years, when the legal system in this country admits that the case against him is ludicrous.

[Chris Bryant]

I would just gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that all that is under his legislation.

[Alex Burghart]

I am giving the Secretary of State an example of the things that will not be stopped by his legislation. This will continue. The Bill does not solve the problem.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Sarah Owen)]

Your problem.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady says that it is our problem. Our legislation drew a line in the sand which meant that things like that would never happen again. That case had already started, and if the hon. Lady were familiar with the legacy Act, she would know where the line in the sand was drawn.

[The Minister for Veterans and People (Mr Calvin Bailey)]

I just want some clarification on whether the problem that you state is access to the Supreme Court.

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[Alex Burghart]

I was not patronising the Under-Secretary of State—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. May I remind Members that debate in this Chamber occurs through the Chair? I will not have Members yelling at each other in an unseemly way across those Dispatch Boxes.

[Alex Burghart]

My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was pointing out to the hon. Lady and the Minister for Veterans and People exactly the sort of problems that the legacy Act was designed to solve. There was obviously a cut-off point—[Interruption.] As I am sure the hon. Members know, the legacy Act had a cut-off point, and cases that had already started were not caught by that. I am giving an example of similar cases that will now come about because of their legislation.

As Philip Barden KC wrote in The Spectator this week, the Government’s attempts to solve this issue, and the Government's proposed protections, are wholly inadequate to the task. They fail on their own test, because the Bill and the Government’s amendments “will permit repeat investigations.” Earlier, the Secretary of State raised the use of the word “essential”, and talked about new evidence. As Philip Barden pointed out,

“Any lawyer worth their salt can find new evidence.”

This might sound like a high bar, but it is an extremely low bar.

All the while—throughout the year and more in which we have been dealing with this legislation—the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, set up by the legacy Act, has been doing its work. A few weeks ago, ICRIR published its first report, which laid out the details of Mr Rory O’Kelly’s murder by the IRA in 1977. That was an information-recovery exercise which concluded that no perpetrators were ever likely to be identified, but it still provided answers to questions that have haunted Mr O’Kelly’s family for half a century. His daughter described, in extremely moving terms, how the report had moved the family into a

“space of serenity and light, all anger taken away”.

Yet just as ICRIR has started working as intended, the Government are to reprogramme it into what two generals have described today as essentially a criminal investigations body, charged with collecting evidence to a criminal standard, although we know that the chance of prosecutions is incredibly unlikely. Those who work in ICRIR are desperately concerned that that will lead to a massive increase in their workload, with no increase in funding, and that it will inevitably mean long delays and distraction from the core information-recovery exercise, which was intended to be their central function. Those on the Government Benches may not want to take from me the case that I am making against this Bill, and I understand that, but they should take it from the retired generals and soldiers who have repeatedly spoken out.

[Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking a lot about veterans and the roles of those veterans. My concern is for my constituents who served but never got to be veterans because they did not survive their service in Northern Ireland. What those families want is the truth, and they want a truth that is undebatable. Does he not recognise that we should be talking about the victims and the survivors, rather than trying to make this a false dichotomy? There is more than one level or tier of victim.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady speaks powerfully on this point, and she is absolutely right to say that many victims were people who served. I was talking about the way in which ICRIR works and is now being seen to work. Regardless of who was killed, it can be used by victims’ families in order to assist in the information-recovery process, and one of the advantages of ICRIR is that it is a non-adversarial system that has already started to enable families to find out things they did not know before. The hon. Lady is absolutely right: that process is very valuable, which is why it was put in the legacy Act by the previous Government.

I hope that Labour Members, and anybody in the House who is thinking of supporting the continuation of this legislation, will listen to the two retired generals who wrote today that the Government should stop pretending that their amendments offer veterans meaningful protections. The consequence of continuing down this route will be that some men who served decades ago, like soldier B—not soldier B himself, but men like him—will spend years in the jaws of vexatious litigation, that victims will not receive the justice that they are being promised by this legislation, and that many more veterans will continue to live with the nagging sense that those using lawfare may come for them. They are already being punished by the idea of this legislation.

[Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that his party’s legacy Act actually gave no protection whatsoever to veterans’ families because it was found to be unlawful? He has therefore let those families down.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady will know that her Government, when they came in, did not appeal against that case. We have a human rights framework that is wholly inadequate for dealing with cases from decades ago, and it is clear that the current Government would rather protect that framework than protect people from that period.

The failings of this Bill, should it be passed, will be quickly seen and long felt. The House has the power to stop it tonight. If we do not and the Government persist, the next Conservative Administration will repeal it and once again draw a line under the troubles.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

Drumcree

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and for his call over the weekend. I do not envy him the position in which he has been placed in these past few weeks.

The scenes that we have witnessed on the streets of Drumcree are all too reminiscent of previous times—times that we had all hoped were past, and times that we must still hope are past. The willingness of communities nearly 30 years ago to submit to independent adjudication processes was one of the pillars of the peace. It is consequently at best irresponsible and at worst dangerous for people to ignore those processes when they do not go their way. Further, it is inexcusable for anyone, but particularly politicians, to decide that they will only obey the law when it suits them. That is the road to a very dark place.

As the Secretary of State has set out, the planned march was legal, subject to the detailed restrictions placed upon it by the Parades Commission. It follows that under section 14 of the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, those who prevented this lawful march would seem to have broken the law. The stand-off that they caused ultimately led to Chief Constable Boutcher asking the Secretary of State to review the Parades Commission’s determination and stop the march.

The Chief Constable said that facilitating it would have

“required a substantial public order intervention that was not assessed to be proportionate, and which would have carried an unacceptable risk of serious injury, disorder and a wider contagion effect across Northern Ireland.”

I hope that the Secretary of State can be clear with the House about what is behind this statement and what the nature of that risk was. Was the Secretary of State at any stage made aware of a possibility of terrorism? Was he at any stage made aware that firearms or explosives were likely to be deployed? I very much hope he was not, but the House should know.

I know that the Secretary of State was placed in a desperately invidious position, but the consequence of the march not going ahead is that those who have broken the law have won. The consequence is that those who threaten the

“serious injury, disorder and wider contagion”,

of which the Chief Constable warned, have won. Unless remedy is made, the message being sent to Northern Ireland is that people can pick and choose which laws they obey, and that those who threaten violence and disorder will get their way. I know that that is not what the Secretary of State wants, but he needs to tell the House what he intends to do to prevent that terrible message being the legacy of these past few weeks. I know that it is not for him to determine how the police exercise their duties following this incident, but I hope he can tell the House how the Government now intend to prevent the law from being openly flouted again and again and again.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for the tone in which the shadow Secretary of State has entered the conversation and for him taking my call over the weekend. We have not faced each other across the Dispatch Box as Secretary of State and shadow Secretary of State until today, and I hope that we can work co-operatively together.

To those who flouted the law and to those who are considering doing so again, I say nobody is above the law: you will face the consequences of your actions. To those who have co-operated with the police, I say an enormous, “Thank you.” To those who are considering ending co-operation with the police, I say please, please, please think again.

The hon. Gentleman asks me specifically about the advice that I have received and quotes in precise terms the words that I was given by the Chief Constable. I have publicly set out the advice that I received, which said that facilitating the procession would require a major police intervention carrying unacceptable risks, as the hon. Gentleman said. He will understand that I will not comment on specific intelligence that I did or did not receive, for obvious reasons, but in the end I am accountable for the decision that I made. It was my responsibility to weigh the police advice and the consequences of proceeding, which is precisely what I did.

The hon. Gentleman asks how we will ensure that we build respect for the rule of law. That is a matter for all communities into the future. He also made a point about politicians. I will point out that we politicians have a particular responsibility to abide by not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. Schedule 4 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires Ministers to pledge

“to uphold the rule of law based as it is on the fundamental principles of fairness, impartiality and democratic accountability, including support for policing and the courts”.

Those should not just be words that are spoken for one moment; they should be things that we embody in everything we do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

If the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill was any of those things, why did the former Armed Forces Minister, when he resigned last month, say that it remains

“remains unfit for purpose. It risks failing the very veterans it claims to protect”?

Why does the Secretary of State think that the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) said that?

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) will have to answer that question, but, with respect, I disagree with him. He worked on the package of amendments during his time as a Defence Minister. In the end, we have to strike a balance, as the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) is well aware. When people see those amendments, they will realise that they are fair and reasonable with regard to the protection of our veterans. Crucially, they will put into legislation for the first time protections that were not in the Act passed in 2023.

[Alex Burghart]

It is clear from the Secretary of State’s answer that the former Armed Forces Minister quit because he could see that the Bill remains unfit for purpose and fails to protect the very veterans that it claims to protect. The Secretary of State must realise that there is no cross-party support in Northern Ireland for his legislation, and nor is there support in the Labour party for his legislation. Will he now accept that the Bill should not progress and that we should return to the legislation that the Conservatives brought forward?

[Hilary Benn]

I do not accept that, because all the Northern Ireland political parties were opposed to the immunity that was at the heart of the 2023 legacy Act. It had no support from political parties in Northern Ireland or from victims and survivors’ organisations. That is why these changes have to be made, and that is why the Government will proceed with this Bill.

Northern Ireland Office

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I will also begin by congratulating the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), on making sure that we got this debate. It is clear that without her and the support of her Committee, we would not be discussing this incredibly important issue on the Floor of the House. I repeat the remarks made by the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson): the Select Committee in this Parliament has been exemplary and given us high quality analysis, which has benefited debate on both sides of the House.

We are here debating the estimate simply because the situation is becoming dire. As was said by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray)—I fear that my pronunciation may be slightly out—this is not an abstract matter; it is having a genuine impact on public services today and on the planning of public services for tomorrow. Uncertainty is building and—I am sorry to say this—there is no suggestion that it will be alleviated any time soon. In fact, as the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) mentioned, it appears that we are further from agreement now than we were at the start of the year, because there is disagreement within Sinn Féin on the proposals put forward.

That begs an important question for the Government: what will happen next? This is a debate about devolved issues, but I know that the Secretary of State and his officials from the Northern Ireland Office have been in talks with the Executive and their representatives. I very much hope that we will get an update on those talks. We must, however, ask what will happen if no agreement is forthcoming. As was said, we are now a quarter of the way through the financial year and there is no solution in sight. We cannot move to a position where overspend continues to be normalised, and it appears that the Executive are effectively saying, “We can’t solve this problem—we need more money.” That is not sustainable, and it cannot give anyone confidence in devolution as it is now. What is the Government’s plan if the current talks break down and we move into the summer without an agreed budget in Northern Ireland?

I have a number of points to ask the Secretary of State about while I have the opportunity—most significantly, they are about legacy. He may have detected from some of our previous debates that Opposition Members are not in favour of what the Government are doing. That said, we think strongly that if the Government are to press ahead with their plans, given that it is acknowledged that those plans will create an additional burden on public services in Northern Ireland, on the police and on the legacy institutions, the Government should be prepared to meet that financial cost.

It is not enough to say that £250 million is being made available. That £250 million was made available by a Conservative Government some time ago, and since it was granted inflation has probably degraded it to £200 million at most. It is clear that if the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is passed, it will increase the caseload of the ICRIR—the Legacy Commission, as it will become—but not increase the resources it has at its disposal, and it will increase the caseload that the PSNI is dealing with, but not increase the resources of the PSNI.

The danger is that we will see a bottleneck in the Legacy Commission and very slow processing of cases, and an additional drain on the resources of the PSNI that will take more people away from frontline policing. We know that frontline policing in Northern Ireland has about 1,000 fewer officers than were expected when New Decade, New Approach was signed. That is a clear and present danger that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill presents to financing in Northern Ireland, and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could explain the Government’s position.

I would also be interested to hear whether the Secretary of State has had any discussions with the heir presumptive to the Labour party leadership on the future of the troubles Bill, because the legislative timetable has obviously been pushed to the right again and it seems unlikely that we will have the legislation before the summer break. That being so, it will be a consideration for the next Prime Minister. Can the Secretary of State tell us what conversations he has had with the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) about this legislation, and whether the next Prime Minister, if that is what he is, is in favour of it?

In the negotiations that any Government have with the Executive in Northern Ireland, I believe there is a duty to make the case that the Northern Ireland Executive should be prepared to raise revenue on top of the budget settlements that the Treasury gives. After the last Budget, I was prepared to say that I thought the Northern Ireland Office had acquired a reasonably good settlement from the Treasury for Northern Ireland. The key now is that that money should be well spent. If the Northern Ireland Executive want to spend more, they should be prepared to raise revenue, but they should also be prepared to deliver their public services more efficiently and effectively. I hope that His Majesty’s Government will work with the institutions in Northern Ireland to help that to happen.

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[Hilary Benn]

I will reflect on that point. I do not know in what sense the right hon. Gentleman uses “remote”; if it is geographical, I agree with him entirely. I acknowledge that, as he said from experience, agreeing a budget is difficult in a power-sharing system. It is difficult. He told the House an interesting story about being faced with reductions in budget and it being possible to come together and agree one. All Governments have to deal with the financial and fiscal circumstances they find, but when we take office, we have a responsibility to fulfil the tasks that are in front of us, which include balancing the budget. He also made interesting points about conditionality. How do we ensure, in return for whatever support a Government give—we have seen a long history of lumps and bumps of money, restoration after collapse, and so on—a consistent, measurable path to balanced budgets year after year, and an end to boom and bust in times of crisis?

We have increased the additional security funding, which, from memory, I think was flat for about 10 years under the previous Government. This Government came in and decided to increase the additional security funding. The point has been raised in the Select Committee about the comparison with the counter-terrorism policing grant that is available in England and Wales. However, if we divide the grant by the population, we get £19.42 per head of funding; if we divide the additional security funding for Northern Ireland by the population of Northern Ireland, we get £19.61 per head. When people ask why Northern Ireland is not eligible for the counter-terrorism grant, the answer is that it is getting the same funding per head from the additional security funding. It is for the Chief Constable to decide how best to use that money.

Let me turn to legacy funding. The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar, speaking for the Opposition, is right that the sum was identified some time ago. It is actually £232 million, because £18 million of the £250 million has been set aside for part 4 of the legacy Act. In addition, the framework agreement, to be given effect by the troubles Bill, will enable the Irish Government to commit a further €25 million for legacy mechanisms. We are talking regularly to the ICRIR and the Treasury on a business case, but I say to the hon. Gentleman that the caseload faced by the legacy commission is entirely the product of the piece of legislation that the previous Government passed.

[Alex Burghart]

That’s why we funded it.

[Hilary Benn]

Well, it is entirely the result of that. The funding that was made available was the fixed sum to which I referred a moment ago. That is the first point.

Secondly, the Department of Justice had put aside a sum of around, from memory, £50 million when the inquests five-year plan was put in place. It thought it would have 50 cases. A number of those, of course, are now not going ahead, and the troubles Bill proposes to restore nine and to sift the rest. Thirdly, prior to the legacy Act’s coming into law, the PSNI had about 1,000 cases to investigate; had the legacy Act not been passed, it would have continued to have to investigate those and receive requests for disclosure.

The final point I would make on this issue—and I did make this point to the Select Committee when I was asked about it—is that we are looking in particular at schedule 4 to the Bill because Jon Boutcher makes the point that if there is a requirement to sift all the material to identify that which is of high security before handing over the files, that puts an obligation in place. We are looking at what we can do to ease some of the cost burdens, as hon. Members have said, as more people come to the Legacy Commission—and I hope more people will come forward.

I will turn now to a couple of other points.

[Alex Burghart]

I am pleased that the Government are looking at some sort of additional support for PSNI. I sense that the Secretary of State is about to move off legacy. I did ask him whether he had discussed the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill with the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) because, obviously, his view of the Bill will be critical for its future.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman invites me to speculate on discussions I may or may not have had, and I will kindly resist the request that he has just made for reasons that I am sure will have been obvious to him when he wrote that question into his speech.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and I have discussed the internal market many times before. He talks about the firms that have stopped shipping stuff to Northern Ireland. He will find many, many firms that have stopped shipping stuff to Europe for exactly the same reason: the decision to leave the European Union. It is from that that all the consequences have flowed.

Police Service of Northern Ireland Training College

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I should say at the outset that I associate myself with the remarks made by other hon. Members about the terrible attack in north Belfast last night. Although there are still many details to emerge from the case, it is very clear that the PSNI responded quickly and very bravely to what was an incredibly dangerous situation. I am proud to say that the people of north Belfast responded very bravely in the face of lethal force.

It is very appropriate, then, that we should find ourselves debating this motion tabled by the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton). I congratulate him on securing this debate. I echo the remarks about the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s service not just to the people of Northern Ireland, but to the United Kingdom as a whole. PSNI has a national role in policing our land border, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, but it also has a central role in our national security apparatus. It is right that hon. Members from Northern Ireland and Opposition Front Benchers should be able to question Ministers on that national security element.

I have some sympathy with the remarks made by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister). It is clear that the devolutionary settlement has been failing the people of Northern Ireland in policing terms, not because of any failure of the PSNI, but because of short-term, misguided decisions by some politicians in Northern Ireland. It is wrong that citizens in NI should see their police service about 1,000 officers short of where it should be, in contravention of agreements that the Conservative party made in government with counterparts in Northern Ireland.

It is unsettling to realise, when we see this situation, that there is really no lever at our disposal to right this wrong. As I have said on previous occasions, there is more of a role for central Government in ensuring that the national security and border elements of policing in particular are given appropriate resource in Northern Ireland. I have listened closely to the sensible remarks made by all hon. Members. I believe that there is a deal to be struck here. Part of the benefit will accrue to the people of Northern Ireland, and part of it will accrue to the people of the United Kingdom more widely. It is not in the Minister’s power to make a deal on his own, because it is a Treasury matter, but I am sure that, as a rising star within the Labour party, he has great friends in the Treasury and will use those friendships and connections to mark out what that arrangement might look like.

[Alex Easton]

The Labour party brought forward the Patten review and agreed to its recommendations. One recommendation was for a new policing college. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that commitment has not been fulfilled by this or previous Governments, and that this Government should honour it by providing the funding for a new policing college?

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I will turn to it in a moment.

[Jim Shannon]

When the Conservatives were in power, they committed to a review of the moneys going to Northern Ireland under the Barnett formula, but nothing happened. When the Labour party came into power, a similar commitment was made. The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) sit, recommended that the Barnett formula should be reviewed. Given all the commitments made by the previous Government and this Government, and as the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee is pushing for change, does the shadow Minister think that the Barnett formula needs to be reviewed and changed, to find the extra moneys to fund the police training college?

[Alex Burghart]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes an extremely astute observation. I suggest that we perhaps try to find the time to have a full Westminster Hall debate on the Barnett consequentials and formula with particular regard to Northern Ireland, as there are a great many technicalities that we could go into.

Returning to the point made by the hon. Member for North Down, I simply mean something along the following lines: if the Treasury was minded to honour its 1998 obligation to provide a new training college, it would only be fair to require, in return, a very solemn undertaking by the Northern Ireland Executive that, within a short and fixed term, we would make up the current deficit of 1,000 officers.

I think it would be quite wrong if a new facility were built at considerable cost—a necessary investment, in my opinion—but we were still here another 10 years down the line, with the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, and people across the United Kingdom, saying, “Why are the numbers in PSNI much lower than they should be?” If the Treasury chooses to enter into such negotiations, as I very much hope it will, there will need to be some reciprocal element from the Executive to ensure that any new facility is used to its maximum extent for the benefit of people not only in Northern Ireland but across the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will have seen reports in the Belfast Telegraph that prior to 1985, a large part of the gelignite used in IRA bombs was routinely stolen from a single factory in County Meath in the Republic. The supply amounted to many tonnes of explosives, and it took the lives of many hundreds of people. At the time, British intelligence repeatedly raised concerns with Dublin. Nothing was done, despite the factory’s allegedly being in receipt of Irish state subsidy. Following those revelations, will the Secretary of State commit to writing to the Taoiseach to ask him to hold an urgent public inquiry into the Enfield explosives factory?

[Hilary Benn]

I have indeed seen the reports to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. As I have explained, one purpose of the troubles Bill is to facilitate co-operation with the Irish authorities in relation to all these matters. We cannot undo the past, but what we can do is provide information for those whose lives were lost as a result of the use of those explosives, through full co-operation between the Irish authorities and the legacy commission. We require the Bill to make that happen.

[Alex Burghart]

With all due respect, the Secretary of State did not answer my question. This is an extraordinary missing piece of the puzzle in the story of the troubles—in the story of how the IRA obtained weapons that killed people in our country. The Secretary of State is perfectly within his rights to raise this with his opposite numbers, and to ask them to conduct a full public inquiry on behalf of the victims. Will he do so?

[Hilary Benn]

Since the hon. Gentleman has raised the matter directly with me, I undertake to him—and to the House—to raise it with the Irish authorities, because they will have seen the exchange that he and I have just had.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over)

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

At the outset, I pay tribute to the veterans who came to Parliament Square today, the veterans who have sent messages of support and are watching at home, and the veterans who are with us in the Gallery. I also pay tribute to the shadow Defence team, who have done so much to hold this Government to account for the mistake that they are making.

[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Alex Burghart]

No.

We are now entering the season finale of the tragedy that is this Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. It has been a long season. Despite taking office in July 2024, with a manifesto commitment to repeal and replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, they have taken 15 months to bring this Bill to the House. Despite a Second Reading in November, nearly six months ago, the legislation has gone nowhere. Despite bringing forward their remedial order to strike down parts of the legacy Act in January, the Government have since failed to bring it before the Lords, because they know that the Lords do not support it. The troubles Bill is stuck in a legislative purgatory,

“Doomed for a certain term to walk the night”

till its “foul crimes” are “burnt…away.” The reason for that is an open secret in Westminster. The truth is that the Bill is trapped between the Northern Ireland Office, the Ministry of Defence and No.10, with the Prime Minister and his team unable and unwilling to make a decision about what the outcome will be. We have read this script before.

For its part, the Northern Ireland Office is simply carrying out the orders of the Prime Minister when he came to power—the instruction in the Labour manifesto—and the orders of Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, about whom, it must be said, some extremely serious allegations have been made in recent days: not least that he may have drafted or approved documents alleging serious crimes by soldiers without reasonably credible evidence, and that he continued pushing settlements after being told that his clients were lying.

The Ministry of Defence is all too aware of the open hostility held towards this legislation by members of the armed forces, present and past. It is all too aware of the dangers the Bill presents to morale, retention and perhaps even recruitment, but its Ministers are not always prepared to say what needs to be said in order to get their way.

[Mr Bailey]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I will give way now.

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the Minister for giving way. We are having this debate because in hindsight the military forces deployed in Northern Ireland were not provided with adequate protection. If the hon. Gentleman genuinely cared about veterans and the protection of members of the forces in future, he would have submitted amendments to the Armed Forces Bill to prevent a recurrence. Can he make us aware of any such amendments?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I gently remind Members that interventions should be short and to the point.

[Alex Burghart]

I strongly encourage the hon. Gentleman to take time to read the Armed Forces Bill amendment paper. The two gentlemen sitting either side of me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), have tabled very many amendments. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to go out this evening and to try to find one veterans organisation that supports what his party is trying to do with this Bill.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The hon. Gentleman is the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland so he should know the lie of the land there. He has talked a lot about veterans. Has he read the letter from Sandra Peake, the director of the WAVE trauma centre? She is an unimpeachable character, who has stood up on behalf of all kinds of victims. She is imploring us to put the Bill through tonight so that we can properly scrutinise it. Has he read that letter? Is he going to mention victims at all in his speech?

[Alex Burghart]

I have read that letter. I have great respect for the WAVE trust; I did some work with it when I first came to the House. I respectfully disagree with what is in that letter, for reasons that I will set out in due course.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that any Government Member, including Ministers, who wants to be taken seriously by armed forces personnel needs to condemn the remarks of Lord Hermer and the disgraceful disparaging of our armed forces?

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and there will be ample opportunity for them to do so tonight.

Tonight the Government and Labour Back Benchers have a choice, and the choice is simple: to reject this controversial and unloved legislation, which promises much but would do no good.

[Mr Foster]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I happily give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Foster]

It appears to me that the only two organisations that agree with immunity from prosecution are the terrorists and the Conservative party.

[Alex Burghart]

We will get to immunity in a moment, but the Labour party needs to look down within its soul and its history before it says such things.

The Bill will reopen the door to vexatious litigation. It will drag old soldiers through the courts and subject split-second decisions taken under high stress decades ago to the post hoc algorithm of a legal framework that did not exist at that time. The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) said that military forces were not given adequate protection at the time—what has happened subsequently is that the legal framework has changed beneath their feet and held them accountable in a way that could never have been intended at that time.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

Is the shadow Secretary of State more surprised that the promised amendments leaked to the papers at the weekend are missing from the debate or that the Armed Forces Minister is missing from the Chamber and will not be here to vote for this disgraceful carry-over motion, because he knows that it should not be voted for?

[Alex Burghart]

I am sad to say that I am not surprised by either of those things. I am not surprised that the Government are living on vague promises to table amendments—despite having had six months to do so. I am sorry to say that I am not surprised that certain Government Front-Bench Members have chosen to absent themselves while expecting Labour Back Benchers to turn up and go through the Lobby without them.

[Jim Allister]

The Member refers to the absence of publication of any amendments by the Secretary of State—promised, but not delivered. Might that be because this Secretary of State, who has embarrassingly shown himself to be wholly beholden to the Dublin Government, has not yet got their approval for those amendments? Might that be the truth of the matter?

[Alex Burghart]

I fear that the hon. and learned Gentleman is right. This morning, we saw that Sinn Féin have spoken out in opposition to the very idea of amendments, so we wonder how it will be possible for the Secretary of State to table amendments without the agreement of Dublin, without the agreement of Sinn Féin, and without the whole framework he has built collapsing beneath him.

The Bill promises victims the earth. It raises their hopes, but I am afraid that in practice it will offer nothing in the way of conclusion or finality. That is because although there will be court cases, inquests, trials, reviews and challenges, as the Secretary of State himself has said, the prospect of conviction now is vanishingly small. The number of answers that victims will get will be minimal. All the while, veterans will be hauled before the courts, investigated for years and subjected to all the pain and ignominy that that will bring. The process has become the punishment. That is why none of the amendments that the Government are speculating to the press about tabling will do anything to solve the problem before us.

The Opposition have long argued that a different approach is necessary: one that draws a line under the conflict, draws a line under the legal conflict that has subsequently followed and builds a new system that builds on the strengths of the peace process as it was defined in 1998. In 1998 it was understood that there could be immunity in return for information; it underpins the legislation brought forward to support the peace process. That is why we have legislation on the destruction of weapons; it enables forensic information to be destroyed. It is why we have legislation that enables people to come forward and reveal where bodies are buried without fear of prosecution; that is immunity. It is why we had letters of comfort and royal pardons of mercy. It was understood that immunity would be an essential part of the peace process, for everyone who was not a veteran.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for giving way. However, this faux outrage was never—[Interruption.] My Committee has done some excellent work on this very sensitive matter, and when we were in Westminster Hall there was no faux outrage. These people did not turn up to speak up for the veterans they speak of now. The Secretary of State is doing an excellent job—so is my Committee—and I find it very wrong that these matters are being presented in this way on the Floor of the House. We need a carry-over motion. We need to be in a better place, where there will be amendments.

[Alex Burghart]

I genuinely respect the hon. Lady and the work that her Committee does, and she will remember that I was at that Westminster Hall debate. I must respectfully say that my outrage is not faux; I feel this very deeply. I have spent a lot of time talking to the people who are affected by this.

When the peace process was going through, when Labour was in power, it had no problem at all with creating immunity, and in 2005—as the Secretary of State will remember, because he was in the Cabinet at the time—Peter Hain, the then Secretary of State, brought forward a Bill that would have given immunity to terrorists, and terrorists alone. It was removed only when, under pressure from the Conservative party, the Government agreed to introduce immunity for veterans and Sinn Féin pulled its support, so the Government pulled the Bill.

Immunity is one of the things on which the peace process was founded, yet now in government, the Labour party has forgotten all about this and said it cannot possibly apply to anyone again. The Labour party has said that it cannot support immunity, and yet it used to. Similarly, the Government have said that they cannot support our legislation on the grounds that there was no support for it in Northern Ireland, but I am afraid that by that criterion this legislation has also failed, because where is the support for it in Northern Ireland? It is not there among Northern Ireland Members, and it is not on the streets of Belfast. This is an unloved Bill. There are lots of people who appreciate that this is the wrong way of going about things.

[Jim Shannon]

One thing that really concerns me is that this carry-over motion has been pressed by the Irish Government. That absolutely boggles my mind. The double standard is entirely shocking. The Irish Government need to be held to account for their role in protecting IRA murderers across the border. We think of all those ones who were murdered: Kenneth Smyth, my cousin; Daniel McCormick, his comrade; Lexie Cummings, and Stuart Montgomery. They were just four, but there were many, many more. Whenever there were murders, the murderers raced across the border. Does the hon. Gentleman share my anger on behalf of my constituents and my family, who want to know why the Irish Government have more say in this than the victims of Northern Ireland, my family and others?

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend always speaks incredibly powerfully on this point.

The Government have also argued that our Bill was found to be incompatible with human rights legislation, but that is only partly true. The truth is that the Government failed to challenge the findings in the courts, and those findings themselves were highly questionable. There are high-level, highly credible legal arguments that show that the legacy Act may well have not been incompatible, precisely because the same logic around immunity had been used in 1998. So unless we are prepared to say that the legislation passed during the peace process is itself potentially incompatible with human rights law, the argument on the legacy Act falls. This is what is being considered in the case of Dillon before the Supreme Court now. The Government cannot argue that that legislation was incompatible with human rights, because they failed to see the process to its conclusion.

All of that has been made clearer and clearer over the lifetime of this law’s delay. In the time that it has taken the Bill only to get through its Second Reading, we have seen, starkly and painfully, regular real-life examples of the problems it will perpetuate. I will give a few small examples. In February, this House debated the terrible ruling in the Clonoe case. This was the case from February 1992, when four men—known terrorists armed with semi-automatic weapons and a Dushka machine gun capable of firing 600 rounds a minute at a range of 1,100 yards—attacked a Royal Ulster Constabulary police station and were in transit to commit further crimes. They were confronted by members of the armed forces, who killed them. Those terrorists called themselves an army, carried weapons of war, sought to kill and operated entirely outside the bounds of any law, yet we were asked to believe that the use of lethal force against them was not justified. I am afraid that that case is now being challenged, and the men involved are being subject to unjust and unfair scrutiny of decisions they made in a split second, decades ago. Nothing in the amendments that the Secretary of State has discussed with the press will do anything about that.

In November, we debated the findings in the case against Soldier F from Bloody Sunday. He was found not guilty after the longest and most intricate inquiry in British legal history. Indeed, Judge Patrick Lynch told Belfast Crown Court that the evidence even then fell “well short” of the standard required. He said:

“A 53-year-old statement cannot be cross-examined, nor can I assess the demeanour of a sheet of A4 paper”.

The House must see again that it is becoming vanishingly difficult to get convictions, because the 1998 agreement was 27 years ago and the ceasefire began 31 years ago. Nothing in the Secretary of State’s proposed amendments or in this Bill will do anything to right that situation.

Several times the case of Soldier B, a former SAS officer, has been raised in the Commons. In October, the case was thrown out by a court in Belfast, where the judge described it as “ludicrous” and said it should never have come to his court—but not before the man in question had been investigated for four years. A further challenge was then mounted despite the judge having said it was “ludicrous”, and only recently has the veteran in question been freed from the weight of that.

I am afraid that if the Government’s Bill goes ahead, we will see a return to this repeat investigation of innocent men who will be dragged through the courts, and then at the end the legal cavalcade will move on, leaving them bearing the emotional burden of being investigated for having done nothing wrong. Nothing that has been speculated about in the press this weekend will do anything to right that wrong.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is articulating it perfectly. Does he agree that the principle of innocent until proven guilty is no comfort at all for these people who are subjected to years of gruelling inquiry just to establish what we already know: they are innocent?

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend is quite right. The process has become the punishment. The process is being used to continue the conflict by other means.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Would the hon. Member accept that when the process exonerates the soldiers and the veterans at the end, the whole point of the process and taking them to the court in the first place is to give the daily headlines in the paper to allow Sinn Féin and the IRA to rewrite the history of the troubles?

[Alex Burghart]

I must agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this is clearly what vexatious litigation looks like. This is vexatious litigation moved against men who did nothing wrong but are now confronted with a legal framework that creates endless potential for challenge against them.

[Colum Eastwood]

Has the shadow Secretary of State read the Saville report? He referenced the Saville inquiry not that long ago. Has he read what it says about Soldier F, about how many people he killed that day—unarmed, innocent people marching for civil rights shot down in cold blood by Soldier F, by his own admission? Has he read that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

I have read the Saville inquiry, and the hon. Member will have just heard me say that even after one of the longest, most expensive and detailed public inquiries in British legal history, it was impossible to get a conviction. Yet we are asking victims in Northern Ireland to believe that there will be some magical moment where suddenly it would be possible to get convictions in other cases. That, the House must understand, is for the birds; it will not happen. Victims will have their hopes raised and dashed in front of this legislation.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Member agree that if ever there was a demonstration of the two-tier process in terms of legacy, we have it as a result of the Saville report? The same Saville report that was used to pursue Soldier F contained an assertion that Martin McGuinness probably had a submachine gun on the same day. He was never questioned, never mind pursued or taken to court—not once.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman raises a significant issue about the terrible events of Bloody Sunday, but I will not attempt to relitigate the whole of the Saville inquiry this evening—I understand the remarks that both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) have made.

Similarly, over the past few months, very senior veterans, senior generals and former members of the special forces have come out decisively against the Bill. On Armistice Day, in an unprecedented intervention, nine four-star generals wrote to warn that highly trained members of the special forces are already leaving the service. In January, seven SAS commanders wrote of the acute dangers of how

“a peacetime human rights framework”

now wields

“an effective veto over efforts to close the past.”

Last month, Generals Wall and Parker wrote that

“those who…did their duty in circumstances not of their making…are left exposed, without the shield of context or accountability that should rightfully belong to the state”.

This month, we read public reports that members of the special forces are quitting because they sense that the lawyers of the future will come after them.

I implore the House, on moral, practical and political grounds, not to support the Bill. I know that Labour Members will not wish to take it from me—and they do not have to—but they should take it from generals and special forces veterans who have dedicated so much of their lives to protecting their country and do not want to see their comrades-in-arms persecuted or their country weakened and put at risk. As politicians, I draw the attention of Labour Members to the fact that the Bill is not beloved by their constituents. They are being sent through the Lobbies tonight by people who may well change their position tomorrow.

The failings of the Bill, should it be passed, will be quickly seen but long felt. The House has the power to stop it tonight. If we do not, and the Government persist, the next Conservative Administration will repeal it and once again draw a line under the troubles.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Dunmurry Police Station Attack

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Opposition spokesperson.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) on having secured this urgent question. I associate myself with her remarks and those of the Secretary of State, although I gently say that it would have been better if this had been a Government statement. I cannot help but feel that had that car bomb been placed outside a police station in Westminster or Birmingham, Government Ministers would have come to the House with a statement.

It is, of course, profoundly depressing that we should be discussing this issue at all. However, it is an enormous relief that we are not today talking about casualties. As the hon. Member for Lagan Valley said, but for the grace of God, we would have been; but for the bravery of local people, we would have been. I pay very deep tribute to all those brave men and women in the Police Service of Northern Ireland who serve and keep our country safe. They were the target of this despicable operation, and it will be their hard work that brings its perpetrators to justice.

The people who have attempted to break the peace in Northern Ireland have no mandate and no public support—they represent only themselves, and are seeking to serve only their macho egos. The silver lining is, of course, that we are watching people in Northern Ireland from all communities come together this morning, united against them. We have come an incredibly long way, but as the Secretary of State referenced, this does appear to be the start of a pattern of new and deeply concerning behaviour. That is reflected in what happened in Lurgan last month, but also in the marching of masked paramilitaries in Easter parades. Will the Secretary of State confirm to the House that the PSNI is going after those people who broke the laws that were laid down during the peace process, just as I know they will be going after those who tried to blow up the police station in Dunmurry?

The attack on Sunday raises a number of questions to which I hope the Secretary of State can provide answers, because he has responsibility for national security in Northern Ireland. Can the Secretary of State assure the House that the Chief Constable has the resources he needs? I say that because, notwithstanding his remarks about funding, the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is going to put a huge additional financial burden on the PSNI. Even if the Chief Constable believes he has the resources he needs today, he will not have them tomorrow.

[Hilary Benn]

I join the hon. Member in his tribute to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and agree with him that the response from all communities in Northern Ireland to this terrible attack is a sign of the new Northern Ireland and shows that those responsible have no support at all. Sadly, though, they do have some capacity. As he knows, the enforcement of the law is a job for the police service, and if criminal offences have been identified, it is for prosecutors to take decisions. I hope the hon. Member will agree that my answer to the question from the Chair of the Select Committee about recent convictions and steps taken, shows that there certainly is capacity within the PSNI to go after people and—if the evidence can be found—to enable a prosecution to take place.

On the question of legacy, under the previous Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which established the commission, every request for disclosure and information falls to the police service and other partners. That was already the case, regardless of anything contained in the legislation that we are currently taking through the House.

Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on securing this debate. I begin by warmly acknowledging the men and women who served during Operation Banner.

Everyone knows—even the Tories, in their more candid moments—that the Conservatives’ legacy Act was a profound mistake, granting immunity to terrorists, creating a shameful moral equivalence between paramilitaries hellbent on breaking the law and our brave veterans who risked, and in many cases lost, their lives upholding the very rule of law that the legacy Act undermined. In the Dillon case, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal was clear: core provisions of the Act were incompatible with the European convention on human rights. Yes, the new Government abandoned the appeal on that point in the Supreme Court, but with no faith in the position, they were right to do so.

That is why the remedial order mattered. It was a necessary step to bring the UK back within its legal obligations, and to restore a measure of trust for those who have waited decades for truth and accountability. The Conservatives, however, treated the order as a political opportunity, rather than as a moment for sober reflection. To use the plight of our veterans to rage against the ECHR and the Human Rights Act 1998 and to play destructive party politics is something that has not gone unnoticed among the many veterans organisations with whom I have been working—[Interruption.] I will give way.

[Alex Burghart]

I just want to say that the hon. Gentleman is wrong.

[Mr Kohler]

I will now move on to consider the Government’s response to the more salient recommendations made by the Select Committee. Turning first to the treatment of sexual offences, the Government acknowledge that the previous Act created a de facto bar on investigating sexual offences not linked to death or serious injury, but their proposed split model raises concerns. Clause 32 limits investigations to what is deemed necessary for ECHR compliance, which will result in the commission handling some cases while others fall to the police to investigate, creating potential confusion.

On the disclosure of reports, the commission is required to examine all circumstances while also considering specific family questions, but it is unclear how those duties will be balanced or the commission’s findings reported. When I visited the WAVE Trauma Centre, concerns were expressed that, by answering sometimes deeply personal questions, published reports could reveal issues and concerns that victims would not want made public. The chief commissioner, Sir Declan Morgan, has assured me that the commission will act with sensitivity in such circumstances, but victims’ families want something more tangible than that.

That leads directly to the role and powers of the commission. The proposal to grant powers through established statutory procedures rather than enshrining them in the Bill risks opacity and reduced accountability. While a “small number of cases” where current powers fall short are acknowledged, it is far from clear how or if those gaps will be addressed. Alongside the topic of powers sits the question of resources. While the Government’s commitment to a £250 million total funding envelope for legacy mechanisms is welcome, there is widespread agreement that that is not enough. The PSNI chief constable, Jon Boutcher, has given compelling testimony that he has insufficient funding to address his legacy responsibilities. The Government suggest that PSNI funding is a matter for the Northern Ireland Department of Justice and the Executive. However, the costs of legacy, arising as they did under what occurred during direct rule, must surely be borne by the British state, not out of funds provided by the Province’s normal funding formula.

The thorniest issue is, of course, the safeguards afforded to veterans. The Secretary of State has been at pains to stress the centrality of his six protections, but as he acknowledges, in their current form they

“do not go far enough”.

I know he has been in discussion with many veterans’ groups, and I have heard from many of them their gratitude for the time and consideration that he has given them. A date for the Bill Committee has still not been published, which I assume means that discussions within the Northern Ireland Office and the Ministry of Defence are still ongoing. While I have no desire to unduly rush the Secretary of State on this issue, I respectfully remind him that the many veterans’ groups to which he has been talking are anxious to know what extra safeguards will be included in the promised Government amendments to the Bill.

Closely connected to victims’ safeguards is the question of disclosure and national security. A major concern is the Government’s refusal to introduce a merits-based appeal against ministerial denials of disclosure, and the reliance instead on judicial review, which considers procedural correctness rather than the merits of a decision. While the Government cite the primacy of the Executive, that principle does not sit comfortably within a legacy process that is aimed at restoring public trust and transparency. I have consequently tabled an amendment to the Bill that would require any decision to block disclosure on national security grounds to be referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee. That would ensure proper scrutiny and accountability to Parliament.

Our goal is reconciliation. Whenever I ask about reconciliation, I am directed to part 4 of the legacy Act, which is not going to be repealed. Part 4 focuses on oral history and memorialisation. Those have an important role to play, but it is striking how little attention appears to be given to restorative justice in any meaningful sense, because reconciliation cannot be addressed through reports and archives alone. My primary concern is that justice is still being mediated through the narrow lens of lawyers, with criminal or civil actions given too great a prominence in the process. I have personally participated in the restorative justice process, and I know that it begins with the questions that many victims of the troubles are asking: “Why me?” or “Why my loved ones?”

Restorative justice creates a space for answers, acknowledgment, and some form of resolution. The current Bill offers no meaningful avenue for restorative justice, which is why I have tabled amendments to incorporate that formally into the process, ensuring that victims and veterans have a voluntary, structured mechanism with which to engage and seek meaningful reconciliation. Without that, reconciliation risks being misconceived and incomplete.

At its core, this process will command confidence only if victims feel heard, veterans are treated fairly, and the system delivers answers that are credible and transparent. Broad commitments alone are not enough. The Government must address the gaps highlighted by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Without doing so, the process risks failing those who it is intended to serve, undermining trust and leaving decades of questions unanswered.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I thank the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for its work. The Committee is always incredibly thoughtful and diligent in the prosecution of its duties, and the report has been very interesting. I will try to resist the opportunity to re-litigate the whole troubles Bill and the argument around the legacy Act in the next 10 minutes, rather than focus on the report. However, it is important that hon. Members remember how the legacy Act came to be, and how the previous Labour Government treated the whole issue of the peace process.

The idea of immunity was good enough for the Labour Government in 1998—indeed, it was fundamental to the legislation that fell within the peace process. I think of the two-year limit on sentences that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) referred to, but also of the legislation regarding bodies that had been buried, and about the destruction of weapons where forensic evidence was destroyed. Those were all forms of immunity, and it is why—this is the point raised by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann)—an appeal to the Supreme Court could easily have been successful. Very experienced legal advice shows that that would have been the case, so it was wrong of the Government to drop it.

The Government have decided that they are opposed to immunity, but they were not opposed to immunity in 1998. They were not opposed to immunity in 2005, when Peter Hain brought forward a Bill that would have given immunity only to former terrorists. Only under enormous pressure from the House, which decided that it would have to introduce immunity for soldiers as well, was that measure dropped under pressure from Sinn Féin. The Labour party has a very selective memory on those issues.

[Fleur Anderson]

In 1998 immunity was in the Good Friday agreement, and the whole population got to vote on that, and on whether or not they agreed with that immunity—it was very controversial. There was no vote on whether the population agreed with immunity in the legacy Act. In fact, all the democratically elected parties lined up to oppose that immunity.

[Alex Burghart]

It applied to only one side, and over time that one-sidedness became apparent to lots of people, including veterans. That is why it was important. In 2005, there was no democratic mandate for what the Labour Government tried to do to give immunity to terrorists. What we are trying to do, and what we tried to do in our legacy Act, is rebalance the argument, and in so doing bring about the sort of process that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East spoke so powerfully about. The adversarial system will not bring about proper truth and reconciliation, and it will not encourage people to come forward with new information. Instead, it will reopen old wounds and allow for the continuation of the troubles by other means. For that very important reason of principle, we cannot support the legislation.

To return to the report issued by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I will quickly pick up on four areas. On the consideration of the ICRIR, I pay tribute to Sir Declan Morgan, who has been an excellent head. Every time that I have heard people question the ICRIR’s independence, I have felt the need to come to Sir Declan’s defence. Anyone who has met him and seen his work will know that he is thoroughly independent, and woe betide any politician who tried to lean on him.

The argument that the ICRIR has struggled to build the trust and authority needed to operate effectively is already outdated. As of 30 November 2025, 231 requesting individuals had approached the commission, 245 cases were recorded, and 110 investigations had been opened into a total of 188 deaths and five cases of serious harm. Those numbers were growing every month. Indeed, the more time that the ICRIR was given, the more public trust it gained and the more its work was flourishing. Now, just as it is getting going, it is going to be cut off at the knees. I was pleased that the report mentioned the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal finding in 2024, which said,

“we find that these arrangements do not of themselves offend the principle of independence given the fact that ICRIR is ultimately made up and staffed by independent investigators and decision makers including the commissioners.”

I would much rather that the ICRIR was being given time.

It is clear that there are no explicit or particular protections for veterans in the Government’s legislation, and I was pleased that the Committee said that the Government were overselling that claim—indeed they are. No armed forces bodies believe that these protections are sufficient. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) said, many veterans’ groups are concerned that the Government are moving away from the policies established by the Conservative party in power.

On the subject of Ireland, there were very powerful contributions from the hon. Members for South Antrim and for Strangford (Jim Shannon). We all want this element of the Government’s arrangements to work, but we must remain sceptical, not least because of the Republic’s long-standing failure to produce the goods in this area. As the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee outlined on page 85 of its report, equivalent legislation structures are not expected. The hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) used a wonderful phrase, stating that there is a lack of “practical outworkings” in this area, and indeed there is. With all due respect to the Secretary of State, it was a dreadful missed opportunity that the framework did not include a commitment from the Republic to start its own Omagh inquiry. That was the most wicked attack of the whole troubles, and it is shameful that there are only investigations into what the British state could have done to prevent it, rather than investigations into the people who committed that dreadful atrocity.

I was pleased that the Committee referred to costs, as did several other hon. Members. The PSNI estimates that it will need an extra £1 billion over the next 10 years to cope with the new caseload. The legacy commission is seriously underfunded for the additional caseload that it will acquire as it transitions from being the ICRIR. Without that money, there will be a huge backlog in the caseload of the legacy commission, and there will also be a reduction in frontline policing in Northern Ireland. That is unacceptable. We strongly disagree with what the Government are doing, but if they are going to do it, they must make the money available to ensure that public services and institutions in Northern Ireland function properly. Finally, I ask the Secretary of State one quick question: when will we see the Bill again?

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Over the past 10 days we have seen a number of revelations about the procurement of services and goods and the provision of sensitive information during Peter Mandelson’s time as a Government Minister and as an ambassador in Washington. Given that Mandelson was, for two years, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, can the Minister assure the House that his Department will comb its records to identify any possible wrongdoing?

[Matthew Patrick]

I can absolutely give the shadow Secretary of State that assurance. That work is under way and we will update the House on anything that may emerge.

[Alex Burghart]

I am very grateful to the Minister for that direct response. Will he also commit to return to this House before Easter to update Members on the work that his Department has done and what it has found?

[Matthew Patrick]

I believe that work will be published by the Cabinet Office. I will ensure that, through that, the House will receive an update on the records.