Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I suspect very strongly that the hon. Gentleman is right. I suspect that this is bound up in the agreement that the Secretary of State made with the Irish Government. He can correct that later if he wishes to. There were some things in that agreement that I welcomed at the time and which I welcome again now. If it leads to the Irish Government opening their books and being clear about collusion between the Garda and the Provisional IRA, I would welcome that. What I cannot welcome, thought, is the fact that there was an opportunity in that agreement to ask the Republic of Ireland to open its own inquiry into the Omagh bombing. At the time, it was recommended to the British Government that we should have our own full inquiry, but it was deemed to be pretty much a necessity for a similar inquiry to be conducted on the other side of the border, so that there was the opportunity to compel witnesses to give evidence under oath about what was known and about what, if any, collusion took place. I am very sorry that that opportunity was missed.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I think that many of those supporting the Omagh families would like to see a parallel and comprehensive inquiry. Does the hon. Member agree that the logical thing to do would have been to co-design that, and for both Governments to bring forward inquiries in parallel, rather than his Government acting unilaterally when they announced theirs?

[Alex Burghart]

I would have been very open to that idea, but I believe that the previous Administration did not feel that there was the opportunity to proceed in that way. If we are thinking about the future, I think what the hon. Lady proposes is a perfectly sensible idea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

The Social Democratic and Labour party welcomes this remedial order, which goes some way to restoring the rule of law to legacy processes and in turn to the present day. The introduction by the previous Government of an amnesty and the closure of processes was the very definition of the phrase, “Justice delayed is justice denied”.

This order is specifically about the troubles legacy Bill, but across these islands—in every jurisdiction, every day—we can see evidence of cases where wrongs were not properly addressed at the time. We now see the hurt and the damage compounded by delay, whether it is Hillsborough, infected blood, the Post Office scandal or the Magdalene laundries. There will not be a Member of this House who cannot speak to an experience in their own constituency. My ask is simply that Members think about my constituents and people across Northern Ireland in the same way.

It is not about who won. I have to bite my tongue quite a lot in this House, and particularly today. The people who are waiting to access some of these processes—none of them have won. All of them have lost members of their family. It is not about people being able to draw a line under the past because MPs in London have told them to. MPs have called them IRA sympathisers.

The previous legislation, which this order undoes, was not about reconciliation or truth. The word “reconciliation” appeared in the title of the Bill and nowhere else. The Bill was about closing down truth and ensuring that republican and loyalist paramilitaries would again have their crimes retrospectively legalised. It was not just a free pass for paramilitaries, and I am not here to write a reference for any of them. Tens of thousands of them did at least go through the justice system, but these provisions and amnesties extended to the darkest corners—yes, of the security services, but also to those who directed the terrorism and who played God with people’s lives, and who should of course be held to the law.

The Conservatives justified their approach with the fiction that nothing is working, but inquests have worked. They were belated, yes, because there was a failure to address the crimes at the time or to fund the system. Those inquests have been complex and expensive, but that is because of the layers of veto and information suppression that have been applied by those with the most to hide. Those inquiries have also exposed truth and corrected false narratives. I think of the Ballymurphy families; the Parachute Regiment, just five months before they went on to kill in Bloody Sunday, opened fire on innocent civilians, falsely labelling them as armed threats. The 2021 inquest freed those families—freed people who had grown up with a lifetime of being told that their mother, their father or their parish priest was a gunman, when it was entirely obvious that that was not true. They finally got accountability from a regiment that operated without it.

False narratives have been used by the security forces, by the IRA and by republican and loyalist terrorists to impugn and to add grievous insult to injury for so many victims. I also think of the Kingsmill massacre; an inquest less than two years ago rightly concluded that that was a sectarian attack, where 10 Protestant workmen were murdered in an act of ethnic cleansing by the IRA. That was carried out by people who claimed the legacy of James Connolly while shooting dead the very people who he would have stood alongside. When people say that it is IRA sympathisers who benefit from these inquests, it is such an insult to decent and non-sectarian people like Alan Black.

I particularly welcome the ending of the immunity scheme. We have had the Good Friday agreement and the bitter pills to swallow in that, and Eames-Bradley and Haass-O’Sullivan and the on-the-run letters, and all the other processes that have put the needs of victim makers ahead of victims. This legislation turns that around. However, it is just the beginning: we have to get the processes right if we are to escape the shackles of the past and create a space that is for truth, accountability and remembrance. This has to be rooted in the future as much as it is in the past, but also in human rights compliance, truth and justice. Today I again urge the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, where concerns exist about disclosure, ECHR compatibility and judicial independence, to ensure that we face down those vested interests, in or out of uniform, and show Britain as a democracy that upholds laws and rights.

Dealing with legacy will not be confined to the remedial order, the troubles Bill or the joint framework. As Members on both sides of the House know, it shapes our politics, our policing, how communities relate to each other, and how we can best deliver a shared future. We cannot afford another missed opportunity. The answers will not all be found in this order, or in the legislation that is to come. We have never needed a complex legal process for people to acknowledge what they did: for the IRA to acknowledge that they used human lives, nearly 2,000 of them, as collateral damage; for loyalists to acknowledge that their war was with innocent Catholics; and for the UK security forces to acknowledge that their soldiers did not always uphold the law.

I can stand here and acknowledge that so many did serve decently—did try to serve decently. I can stand here and acknowledge the pride that many Members feel in the service given by them and by their loved ones. However, I hope that others can acknowledge that that was not the experience that everyone in Northern Ireland had. Three hundred thousand soldiers served in Operation Banner, and fewer than two dozen of them have ever faced judicial proceedings. We have wasted a lot of the time of victims’ families, and we have wasted money as well. It is time to move forward. The Bill is the start of that, and I ask Members to approach it in that framework and with respect for the dignity of all the people who lost their lives in Northern Ireland.

[Several hon. Members rose—]