Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 19th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the Secretary of State for that helpful clarification, which will be welcomed by many of the victims and survivors I have spoken to.

More than 25 years after the Good Friday agreement and 12 years after the Stormont agreement, Northern Ireland has been transformed, as I saw time and again, and as I see now. Growth is much higher than in the rest of the UK and unemployment is lower; there is much to build on. However, too many families still carry the burden of unanswered questions, and that holds Northern Ireland back in many ways. We cannot change the past, but we can ensure that the passage of time does not become the final barrier to truth. I also welcome part 4 of the legacy Act. It has been mentioned only one other time in the debate, but it is a really important part of the legislation.

I support the Government’s approach, because it offers the best chance in a generation to deliver what victims and families have sought for far too long: answers.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Reform)]

In the seven years that I have been a Member of this House, I do not think that I have been in a more respectful, positive and high-quality debate. There have been some absolutely outstanding contributions from across the House. I am not going to reach that standard, but I am proud to participate in the debate. I particularly acknowledge the contributions made by colleagues from Northern Ireland. Having visited a number of times recently, I can attest that they do politics pretty well there; there is a standard of speech-making that reflects the seriousness of politics there, and we have all benefited from that this evening.

My observation about the Bill and the amendments brought forward by the Government is that they essentially still fail on a core moral principle, which I will come to. The amendments that have been adduced as improving the Bill and addressing the concerns that have been raised do not, I am afraid, offer new protections. Many of them relate to measures that are already in force and could be applied, particularly those on the opportunities for anonymity and remote hearings.

The amendments and the new clauses are mostly simply important moral statements of what should be obvious. In particular, new clause 32 states that there is no equivalence between terrorist action and legal actions. It is extraordinary that it needs to be said that “a relevant person” in an inquest or proceedings

“must have regard to…the fact that force may lawfully be used to prevent unlawful violence”.

And what a thing to need to say that lawful action is not equivalent to terrorism! Why would that have to be stated in law, unless the Bill might be thought to suggest the opposite—that the law as it stands, and the Bill, could imply that equivalence?

At the heart of why the Bill remains inadequate is the essential imbalance in the legal procedures that the legacy of Northern Ireland applies. I pay tribute to a group of veterans I met recently—some special forces and some others—led by Dr Robert Parr, an academic at Oxford who was a Royal Marine and in special forces. He has written a very powerful paper that makes the simple point that the legal system—this is not addressed by the Bill; in fact, the Bill consolidates it—

“privileges the claims of former paramilitaries over those of the men and women who served the Crown”.

Of course, that is not intentional—the intention is to provide equity and parity—but the problem is structural.

The fact is that only a 10th of the deaths that happened during the troubles were caused by the security services, but it is men and women in uniform who must bear almost the whole institutional burden under the law as it stands, and that will not change under this Bill. The IRA and other paramilitary organisations got letters of comfort, early release and pardons. They had their weapons decommissioned without any forensic testing being done. Meanwhile, the British Army kept its records—indeed, it operated under the chain of command. It had accountability built into the work that it did; in fact, it had all the elements that made its decisions as safe as possible, as a military operating under the laws of a democracy. It is those elements that are now used against the Army, and that is the structural imbalance we face. That was apparent right at the beginning, when the Good Friday agreement was being implemented.

A letter has been released recently from John Reid, the Northern Ireland Secretary in 2001. He was writing to Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and he made it clear that the proposed arrangement, in which an amnesty would be offered to terrorists but not to British veterans, was asymmetric and unjust, but that for reasons of political necessity, that is how it had to be. As Dr Parr has pointed out, the asymmetric exclusion of the security forces was therefore not the product of principled legal reasoning or an honest assessment of comparative culpability; it was the price of republican acquiescence in a political settlement. Just consider the insult that that represents to our soldiers.

I pay tribute to and honour the point that the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) made. Our soldiers beat the IRA to a standstill. They fought it to the negotiating table, and then they had to take the final indignity, which is that they, not the IRA, would face the threat of the law and of prosecution.

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

The hon. Member pays tribute to the armed forces of the time. Does he agree that we enjoy peace today partly because of the work that many of our special forces did in penetrating paramilitaries, to the point that we found out only later about people such as Stakeknife? That was the reason why the paramilitaries were forced to the peace table; it was not that they voluntarily sought peace.

[Danny Kruger]

That is absolutely right.

There was a question from the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) earlier about who won. The answer is that, in so far as this was a military conflict, we know who won: it was the British Army, particularly with the help of special forces, but it had to suffer that indignity in consequence. It accepted as the price of peace the indignity and injustice of being exposed to the principle of liability and the threat of prosecution, while the IRA was indemnified. That was a bitter enough pill, but the actual practice of repeat prosecutions on the scale that we have seen—not the threat, but the reality—is unacceptable. That is not what was expected or accepted at the time, but back in those days, people reckoned without the European convention on human rights, the consequences of the Human Rights Act 1998, and the lawfare that the convention has brought into reality in our time, in this century. In particular, article 2 of the ECHR applies retrospectively to the investigations, based on the inadequacy of the investigations under standards that did not apply back in those days. That is the essential injustice of the law as it stands and of this Bill; there is a fundamental violation of the principle of legal certainty. Let me quote Dr Parr again. He says that

“the requirement that individuals be able to foresee the legal consequences of their actions at the time of those actions”

is itself

“a foundational element of the rule of law to which the ECHR is ostensibly committed.”

In passing, let me turn to one other indignity and injustice that, I am afraid, has been consolidated by this Bill. No accountability has ever been forthcoming from the Irish state, elements of which were arguably responsible for enabling, colluding with and covering up the actions of terrorists during the troubles, and none is expected in the future, despite the warm words of the Secretary of State. Thanks to this Bill, though, the Irish Government will play a crucial role in our own justice system. That is wrong.

What is happening is that the Government—and I honour them for doing this—are trying to reconcile common sense and decency, and the obvious appeal for justice on behalf of veterans, with the human rights framework that we have. I am afraid to say that that simply cannot be done, so I will end with a few thoughts about the future and the system that we need. We must start by reverting to the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, and to the principles that Tony Blair oversaw back then. He chose peace over justice, and he was right to do so. That was the right principle. Now, in our time, we need to choose truth over individual justice for people who can never realistically hope to attain individual justice. That is the way to heal a community; evidence from transitional justice programmes around the world, particularly in South Africa, demonstrates that that is the way to achieve healing in a community. The hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) put it very well when he talked about the need for positive peace—national peace and reconciliation. Mrs Jones, the lady we have adverted to throughout this debate, is not going to get justice through the law, but if we genuinely open the archives—including the archives in Dublin—and encourage truthfulness, she could get the truth.

Going forward, we need to stop all future prosecutions of the sort that have persecuted our veterans, and we need a Bill that draws a line under the Northern Irish troubles, as well as the Haddon-Cave inquiry. We need a new process for war crimes under English law, and a new legal basis for military conduct without European law. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) and the private Member’s Bill he has introduced; I think that Bill goes in the right direction, but we can go even further. It particularly emphasises—this is the core point—that the chain of command is ultimately responsible for the actions of soldiers on the ground, and Ministers are ultimately responsible for the use of force, not the poor bloke who had to take a decision in a split-second, at risk of life.

I suggest that something more is needed even than what the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington suggests. We need to go further—we need to pull out of the ECHR altogether. There are many reasons for leaving it, and my party makes those points repeatedly. It protects terrorists and stops the deportation of illegal immigrants, but the most important reason is that it enables the prosecution of our soldiers. On those grounds, we must leave it.

[Chris Bryant]

It is absolutely integral to the Good Friday agreement.

[Danny Kruger]

We are very familiar with that argument. I do not think this is the time to have that debate, but I am confident—and there has been a lot of learned advice to this effect—that it is totally possible to withdraw from the ECHR while maintaining our obligations under the Good Friday agreement.

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

It gives me great pleasure to speak in the debate. On the whole, the debate has been wide-ranging, honest and balanced, recognising the complexity of this matter. I do not want to repeat what has been said, but I thank the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) for his honest and personal account, which reminded us that everybody—regardless of our background and the roles we have played—reacts as a human being. Regardless of the circumstances we have lived in and come to this debate from, when we are scared, we can react differently at times. Nobody should be held to account for being scared.

We have talked a lot about WAVE and the other victims groups. Many survivors and family support groups have given evidence and lobbied, whether in the past couple of weeks, over the past year in which we have been debating this Bill, or before that. They are people who come from very different perspectives, with very different backgrounds.

However, all of those people have given their time and talked about their experiences, their trauma and their families’ trauma. They have said how they are trying not to pass that trauma on to the next generation, but the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren cannot help but experience what their families have lived through, because of everything that we carry with us. I thank them for every time that they have addressed us and every time that they spoke to those who came before us. I hope to God that they never have to come back to this place after this Bill is passed to do it again.

“Soldier F” Trial Verdict

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I will do so when we have been able to inform the families in those cases. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would accept that it is only right and proper that we inform the families first, and then I will make a list available. On the reason for the Loughgall inquest, he will be aware that the former Attorney General said on 23 September 2015:

“Following careful consideration of a huge amount of material I have come to the decision that new inquests into the Loughgall deaths are justified.”

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Reform)]

Can the Secretary of State tell the House how it is compatible with the sovereignty of the United Kingdom to give the Irish Government an official role—effectively, a veto—over the new framework that the Government propose? Is he confident that the Irish state itself will do everything it can to ensure that its agents are held to account for any collusion that may have happened in atrocities carried out by Irish nationalists during the troubles?

[Hilary Benn]

The Irish Government do not have a veto. I stood next to the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, and I made commitments on behalf of the British Government and he made commitments on behalf of the Irish Government. All of us in the House who wish families to get the answers for which they have been searching for so long should welcome the fact that the Irish Government are prepared to move from where they are now, because they oppose the legacy Act too, to a place where they will give this their fullest co-operation. In the course of that, we all hope to provide more information to give more families answers. That is what we are trying to do, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that the two Governments are working together on this, because it will help the families.

Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Lamont]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point, which I will consider more fully later.

In 1998, as the then Prime Minister Tony Blair approached the end of his negotiations on the Good Friday agreement, one final demand was made. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness said that they could not go ahead with the deal—they were fearful of community pushback and wanted to give terrorists amnesty from prosecution. So a deal was done. On-the-run letters were given to suspected IRA terrorists, telling them that they were no longer wanted. The letters gave protection to terrorists, but nothing was offered to the soldiers who served in Northern Ireland.

The years that followed saw historical cases, which were investigated at the time, being re-examined. Veterans were dragged to court on politically motivated charges—a witch hunt—and that is why we needed the legacy Act. The Secretary of State and this Labour Government now want to repeal the protection afforded to soldiers as a result of that legislation. We are told that will be achieved by removing parts of the legacy Act via a remedial order, and that the Government will later introduce new primary legislation.

The Prime Minister’s Northern Ireland veterans tsar has said that this immoral “two-tier justice” will lead to “vexatious lawfare” against former soldiers. It sets a dangerous historical precedent. Are we now saying that if the Government send our troops into conflict, soldiers could be held to account in years to come for following the instructions given to them by this Government? If that is the case, why would anybody choose to serve our country? That is the reality facing many of our Northern Ireland veterans today. During my preparations for this debate, I spoke to one group who said that, should the legacy Act be revoked, the number of veterans prosecuted would be only in the low single figures, but that is still too many. It fails to recognise the worry and anxiety that it will cause our veterans, many of whom are in old age, and their families.

Let me be clear: if soldiers went out with murderous intent, they should be held to account. The rule of law should apply to those soldiers as it applies to the rest of us. However, the petition creator told me that he knows of no soldier who went out deliberately to murder. It is also important to remember that, when someone was killed during the troubles, it was investigated—sometimes three times, by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the police and the coroner’s court.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I am grateful to him. Last week, I met a number of veterans of the Northern Ireland troubles in my constituency, and they made the exact point that he is making: they never went out to kill; they went out to defend British citizens. Is it not particularly outrageous that the proposal suggests some sort of equivalence between the killers and those who were appointed to protect? As he says, it will impose a terrible chilling effect on recruitment to our services.

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. There is no equivalence between a terrorist—somebody who sets out in the morning with murderous intent—and a soldier who is defending democracy and our country. Sadly, we seem to be creating some sort of equivalence, which should not be allowed to happen.

Dennis Hutchings was a former member of the Life Guards Regiment. He was a terminally ill, 80-year-old veteran who was dragged to Northern Ireland during the pandemic in 2021. He died of covid just three days into his court case. Dennis was hounded for several years—told he was cleared, and then not—and then forced to fly to Belfast to stand trial. There was no new compelling evidence, and it was simply not in the public interest. It was a barbaric way to treat an elderly man who had served our country. His lawyer said that the case contributed to his death, and that it was likely that he would not have died at that point if he had not been forced to go to Northern Ireland to stand trial for an incident that occurred in 1974.

It is all too easy for us to sit here, look at the evidence and try to justify why a trial is in the public interest, but doing so fails to recognise the instant, life-or-death decisions that these soldiers in Northern Ireland had to take every single day. It is a rewriting of history. Decades on, people sit and judge events in retrospect, with little new evidence, and come to conclusions entirely at odds with the legal investigations at the time. The Government cannot and must not lose sight of their moral responsibility and commitment to our veterans, and to the armed forces covenant.

European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister]

My Bill is about seeking to restore democracy to the arrangements. That is why I want to take back from Brussels control over our laws. My Bill is a charter for democratic progress. The present arrangements are the antithesis of democratic operation.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Member might not have supported the Good Friday agreement but does he not acknowledge that the agreement recognised the sovereignty of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland? It involved a changing of the constitution in the Republic to recognise the sovereignty of the UK in Northern Ireland for the first time. It also recognised the reality and the existence of a border on the island of Ireland. What he is doing is reinforcing the principles of the Good Friday agreement, which he himself might have opposed back in the day.

[Jim Allister]

The core operating principle of the devolved institutions of Northern Ireland was that key issues have cross-community consent. That is what has been ripped out for Tuesday. I have yet to hear a rational, convincing explanation for that. Maybe the Minister has one. Why have we ripped out of the heart of the Belfast agreement the very thing that was supposed to give comfort to both sides—that neither side would get one over on them? Why have we ripped that out of this agreement? If the Minister wishes to tell me, I will gladly give way on that point.

There is even a further point about this vote on Tuesday. Article 18.2 of the protocol says that the consent vote was to be

“reached strictly in accordance with the unilateral declaration made by the United Kingdom”

Government of October 2019. I repeat: “strictly in accordance with”. That unilateral declaration of October ’19 promised a public consultation before this vote. It is there in black and white in the words of the declaration. There has been no consultation. So why are the Government inviting the Assembly to conduct a vote which breaches the guidelines laid down by the protocol itself—that the consent vote should be strictly in accordance with that declaration? That declaration included the promise of a public consultation, of which there has been none. That is another question—

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As we discussed last week, Mr Speaker, there is a well-established process of vetting for all peerages and I, in keeping with the convention followed by Prime Ministers of both parties, have followed the same process.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

Q11. Wiltshire leads the world in agritech—the farming processes that increase productivity and will feed the world’s growing population, without wrecking the environment. I welcome what the Government have done in this space, particularly in gene editing, which is only possible because of Brexit. Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the work of Wiltshire farmers and tech entrepreneurs, particularly James Dyson, although there are many more? Does he agree with me that this is one of the key opportunities for our country to become a high-wage, high-skill, high-tech economy?

[The Prime Minister]

When it comes to agritech, we are among the best in the world, with fantastic research bodies, businesses and pioneering farmers and growers. I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to all of them. They are getting our support through the £270 million farming innovation programme and, as he rightly mentioned, we are seizing the opportunities from our exit from the EU, including through our plans to develop gene-edited crops that are resistant to drought and flooding more quickly. That will drive up growth and productivity, and create jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The answer to that is, as anybody who gets a project done on their home or wherever knows, that starting again midway through I am afraid greatly multiplies the cost, but we will go as fast as we possibly can.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

The last time the UK hosted the G7 in 2013, the then Prime Minister launched the social impact investment taskforce to catalyse a market for private capital seeking social outcomes as well as financial returns, and this country now leads the world in the development of financial innovations for public good. Will my right hon. Friend therefore confirm that the social investment tax relief, which was launched after that summit, will continue beyond April? Will he use this year’s G7 to trumpet to the world the benefit of social investment, social enterprise and the social economy in general?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has long been a campaigner for the wonderful benefits of social enterprise. I visited some of his own, and if he just waits a little longer, he will receive an update on social investment tax relief.

Abortion Regulations: Northern Ireland

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I know that the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) would have expressed that view had he been in the House today. It is vital that we get the services in place as quickly as possible. We recognise the additional pressures facing the Department of Health as a result of covid and we want to support it with that, but it is right that we should end a situation whereby women and girls from Northern Ireland have to undergo travel to access these services. Putting in place a proper CEDAW-compliant system will do that.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

These regulations enshrine a more liberal abortion regime in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the United Kingdom, against the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland and against the spirit and principle of devolution. I am grateful to the Minister for his engagement on this issue so far, and I appreciate that he feels that the Government are under an obligation to bring these regulations forward, but is he aware of the eminent legal opinion that the Secretary of State has already met his obligations under the emergency powers Act, and that now the Assembly is restored he is free to withdraw those regulations? That is something that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy)—who is otherwise engaged—recognised in the debate on her amendment to the legislation last year, when she said that if Stormont was up and running, it would be absolutely not the right thing to do to impose regulations on Northern Ireland from London. She was right then, and will my hon. Friend heed the call from Northern Ireland to allow Stormont to decide whether it wants a more liberal regime than in the rest of the UK?

[Mr Walker]

I absolutely respect my hon. Friend’s views, but I disagree with him about the regime being more liberal than in the rest of the UK. We set out the detail of that in our response to the consultation and the detailed reasoning that the Government have provided in that respect. However, it is in the hands of the Assembly to propose reforms and a way forward on the regulations, so long as it can do so in a way that is CEDAW compliant. I would be very happy for it to take that opportunity. There is nothing to prohibit it doing so, and it is a matter of regret that, having been in place for a number of months before the regulations came into force, it has not. However, my firm understanding of the advice that the Government have received is that the legal obligations on us to ensure a human rights-compliant model in every part of the UK, including Northern Ireland, remain in place.