Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I do not agree with that assessment. There is nothing in this Bill that can be described as a direct threat to national security. I also note—[Interruption.] It would be good if the right hon. Gentleman would acknowledge this point. I note that those generals did not call for immunity. Maybe those on the Opposition Front Bench would like to reflect upon that.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Hilary Benn]

No; I am going to have to finish, because many people want to speak.

Part 5 makes provision for the inclusion of personal statements, allowing families to describe what the death meant to them. The commission will have the power to refer troubles-related criminality by police officers to the ombudsman for Northern Ireland. Part 6 puts in place the necessary provisions to set up, on a pilot basis, the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, as originally proposed in the Stormont House agreement. This will be an international body established jointly with the Irish Government to give families an additional means of retrieving information. Any information disclosed by individuals to the ICIR will be inadmissible in criminal and civil proceedings. Part 6 also includes provisions to ensure that the work of the ICIR does not impede on criminal investigations.

The Government have long been committed to restoring the troubles-related inquests that were halted by the legacy Act, which is why, under part 7 of the Bill, the inquests that were in progress prior to 1 May 2024 but subsequently halted will resume. Inquests that had been directed by the Attorney General but were not in progress will be subject to an independent assessment by the Solicitor General as to whether they are most effectively progressed in the Legacy Commission or the coronial system, and the Solicitor General will have regard to three statutory criteria.

I turn to part 8 and to the point raised earlier about interim custody orders. In short, these provisions seek to address the interpretation made by the UK Supreme Court in R v. Adams, regarding the application of the Carltona principle, with which this Government—and indeed the previous Government—disagreed. That principle is vital for Government, and it is right that it should be protected, including by dealing with what are considered incorrect inroads into it. Clauses 89 and 90 put it beyond doubt that the Carltona principle applied in the context of interim custody orders, by stating that any order made by a Minister of State or Under-Secretary of State is to be treated as an order of the Secretary of State. I refer the House to a written ministerial statement that I have today laid in Parliament setting out in greater detail the Government’s position on that matter.

The Bill will leave in place part 4 of the 2023 Legacy Act, meaning that the important provisions relating to oral history, academic research and the memorialisation of the troubles remain intact. Those measures stem from the Stormont House agreement and have been widely supported in principle. Part 8 of the Bill will also require the commission to produce and publish a historical record.

Separately, part 8 also allows any conduct that does not meet the definition of serious or connected troubles-related offences in the Bill to be investigated by the relevant police force. As a result, potentially serious offences, including sexual offences, will always have a route to investigation should evidence come to light.

Part 9 deals with general matters in relation to the Bill such as various definitions and its commencement.

I will bring my remarks to a close. I am acutely conscious that, for many families in Northern Ireland, time is running out. With every year that passes, memories fade, witnesses are lost and crucial evidence grows weaker. That is why the Government have to fix the mess that we inherited. But what is this really about? It is about those who continue to live with the pain of what happened to them or to someone they loved. We know that the overwhelming majority of those who were killed died at the hands of paramilitaries, and, as the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) so powerfully reminded us just over a month ago, the people who died were not in the wrong place at the wrong time; it was the terrorists who were in the wrong place doing the wrong thing.

We must be clear that terrorism is always wrong. Although we must recognise that the vast majority of those who served in Northern Ireland did so with distinction and bravery, in the words of apology offered in this House by the former Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis following the Ballymurphy inquest,

“it is clear that in some cases the security forces and the army made terrible errors too.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2021; Vol. 695, c. 277.]

I believe that this legislation represents our best and possibly final chance to fulfil the unrealised ambition of the Good Friday agreement. I accept that nobody will like everything contained in the Bill, as is inevitable given the differing views held by many. If fixing legacy was easy, we would not be discussing it 27 years later.

Let me read from a letter that the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland has sent me about our approach, which he says has been received

“with cautious optimism by victims and survivors.”

He goes on to say that we—he is talking about all of us—should

“get a move on rather than waste more precious time”,

and encourages all of us as parliamentarians

“to continue to show courage and determination to deliver for victims and survivors.”

It is no wonder that he refers to caution, because victims and survivors have been let down so many times before. That is why it is now our responsibility to take this forward.

I will continue to talk to victims and survivors, veterans and others, and colleagues in all parts of the House, during the passage of the Bill to consider where amendments might further improve it. Equally, I hope that all who seek a fair and effective way forward will recognise that the Bill represents a fundamental reform of current arrangements, and that it should be given a chance to succeed. I commend the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention; I remember that he made a similar intervention in 2017, and again in 2023, on just that point, based on the work his Committee had done.

The Secretary of State has now introduced a draft remedial order to eliminate those parts of the Bill that are deemed to be incompatible. As he knows—I have written to him twice on this subject—the official Opposition do not believe that that remedial order is appropriate, and certainly not yet. That is because earlier this year the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement was granted permission to intervene in the case of Dillon before the Supreme Court, specifically on the issue of compatibility. On 15 October that intervention was heard, and if those arguments are accepted, the Supreme Court has the power to quash the declarations of incompatibility.

That means that the Secretary of State has no legal basis at this time for that remedial order. He has acted—or rather, if he pushes it to a vote, he will be acting—ultra vires, because under section 10 of the Human Rights Act the Government can only issue such an order unless and until all appeals in relation to the declarations of incompatibility have been “determined or abandoned”. In this case, they have not been, and the Government must not call a vote on the order unless and until they have been. I hope that the Minister will offer some clarity on the next steps during his closing remarks.

The Conservative party has been clear: the European convention on human rights should no longer be considered an obstacle to doing the right thing. It is not a holy text, and its jurisprudence is forcing Governments to do unholy things. Since legal advice of the highest order has now twice shown that the United Kingdom can leave the convention without breaking the 1998 agreement, this is what the next Conservative Government will do.

The current Government have previously said that they have to legislate because the legacy Act did not have cross-community consent, but where is that cross-community consent today? It does not exist. If there had been a cross-community solution on legacy, Stormont would have found it. I suspect that no solution is to be found, which means it is the responsibility of this House to protect those now abused by the system. The Bill will fail to do that. It will not help victims to find out the truth. It will not give comfort to our veterans. It will reopen old wounds and allow infection to come in.

[Fleur Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman has talked about doing the right thing, but is not doing the right thing getting justice for over 1,000 families, including 200 veteran families, who have waited too long for answers about their loved ones? Putting victims at the heart of this process would be doing the right thing—getting on with legislation that will deliver the justice needed, instead of the delays and dithering that the Conservatives’ legacy Act provided?

[Alex Burghart]

With all due respect to the hon. Lady, who I enjoyed working opposite, the last Government did not offer delay and dithering; we offered firm legislation. What she outlines, I am afraid, is an unrealistic view of the future. We have seen many cases come forward and very few convictions, and the people who suffer in that process are veterans. They are veterans like the gentleman I referred to a moment ago, from a case in 1991—four years of investigation, with a ludicrous case at the end. What is happening today is that victims are being promised something that will never be delivered, and veterans are being told that they do not matter.