Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Those 800 cases were untouched and the Act allowed them to carry on—that is a very important point, given some very inaccurate press reporting at the beginning of this week, of which I am sure many right hon. and hon. Members are aware—but it did stop about 230 new civil claims proceeding. Those claims were lodged after First Reading of the legacy Bill, and about 120 of them are against the MOD. It also prevented any more claims from being brought in future. The point I am making is that there are 800 cases already there, left untouched by the last Government’s legacy Act, and 120 cases against the MOD that have been added since that will be enabled to proceed if the remedial order passes. As we know, that bar on new civil cases was found by the courts to be incompatible with our legal obligations.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I intend to return to this matter in my contribution later on, but the issue of civil cases highlights most starkly the discord even between the courts. The High Court in Belfast focused only on the retrospective application of the provisions on civil cases, but the Court of Appeal then said that not only should it not be retrospective, but it should have no application in the future. There was a disagreement between the High Court and the Court of Appeal about the import of the measure, yet the Secretary of State, more determined to pursue his policy objective than the law, decided not to appeal that issue in the Supreme Court. That is why there are questions about the appropriate nature of this remedial order—does he accept that?

[Hilary Benn]

It is not unusual for higher courts to take a different view on a matter to that taken by lower courts—that is the way the law works. I would give the same answer to the right hon. Gentleman that I gave to an earlier intervention, which is that the Government’s view is that citizens of the United Kingdom should be able to bring civil cases as a matter of principle.

[Gavin Robinson]

indicated dissent.

[Hilary Benn]

The right hon. Gentleman may disagree, but that is the view of the Government, and that is why we withdrew the appeal in relation to that element of the judgments to which he just referred.

We should remember that civil cases have been brought by family members of victims who were murdered during the troubles against the paramilitaries who were responsible. In 2009, four individuals were found by a civil court to be responsible for the Omagh bombing. There has also been a civil case looking into the Hyde Park bombing, where John Downey was found to be an active participant in the killing of four soldiers, and—this was referred to a moment ago—a civil case against Gerry Adams is due to take place in London this year. Therefore, to vote against this remedial order would be to prevent any more such cases from being brought against paramilitaries in future.

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[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

On a point of agreement and positivity, may I thank the Leader of the House and the usual channels for agreeing that this motion should have three hours of debate? Had it arrested at 90 minutes, no Northern Ireland voice would have been heard in this debate at all, which would be shameful.

Thank you for the indication that you will bring in a time limit, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not intend to take advantage of my opportunity to speak without a time limit, because I will not be discourteous to Northern Ireland colleagues or any others who wish to participate.

The Secretary of State knows my position on this matter. I believe that he is bringing in this remedial order wrongly, and he is attaching a level of undue haste to these issues. I said to him on 17 December in this Chamber that, given that he knows that issues are still before the Supreme Court, he should at least wait. Although he has abandoned the appeal, the Northern Ireland Veterans Movement has not. This Government have tried to indicate their support for and understanding of the concerns of veterans—the previous speaker made a valiant effort—yet we have veterans waiting on the challenge that they lodged in the Supreme Court, and the Government cannot wait until these issues have been determined.

I say again to the Secretary of State that remedial orders are there to deal with an incompatibility with human rights law, not his policy objectives, yet that is exactly what I believe he is doing in this regard. If I am wrong, surely it is incumbent on him to use this mechanism to deal with all the incompatibilities that were highlighted by the courts. The High Court in Belfast highlighted a number, yet he left one out. The Court of Appeal added three more, yet he only added one to this remedial order. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has indicated that the remedial order should be approved, but has offered absolutely no view whatsoever on the issues that have been left out of the order. But I am going to raise them.

Civil cases were mentioned earlier. The Secretary of State has not explained why the High Court in Belfast and the Court of Appeal were in two fundamentally different places on civil cases, nor did he take the opportunity to pursue that differential and get a determined outcome in the Supreme Court. He has not indicated why he believes the High Court in Belfast thought that retrospective application was wrong and yet the Court of Appeal allowed civil cases to be lodged indefinitely and in perpetuity. When I intervened on him, he posed a question to me about the principle of bringing civil cases. I agree with that principle, but it is not uncommon for the law to understand limitations, including through our limitations legislation. We need to understand that it is part of the sovereignty of this Parliament to be able to say, “Enough is enough. Time has moved on. You have exhausted your opportunity for a claim.” We know, as do veterans, the security services and the PSNI, about the unlimited quest through legal aid and lawfare to rewrite the past—to rewrite the history of Northern Ireland and to turn that which was bad into good—and we will always speak out against that.

The Secretary of State has chosen to leave the interim custody order issue out of his remedial order and attempt to deal with that issue in the troubles Bill, but clauses 89 and 90 of that Bill will not deal with Gerry Adams. Lord Kerr’s judgment—probably his final judgment before he retired from the Supreme Court and before his sad demise—indicates that that which the Secretary of State intends to introduce through clause 89 does not stand legally. Clause 90 deals with convictions that were quashed and remain quashed, but for which there can be no compensation. It is silent on whether Gerry Adams would be able to obtain compensation, not for the quashed conviction, but from the fact that he was detained without trial under an interim custody order in the first place. The Secretary of State has been deficient in what he has provided this House with. He has not chosen to deal with the incompatibility through this remedial order, nor do I believe he has dealt with it sufficiently through the path he has taken on primary legislation.

Returning to the issue of civil cases, the Secretary of State lectures Northern Ireland continually about living within our budget—within our means—but he is expanding the scope of legacy investigations and the legacy commission exponentially through this remedial order and the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. Has he suggested for one moment that he is going to increase the budget available to the legacy commission? No. It has been given £250 million over five years. Almost £100 million has already been spent. Is he going to pick up the tab for this raft of work that is going to befall us in Northern Ireland? No.

The decisions being made in this Chamber now, and those that will be made in future regarding the troubles Bill, have a material impact on our ability to move on to the future rather than deal with the past, yet I hear no concern for that. I see that 800-odd civil claims will now be accompanied by an additional 200 claims. Who is to pick up the bill, Secretary of State? If it is the people of Northern Ireland—the people who were troubled for 30 years by terrorists—and the fledgling Executive, who are struggling to make public services deliver for their people because of these issues, then that is something I have a responsibility to raise, and it is something the Secretary of State needs to wrestle with and deal with.

Most fundamentally of all, it has been suggested that this process was to provide a quick resolution to an issue raised by the courts. We are now some 18 months on from a manifesto commitment to repeal and replace the legacy Act, yet what do we hear? We hear that this Government are locked in a logjam between the Northern Ireland Office and the Ministry of Defence about the substance of amendments that may or may not be tabled.

Two weeks ago, the Government were maintaining the position that the safeguards in the Bill, which they call protections, were sufficient. Only two weeks ago, the Prime Minister accepted with me that those were insufficient and that he was going to have to bring forward amendments. That was shut down by a representative of the Irish Government some two hours later, who said that the Secretary of State has no power to bring forward any amendments unless he attains their agreement. Shame, I say. [Interruption.] It is a matter of fact that that was said by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Parliament Buildings, Belfast, and the Secretary of State well knows it. We will attest, and we will see the amendments that he brings forward.

I seriously and personally regret that we are in a position that we cannot offer our support to this remedial order. I asked the Secretary of State on 17 December to wait, as the hearings concluded in October and the Supreme Court will issue a determination. He would be in a much stronger space to build credibility and confidence on these issues, if he at least allowed the judicial process to conclude, but he chose not to—and with that, he loses our support.

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[Lincoln Jopp]

I haven’t got time. I do not think that we are doing the House, or indeed Parliament, justice by proceeding in this way.

I was a soldier for 25 years and spent three and a half years in Northern Ireland. I once made the mistake of saying that to Ronnie Flanagan—he was the chief constable at the time—and he told me that I am only on my first tour. Soldiers put up with a lot. I was not given any more powers by this House than those of a private citizen—not really. They just slung a rifle round my neck and sent me off to do the Queen’s bidding. I happily did it and so did others. In my first of four Northern Ireland tours, two guardsmen—Guardsmen Fisher and Wright—were in a judgmental shooting situation, and they were convicted of murder by one man in a Diplock court and sentenced to life imprisonment, so soldiers put up with stuff.

But one of the things I find it very difficult to put up with is that when all the Government Members troop through the Lobby tonight, they will remove the prohibition on giving Gerry Adams compensation. I find that incredibly difficult because it is on an admin error: his internment order was signed by a Minister of State and not the Secretary of State. It is on that technicality that he will be able to get compensation for being interned and for trying to escape unsuccessfully—twice. He will get a triple whammy of compensation.

[Gavin Robinson]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Lincoln Jopp]

I will not.

I challenged the hon. Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) earlier, asking him to speak to veterans and the people of Halesowen to justify why that triple whammy is okay, and why he is prepared to go through the Lobby to vote for it tonight. And he said, “The Prime Minister has told me that that’s okay, and that he is not going to allow it. I heard him here at PMQs.” Perhaps the hon. Gentleman, who I am delighted to see back in his place, is not aware that, immediately afterwards, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that he could not guarantee that compensation payments to Mr Adams and other former troubles internees would be prevented. The hon. Gentleman is completely free to wander through the Lobby in blissful ignorance of the fact that what the Prime Minister said does not amount to a hill of beans. If he can summon up the courage, he should at least abstain.

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[Hilary Benn]

I am going to make some progress because I am trying to respond to the many points raised in the debate.

The second reason we are doing this is that we want those who are still seeking answers to be able to seek them in a system that they have confidence in, and there has not been confidence under the previous Government’s legacy Act, for the reasons we have heard, including from Northern Ireland Members.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) made a very powerful contribution in defence of our human rights obligations, and I am grateful for his support and that of his party for the remedial order. We heard important contributions on both sides of the argument—I recognise that, and I recognise the sincerity and force with which those arguments were made. On the Government Benches we heard contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald), for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger), and for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey). If I may say so, the hon. Members for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna) and for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) both made extremely strong and well-argued cases.

The right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) says that we should wait. He is perfectly entitled to advance that argument, but he is one of the majority of those who have taken part in the debate who are in favour of getting rid of immunity, which is what the remedial order does. The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) said that nobody is interested in those who were affected by the Kingsmill massacre. I disagree with that. As he will know, the Kingsmill massacre is currently the subject of an investigation by the legacy commission, and I hope that, along with all those investigations, it is able to make progress.

[Gavin Robinson]

I understand why the Secretary of State focuses on amnesty, because it means that he does not have to focus on the things he did not include, which are also incompatible, or on other things that are included. Can he indicate to the House what he will do if the Supreme Court says that he is wrong, and therefore this remedial order was wholly inappropriate?

[Hilary Benn]

We are all subject to the decisions of the Court. The right hon. Gentleman asks a hypothetical question, and, like answers to all hypotheticals, I would say that we will cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

I am afraid that the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) is wrong on the question of interim custody orders, because he has not caught up with what the Government have done. The one difference between the first version of the remedial order and the one we are debating, is that the Government listened to arguments that were made, which said, “Why are you taking sections 46 and 47 off the legislation?” Those sections were added very late in the day during consideration of the legacy Bill in an attempt to deal with the consequences of the 2020 Supreme Court judgment. That did not uphold the Carltona principle—which, as the House knows, has long held that anything signed by a junior Minister has the force of the signature of the Secretary of State. In that case, the Supreme Court decided that it would not apply that to the signing of interim custody orders. We decided to leave that defence there, even though it has proved flimsy because it did not win out in the Fitzsimons case, and we are bringing forward legislation that we think will do the task of restoring the legality of those interim custody orders that were signed, whether by the Secretary of State at the time or by other Ministers. That is extremely important.

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) spoke about his friend Robert Nairac, and we are all living in hope that his remains, and the other three sets of remains, will be found. The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains said, “If you give information about the location of remains, anything that is found and the information you have given us cannot be used in a prosecution”.

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That the draft Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Remedial) Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 14 October 2025, be approved.

[Gavin Robinson]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I mentioned this briefly in my opening remarks, but I place on record my appreciation for the agreement that this evening’s motion could be extended for double-time. Having praised the usual channels, the Government and Opposition Chief Whips and the Leader of the House, may I also pay tribute to you, Madam Deputy Speaker? Thank you for trying to ensure that everyone was accommodated. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] It is appreciated. As the Secretary of State knows, I do not appreciate the outcome, but I do appreciate that all Members were included.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

While that is not a point of order, it is very much appreciated and it is on the record.