Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contribution to this important debate, and the 175,000 petitioners who have brought this issue into the public domain.

I join others in paying tribute to our extraordinary armed forces personnel who have fought and defended our freedoms. I think today about my grandfather. Although he was too early to serve in Northern Ireland, he knew precisely what was meant by fighting against terrorism: he was placed in Mandatory Palestine shortly after the second world war, dodging the bombs and bullets of the Lehi and the Haganah and narrowly avoiding being blown up in the King David hotel.

I open with a statement that should be entirely self-evident: families bereaved by the troubles deserve clear, credible answers and access to justice. This is not about ideology or party politics; it is about the foundational principles of decency, dignity and the right to truth, something that many victims’ families in Northern Ireland and beyond have waited decades for.

The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 sadly fell short of that aim and those principles. By shutting down investigations and offering conditional immunity, it extinguished the remaining legal pathways for families across Northern Ireland’s political spectrum. It told victims that time had run out on reconciliation, a key tenet of which is legal accountability. Tellingly, every major Northern Ireland political party, as well as victims’ groups and others, opposed the legislation—albeit, at times, for vastly different reasons.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to place on record my thanks to the veterans and servicepeople in my Taunton and Wellington constituency, including 40 Commando, and to the 412 people who signed the petition. I am a man who is willing to believe that we should approach this issue on a cross-party basis and try to seek a solution that protects our veterans across party lines. Is it not the challenge for the Government to convince veterans that their interests will be looked after before announcing the repeal of the legacy Act?

[Dr Pinkerton]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on the issue of trust, and the lack of trust in multiple constituencies that have an interest in this question, which applies to communities in Northern Ireland as much as it does to veterans. I hope that what this Government do in pursuing a repeal and replace approach will be, at the very least, an attempt to try to rebuild trust in this process.

Despite the opposition, the legacy Act passed, leaving families in limbo, irrespective of their religious or cultural identity. Although the Liberal Democrats recognise the legal necessity to repeal and replace the Act, I have serious doubt about the Government’s commitment to meaningful consultation with those who they should be listening to most closely. On visits to Northern Ireland with the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I have spoken to survivors and families from across Northern Ireland communities. Victims made it clear to me that they do not seek prosecutions; what they want is honest, truthful information about how and why their loved ones died.

If the Government are serious about making progress, they must act swiftly to restore faith in the investigatory process, which has been diminished by the creation of the ICRIR as a product of the legacy Act. The Liberal Democrats support the creation of a new independent, ECHR-compliant information retrieval body, to be established in consultation with victims and survivors. That would include meaningful participation from next of kin, as proposed by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Such a body should have statutory powers to compel disclosure, backed by robust oversight. Victims must have access to records, with exemptions limited to tightly defined national security grounds.

If such a body worked properly, it could deliver long-awaited answers, support societal reconciliation and offer some reassurance to British veterans, by establishing the truth without the perceived necessity to pursue a prosecutorial pathway. However, that will only be possible with genuine cross-border co-operation between the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the UK Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and, importantly, the Irish Government, who have been remarkably reluctant to participate in such processes up to now. All stakeholders must contribute to a clear and credible record of the past.

Let me now directly address the concerns about and from British armed forces veterans. If the rule of law is to mean anything in this country, its application must be fair and equal for everyone across all parts of the United Kingdom. The UK armed forces proudly operate within the law, and that culture is instilled from day one of training for officers and soldiers alike. We do no honour to their service by weakening or suspending the legal standards under which they serve. Supporting our forces means applying the law fairly, not shielding wrongdoing or applying unequal scrutiny.

Many paramilitary actions were never formally recorded and now depend on memory. By contrast, British forces left extensive records, making them more visible and sometimes more vulnerable to investigation. That imbalance has created the perception of unfairness and injustice. Between 1998 and 2022, six members of the UK armed forces were charged with troubles-related offences out of more than 250,000 personnel who served during Operation Banner. That is 0.003% of the serving population.