Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

James Heappey Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I wholeheartedly agree. I commend the hon. Lady and others. Women have travelled here to tell us about those experiences. I commend hon. Members, whatever their views, to take time to listen to those experiences. Like her, I heard Denise’s testimony. I learned more when I heard evidence at the hearings of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. The way in which services here are not established to cope with what then happens to people, particularly if they are travelling, and particularly with regard to foetal remains, is just the most shocking thing that I have heard in this place. It really is time that that stops happening and that we stop making these women relive this experience. Let us be very clear: they are determined to do that and they will keep coming forward and supporting each other.

Let me just move on to historical institutional abuse, which is another issue covered by these amendments. May I also join the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) and pay tribute to Justice Anthony Hart, who has sadly passed away suddenly today? His diligence and work on the inquiry have helped to shine a light on the suffering of many in Northern Ireland.

Thousands of people were let down when they were placed in the state’s care. That pain has been compounded by the delay in establishing the compensation and redress mechanisms laid down under the recommendations of the Hart inquiry. I understand that representatives of victims and survivors will be in Westminster tomorrow to give evidence on the delay in legislating to provide compensation. That is really helpful to them. They are travelling again to talk to us so we hear what they have to say. Labour has consistently called on the Government to legislate on this issue as it is an urgent matter. It has been said many times in this place that, since the publication of the Hart report, some 30 survivors have passed away. Again, we need to see action now as these people are passing on.

Let me turn to the issue of pensions. We have again called for the implementation of pensions for those seriously injured as a result of the troubles. More than 500 people have been unable to live the lives that many of us have been able to, and to plan for their future with their family and to build up their pensions. I have met many of those people through the WAVE project and the South East Fermanagh Foundation. Again, they are travelling here to talk to us. I urge hon. Members, when they have the opportunity, to listen to them and to hear how their lives have been devastated.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I am sure that the hon. Lady is aware that some of the people who have been identified as possible beneficiaries of this pension are former IRA terrorists who injured themselves in the pursuit of their terrorist activities. Can she confirm that the Opposition are clear that no IRA terrorist should benefit from these pensions?

[Karin Smyth]

The hon. Gentleman raises what is a hugely controversial subject, as he knows. I have met some of those people, who have challenged me directly on the matter. We know that it is a controversial and difficult subject, but we have the definition from 2006 and it is absolutely our view that that remains and, if it is to be changed, it has to be with the agreement and work-through of the political parties in Northern Ireland.

The pension is a recognition of the suffering of those people as a result of the troubles. Again, we need to make sure that this matter is progressed. There are real victims who are struggling in Northern Ireland and who do not have a voice. It is absolutely incumbent on people here to listen to them and to make progress.

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[Dr Lewis]

I am not an expert on the subject, but I think that the numbers at the moment are very low, but the threat—the sword of Damocles—is hanging over a very large number of people.

That leads me rather neatly to the final point that I want to make, about conformity with international law, which does not require a prosecution but does require an investigation. That is why the Select Committee on Defence—we have a further report coming out that relates not just to Northern Ireland, but to the wider context of other campaigns—has always sought to combine the notion of a qualified statute of limitations with that of a truth recovery process. What might loosely be termed the Nelson Mandela solution means that we would satisfy the requirement for an investigation but remove the sword of Damocles hanging over someone’s head, because they would know that they would be required to say what they remembered of the events concerned, with an absolute assurance that no prosecutions would result. That would give the bereaved families the best chance of finding out the truth.

[James Heappey]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Lewis]

Very well, for the last time.

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend is very kind. I instinctively agree with the amendment that he has tabled. I am concerned about a statute of limitation, because if case law were applied would the other side not claim access to the statute of limitation as well? I would be grateful for his thoughts on that.

[Dr Lewis]

I thought that by implication I had covered that point. The likelihood is that anyone before the law would be able to lay claim to the statute, but the reality is that what my hon. Friend calls the other side—with their letters of comfort, among other things—are the last people who need to be worried about the present situation. We must not get hung up on the terminology. The people we have to protect are those where the records exist, but to whom letters of comfort have not been given—our armed forces veterans.

In conclusion, I want to—

Immunity for Soldiers

James Heappey Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to follow the speeches of so many hon. and gallant Friends who have spoken so compellingly about their service and how that translates into how they see things now as policy makers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore), who opened the debate with great clarity; his speech would have been well received by all ex-service people watching the debate. It pains me, however, that the Northern Ireland Office Minister responding to the debate is my immediate constituency neighbour—my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose). He and I are great friends, but I am afraid that I must not pull any of my punches: I feel that the Ministry of Defence should be responding to the debate, rather than the Northern Ireland Office.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, although I missed the beginning of the debate. I hope that he will join me in asking the Minister to address the Stormont House agreement when he responds. I rather fear that the reason why we are in this predicament with Northern Ireland veterans relates to the terms of that agreement—in relation to historical investigations, in particular.

[James Heappey]

I very much agree. My hon. Friend is right that the political angle to this is most unfortunate. I will come to that later in my remarks.

I am deeply concerned by any suggestion of equivalence between the actions that I and so many other service personnel have taken on operations and the actions taken by terrorists out to take life illegally. There is no equivalence. In the debate on the urgent question on Thursday morning, the Government deployed a disappointing line, which seemed to suggest that comfort letters would not endure and, if they did not, all would therefore be open to prosecution. Although that corrects an imbalance, by definition it creates an equivalence, in which we say, “At least both sides can be investigated and prosecuted.” That is simply not acceptable: there is no equivalence.

[Mr Francois]

David Griffin, aged 78, is a Chelsea pensioner. In 1972, he killed an IRA gunman who was about to assassinate one of his comrades. He was investigated at the time and exonerated. Forty-six or 47 years later, he is being investigated again by the PSNI, who will not tell him his fate. He was an Irish Catholic born in Dublin—

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[Mr Francois]

It is not sub judice. I am sorry, Mr Bone: I completely understand your intervention, but this is not before a court and the case is in the public domain. Very quickly, David Griffin has no comfort letter—he has no comfort of any kind and is in utter limbo, although he is a Chelsea pensioner. He is very worried. Why do our Government allow this to happen?

[James Heappey]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no equivalence whatever. Whether the other side can now be investigated again or not, it is simply unreasonable, wrong, immoral and a breakdown of our covenant with our armed forces that we allow the investigation of those who have served to continue.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) gave an amazing speech, in which he reflected that there was a time when his blokes thought that he had thrown them under the bus because they were required to go to court. It was clear from his speech the pain that he felt having to look his soldiers in the eye and break that news to them. I suspect that if those soldiers were watching you, Colonel, this afternoon they would have been proud to see someone take the responsibilities of command so seriously years after their watch is done. I found that very powerful.

All of us who have had the great privilege of carrying a commission in Her Majesty’s armed forces, and to have had command of soldiers, sailors and airmen, will relate strongly to the pain that my hon. and gallant Friend so clearly felt. Even now, in another career many years later, we feel we are letting our riflemen, guardsmen and private soldiers down. That is what motivates us all to be here.

The first time I was involved in any such process was in Kabul in 2005, about a year after I had been commissioned. We had been involved in the use of lethal force following a double vehicle-borne suicide bombing. Throughout the afternoon and evening that followed, and overnight as we stood on the perimeter, we went back through everything we did and thought tactically whether we did the right thing. When we got in the next morning, having been relieved, and the first thing we got was a date with the Royal Military Police’s special investigations branch, I was pretty close to throwing punches. But I understand that is a necessary part of applying lethal force on the battlefield. We are trained to live and operate by a higher standard, and we should have nothing to fear when the investigation starts immediately on the back of the application of force like that.

Two years later in Basra, and two years after that in Sangin, that process was commonplace—in Sangin, as a battalion adjutant in the most contested Herrick tour and battle space, I was responsible for an awful lot of initial investigation processes. The immediate debrief could not be accurate, because adrenalin was still coursing through the veins of the riflemen who had been involved. They were emotional because, very often, their friends had lost their legs or had been killed in the very same mission. There was confusion about what had happened because the fog of war was all around them. As they relayed their individual testimonies about what had happened that afternoon, night or morning, often that did not match up with the testimony of the rifleman who had stood immediately next to them, fighting the same contact.

In the process of that investigation, the company second-in-command drafts a report and comes up to the adjutant, who has a look at it; he then goes to the brigade and the legal adviser looks at it, and the special investigations branch has a look at it. Meanwhile, that rifleman would have been deployed on three, four, five, six or seven more patrols in the following seven days, in which there would have been more kinetic activity in which they would have applied lethal force, and on the back of which there would have been more reports by the company’s second-in-command, coming up to the adjutant and so on and so forth. Very quickly, all the details of those missions start to mesh into one—so much so that we had riflemen go to the coroner’s hearings six or nine months or a year after a tour and not recognise the contemporary report of what happened that night when they applied lethal force.

I make that point because days or a year after, those servicemen cannot remember exactly what happened—it is a natural part of how we deal with our mental health to seek to delete and overwrite. How on earth can we turn round to them decades later and replay to them accurate reports made at the time as part of the evidence against, and ask them to account for themselves to try to establish their innocence once again? Some of us have had that moment when a threat is perceived—in a split second we have to decide whether to apply lethal force because our life or the life of another is in danger.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. I wonder whether the judge would have access to such reports by the IRA terrorists.

[James Heappey]

My hon. and gallant Friend is absolutely right: the IRA did not keep such records, which is a great unfairness. Those of us who have had to apply lethal force have taken the decision in a split second, hoping that all our training, instincts and everything we have learned since first going into the Army, Navy or Air Force will mean that we take the right decision. We know there is a danger that we might get it wrong and we need to know that, provided we are in the rules of engagement and can say squarely that we perceive the threat to be there, our Government will stand behind our actions.

The written ministerial statement that may come tomorrow is great news for those of us who served on Operation Herrick and Operation Telic. My tours of Afghanistan in 2005 happened more than 10 years ago; my tour to Basra in 2007 was 10 years ago; and at the end of October, my final operational tour to Iraq and Afghanistan will be more than 10 years ago. That statement should be, and will be, huge comfort to tens of thousands of veterans who served in those theatres.

As somebody who served in Northern Ireland, an MP with many constituents who served in Northern Ireland and a former rifleman with many ex-riflemen friends who served in Northern Ireland, I’m all right, Jack. We must remember that it is not okay—in fact, it makes it worse—to have one statute of limitations that applies to the conflicts that are most on people’s conscience, while ignoring those who fought in Northern Ireland in just as trying circumstances, as we have heard so many times this afternoon. They are left behind.

The legal premise on which my former comrades served in Northern Ireland is not their fault. The failings of any investigation that happened at the time is not their fault. Conversely, the quality of the investigations at the time, which allows vexatious politicians and lawyers to pore over the detail and challenge it decades later, is not their fault. The political situation in Northern Ireland is not their fault. The fact that they pulled the trigger in Northern Ireland rather than in the Falklands, the Balkans, Iraq or Afghanistan is not their fault. The fact that the Government have not yet done anything about this is also not their fault.

This situation cannot drag on any further. A universal statute of limitations across all theatres is required now. This is not an amnesty. Our armed forces are not above the law—we ask of them higher standards than we do of those in civilian life. When they fall short, we punish them in a way that would be draconian in any civilian employment setting. If we understand some of what they do, as many of us here do, we understand why they deserve protection. We ask that they accept unlimited liability in defence of our nation. We must accept the political liability that comes with saying, “Come what may, we’ve got your back.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Carol Monaghan]

I sincerely hope the hon. Gentleman is not comparing members of our armed forces to terrorists.

[James Heappey]

He is not; you are. You started it.

[Carol Monaghan]

These investigations must not be time-constrained. The idea that after a set period of time a line is drawn under past incidents does not support the families’ need for resolution.

The Chair of the Select Committee on Defence made some interesting points in talking about the report. He mentioned a truth recovery mechanism. Such a mechanism will need to investigate incidents; regardless of what we do, there has to be some sort of closure for families and for victims.

Investigation of Veterans

James Heappey Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that this issue has not landed on anybody’s desk in the Northern Ireland Office out of a clear blue sky—it has been taking up a very large proportion of everybody’s care and attention. It is probably fair to say that it was doing so under former Labour Governments as well as the current Government, and indeed the coalition Government. It is certainly not a new problem, and it has clearly defeated successive attempts to solve it. That is why we have to proceed as fast as possible, but with care.

With regard to people who have already faced cases, clearly we need to make sure that they are treated fairly within the law. Bearing in mind Mr Speaker’s earlier strictures, I probably should not comment on individual cases, but I am sure that everybody here would stand up for the notion that yes, clearly, everyone should be treated fairly within the law.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I deployed to Afghanistan twice and to Iraq and to Northern Ireland, all in quite quick succession. I can tell the Minister that I received operational training and operational kit. I carried operational rules of engagement. I received operational pay, and I received an operational medal for all four of those tours. The distinction that a soldier is aware of the legal premise on which they are deployed is not true—it is not fair, and it stinks. Troops do not get to choose whether they deploy on an operational tour because of the legal underpinning that the Government have chosen, and it is unreasonable to assert that now. We must limit their liability immediately.

[John Penrose]

I completely agree. I was trying to make this point in response to a couple of earlier questions, but let me have another crack at it. For members of Her Majesty’s armed forces serving on the ground, no matter where they are, if they are on similar kinds of operation, the practical effect and feel of those operations will be the same. My hon. Friend, who is my parliamentary neighbour in Somerset, is absolutely right to make that point. It is not an acceptable justification for inaction for any Government to say, “The legal basis is different, and therefore we cannot solve this.”

All I am saying is that the legal solution has to be different because the legal basis is different, even though soldiers may not care or worry about it. If we do not take that difference of legal basis into account, the answer we come up with will not work in protecting them. We want to protect them properly and successfully. If we do not, the first malicious prosecution that is mounted in a court and knocks a hole in it will show that our efforts have been in vain. My hon. Friend is right. This is an explanation of why it is different; it is not a justification for not acting, nor is it a justification for not succeeding in coming up with an identical outcome, even though it has to be based on different legal foundations.

Northern Ireland: Recent Violence

James Heappey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Gentleman is an assiduous constituency MP, who regularly raises many constituency issues with me. I join him in his tributes to the community and the PSNI for the work they have done. I can confirm that not only did I receive a written invitation from him but he personally hand-delivered that written invitation, so I have definitely received it.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

During my own service in Northern Ireland, I have seen at first hand the skill with which PSNI officers react proportionately but robustly to public disorder and paramilitary criminality in the Province. Will my right hon. Friend join me in expressing admiration for the bravery and restraint that the PSNI shows when policing these very challenging situations?

[Karen Bradley]

I join my hon. Friend in saying exactly that. I visited the gold command centre on Thursday morning to see the work that those very dedicated public servants do; that is something that I will take with me for a long time.

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill

James Heappey Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Dodds]

The hon. Lady is right to refer to the efforts made by the previous leader in Northern Ireland of Sinn Féin and my former leader as well and to the great efforts that were made, and there have also been their successors Peter Robinson, who led the Executive for seven years, and Arlene Foster, and Martin McGuinness during that period as well. I served in the Executive under both Dr Paisley and Peter Robinson, so I am fully aware of the efforts the DUP has made to reach out across the communities and to serve with people who for many, many years attacked our communities, and indeed attacked us personally by trying to assassinate members of our party—myself and others—so that was no easy task.

Generosity of spirit is something that we have exhibited over many, many years. Despite the toxicity of the atmosphere that Sinn Féin has created, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim alluded, we are still prepared to go into government and to work in devolved government. That shows a pretty generous spirit. There are no red lines for us because we believe in going about the people’s business and getting the Government up and running. That is what matters.

Just as an aside—although it is more than an aside—I should like to say this. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) referred to an anniversary tomorrow, but we have already rightly referred to the anniversary today of the Warrington bombing and the anniversary yesterday of the savage murder of two Army corporals. Everybody who was alive at the time remembers seeing the footage of the two young British soldiers who stumbled into a funeral and who were almost literally torn to death. We should remember, as we hear the eulogies to Martin McGuinness, that it was the movement he led that carried out those atrocities.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend refers to one of the darkest days for the British Army during the troubles, but will he join me in contrasting that day with the scenes that we saw in Lisburn last week when my former battalion, 2 Rifles, was welcomed back with great enthusiasm by the whole community? Is that not a great example of the way which Northern Ireland has changed?

[Nigel Dodds]

Yes, and I am sure that even 30 years ago the good people of Lisburn would have extended that same welcome to the soldiers to whom my hon. Friend refers. The fact is that when we praise the peace process and the political process in Northern Ireland, far too little praise and respect are given to the members of the Army, the other services, the police or the Ulster Defence Regiment, who over many decades held the ring and protected innocent life, both Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and nationalist. They were courageous in their efforts and, were it not for them, we would not enjoy the peace that we enjoy today. There are individuals in the political sphere and elsewhere who are rightly praised and given plaudits, but the real heroes are the people of our emergency services and security forces who put on their uniforms and went out to defend the people at great cost to themselves. Some of them still bear the cost in mental and physical trauma.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Heappey Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have some very excitable denizens of the House today. They ought to take some sort of medicament and calm down.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

Q5. Residents in communities across the Wells constituency have been angered this summer by a seemingly endless stream of illegal Traveller encampments. Will the Prime Minister look at what more the Government could do to help local authorities to close these illegal encampments more quickly and at less cost to local taxpayers?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, and it is not unique to his constituency; it is felt by many Members across the House. We are concerned about unauthorised encampments and the effect when they leave communities. A wide range of powers is available to local authorities and the police, and we want to see them working together and with local landowners. We do keep these matters under review, and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Communities Secretary will be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss them.

Northern Ireland: Political Situation

James Heappey Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I know that there are strong views on a number of issues. The hon. Gentleman’s party and Sinn Féin continue in discussions to find a resolution to these issues and differences, and they have even been continuing today, shortly before this sitting started. The focus needs to be on that. We must have an Executive performing in the best interests of Northern Ireland; I know the hon. Gentleman’s party has strongly indicated that it wants to see that. We will continue to support all the parties involved in this process to find that resolution, and to look beyond the differences between parties. We recognise also that the political process in Northern Ireland is very special, and that so many people have worked so hard to get us to this point. I think that the hon. Gentleman and others all want to see that progressing into the future, and to see that positive bright future for Northern Ireland across all communities.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

The additional funds committed to Northern Ireland in recent weeks continue to be wrongly labelled as money for a single party in the Province. Will the Secretary of State reaffirm that this is in fact money for the whole Province, to be spent by all parties, and that it represents a billion more reasons for political leadership to be restored at Stormont?

Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointments and Regional Rates) Bill

James Heappey Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 24th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Anderson]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman, and I believe that that is part and parcel of the demands that we in this House should make. Such co-operation is part of Sinn Féin’s responsibility as democratically elected politicians, and they should be doing that in every way they can; they must never, ever run away from it. I want to make it clear that to me, all victims are equal. Anyone who was injured or killed as a result of the troubles in Northern Ireland—whether they were a civilian, a paramilitary or one of the selfless individuals in the armed forces or the RUC who sought to protect the people of Northern Ireland—deserves the truth. I call on all parties to do all they can to make that truth known.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State mentions the contribution of our armed forces in Northern Ireland. As a former soldier, I wonder whether he will confirm that he believes, as I do, that the British Army should not be subject to further investigation over its actions during the troubles. Will he also confirm that the loyalties of the Labour party, under its current leadership, lie firmly with the British Army, not with the IRA?

[Mr Anderson]

I am sorry, but I cannot agree that people in uniform who acted incorrectly should not be brought to book. What signal would we be sending out if we let that happen—that it is all right to act out of order? We expect the highest standards from our great people in uniform. In response to the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the leadership of the Labour party, it is clear that the party is committed to our armed forces and not to any terrorist organisation.

Northern Ireland: Political Developments

James Heappey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s viewpoint; he has direct experience from the time he served as a Minister in Northern Ireland. He is right that the relevant Northern Ireland Ministers remain in place in the Executive. Yes, we find ourselves in the current situation, but stability can be maintained through this period. The actions of Ministers in the Executive will clearly be limited, but none the less that stability remains, and we need to continue to work with the Executive at this time to find the solution.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I served twice in Northern Ireland during my time in the Army, so I know a little of the challenge faced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in meeting the expectations of all sides of the community. However, I must echo colleagues who have discouraged him from allowing investigations of British troops. No matter how well designed the investigatory process is, such investigations break the covenant with those who are serving and have served in our armed forces. I encourage my right hon. Friend to block the investigations straightway.

[James Brokenshire]

I am not able to intervene; my hon. Friend will understand the rule-of-law issues, the related prosecutorial issues and the other aspects that sit around all this. Nevertheless, I am concerned about the balance of effort and the need to ensure that there are proper investigations that follow the evidence rather than anything else. Reform is needed. The situation as it is at the moment is wrong and has to change, and that is what I am committed to achieving.

Stormont House Agreement: Implementation

James Heappey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

It is a pleasure as ever to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on securing the debate. I had wanted to speak at length about the perception of amnesty, but there is not time to do that, so, as an ex-soldier who served in Northern Ireland twice and in Iraq and Afghanistan twice, I will focus on what I believe is the impact of these inquiries on those who are serving or may serve in the future in our armed forces.

Retrospective investigation over actions taken in battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland breaks the covenant that the Government, Parliament and the nation has with our armed forces. Those who have served feel betrayed, those who now serve are concerned, and those who might have served now might not. However necessary the Government might insist that these inquiries are and however fair and proportionate the investigatory process is designed to be, merely the prospect of it is enough to make those serving now hesitate before pulling the trigger. In battle, that hesitation costs lives.

Those who serve now do so inspired by this nation’s relationship with its armed forces over the centuries. To defile that relationship is to diminish our military capability now and in the years to come.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Kris Hopkins)]

First, let me say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on not only the content of his speech, but the honesty and the power with which he communicated his feelings on this very important matter. I also congratulate colleagues on both sides of the Chamber who either intervened or made speeches. I will mention a couple of those briefly before commenting on the Government’s position.

Let me recognise my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey) and the passion with which he speaks, as a former soldier—I speak as a former soldier as well. When I look at the hon. Members who made contributions, I see that it is a mix of people; some have served, and some represent communities that suffered terrible violence over a long period. Some people represent areas with soldiers. Some people serve on Committees. There is huge interest in, and a huge commitment to, trying to find resolutions to some of the challenges that we still have in Northern Ireland. The House should be very proud that it can bring together people with knowledge and a determination to resolve some of these issues.

There are difficult issues to address. I compliment my opposite number, the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), because we can just be sucked into a narrative that says that soldiers are always right. I served in Northern Ireland, and I was extremely proud of the professionalism with which my colleagues served. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers served very bravely. However, to answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) about the way the world is looking at how we treat our veterans, one reason why our services are regarded as such a professional body of people is the high standards that politicians, our military and the public expect from soldiers. It only takes one person to commit an act that undermines that reputation, so it is important, regardless of whether someone is a soldier or a terrorist, that if they have committed a wrong or there is a thing to be answered, it should be answerable.

[James Heappey]

A number of people have said that the military are held to a higher standard, and rightly so, but they are held to that higher standard at the time of the engagement and in the immediate aftermath. They are investigated by the Royal Military Police and the Special Investigation Branch there, in theatre. What does not need to happen is the investigation 40 years later of people who have done their duty and long since stood down.

[Kris Hopkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will just say that I sat and listened to the former Prime Minister’s contribution on the Bloody Sunday investigation. I have to say that I refused to accept a narrative that I had heard for many decades about what had happened, and there was clear wrongdoing, so there are moments when we have failed and we should hold our hands up and not just capitulate to a romantic message that we are always right in the military.

I want now to focus on what we are proposing, because the key message that I got from today’s debate was the passion with which the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley wanted to get that proportionality and balance back into what is happening at the moment. The Stormont House agreement addressed many things relating to legacy and the shape of the Assembly, but for us in this debate it was about the formation of the historical investigations unit and addressing some of the issues that people have talked about: the care of our veterans; reform of the Northern Ireland inquest function; ensuring that victims and survivors have access to high-quality services; implementing the comprehensive mental trauma service; seeking an acceptable way in which victims can gain a pension; and giving victims and survivors access to advocate-counsellor assistance. It is vital that progress is made on all of that to address the legacy of the troubled past, and we need political stability to be able to drive that forward. The Government want to put £150 million on the table. We want to create a period of five years in which we will work our way through and address the 90% of murders that were carried out by terrorists, and balance and proportionality will be brought back into the system.

There are huge numbers of former soldiers who were murdered and whose cases are not being investigated at this time. Nearly 200 soldiers were murdered, and those cases are not being investigated at the moment because there is no mechanism in place. When people talk about injustices against soldiers at this time, that is because of the present system. I would like to talk about what is proposed. When I was here just a few weeks ago, there was more resistance to what was suggested in relation to the historical investigations unit. I think that there is now an idea, an understanding, of what we want to actually do in putting that proportionality in place and ensuring that those 3,500 people who were murdered and the families of those people get some justice.

One conversation that has come about has been about an amnesty—an end to this whereby we just draw a line. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley read out a long list of people and of events that had occurred—terrible events in which people were traumatised and damaged and will be for a long time. They want justice. There is not a line to be drawn. Whether an act was perpetrated by a terrorist or whether a soldier was involved, people want their moment in court, when they can get an understanding of what happened.