Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Robin Swann Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The legislation in itself does not, no. The hon. Gentleman will know that the original inquest was commanded by the former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), who is a Conservative. The straight answer to the hon. Member for Spelthorne is no.

We are putting the prohibition on cold-calling witnesses in black and white in the Bill through new clauses 45 and 46. When a witness is contacted, we will ensure that they are treated with dignity and respect. One key ask I have heard from veterans is for more assurance around the anonymity protection already in the Bill. It is a right to seek anonymity, rather than a presumption that it is automatically granted, because in order for the protection to be legally robust, the law cannot discriminate between different witnesses. That goes to the point made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East. However, I know some veterans’ groups are concerned that that would not mean anonymity in practice, so let me be clear. Based on the recent experience of inquests and inquiries, I am confident that in all but the most exceptional circumstances, a veteran who sought anonymity would be granted it. The welfare protection in clause 69 will require the commission to take into account the health and wellbeing of witnesses, including consideration of whether it would be appropriate for them to give evidence at all. Some veterans I have met have asked that I set out more specifically what will be taken into account, but I am concerned that doing so would unintentionally limit the broad nature of the requirement.

I turn to the question of how we ensure individuals are not endlessly subjected to nugatory repeated processes. I know that some have argued that there should have to be new and compelling evidence before the commission can even open a review—that is the thrust of the Opposition’s new clause 21 and amendment 47, and of new clause 22 in the name of the hon. Member for North Down. That is illogical, and would be counterproductive. It would require someone to go through a process to establish whether there was such evidence before a review was even started. It would mean more legal processes, not fewer. It would also mean that thousands of families—and let us not forget that the largest cohort of those currently seeking answers are service families—would be barred from asking the commission for information.

Following extensive consultation, the Government judge that the best approach is to include three hurdles before a veteran could be asked to act as a witness. To be clear, duplication can only be essential, for example, when genuinely new evidence has come to light that would materially change the investigation; when new forensic techniques such as fingerprinting enable new lines of inquiry; or when there was a clear and significant failing in the previous investigation. Amendment 192 will also require the commission to undertake disclosure from state authorities first, so that individual witnesses—including those who served the state, such as veterans—are not contacted unnecessarily when formal disclosure from state authorities might provide answers. It also requires the commission to consider

“whether compelling new evidence is known or reasonably suspected to exist”,

and whether the potential witness might provide information not already known to the commission, prior to contacting that witness.

This means that the legacy commissioner and coroners will be barred from duplicating elements of a previous investigation unless doing so is essential to fulfilling their statutory obligations. It also means that the director of investigations will be required to undertake and review disclosure from state authorities first—only then could they consider whether there was still a need to contact individual witnesses. If, following this, the director still believes that it is essential to speak to an individual witness, they must consider whether compelling new evidence is known or reasonably expected to exist and the likelihood of the witness being able to provide information that is not already known. That last provision is one that we have taken from other legislation, namely the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for clarifying those points. He knows—because I have raised this point with him before—that those protections cover veterans and former military personnel. Will they also extend to former police officers who served?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes.

This process, in which we discuss improving a Bill, may seem dry and technical to those watching us. Sometimes, we use unusual and strange words and phrases, but I cannot emphasise enough how important this process is. Every one of us wants to do the best we can; we will disagree about where that takes us, but at the heart of all of this is a very simple truth, which is that families want answers. They ache to know what really happened. That includes thousands who lost a daddy, an uncle or even a granddaddy who served in terrifying circumstances. Peace can be just a thin veneer unless we deal with the underlying cracks, and we cannot build a strong future without fully understanding the past. I commend the amendment to the Committee.

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I welcome the Bill, the amendments that have been tabled to it, the increased safeguards for veterans, and how the reformed legacy commission will be better placed to give victims the answers they are asking for. I hope the Committee will support the Bill moving to Third Reading.

[Robin Swann]

I thank the Secretary of State and the previous Secretary State, the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn), and the Minister for Veterans and the former Minister of Veterans, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), for their engagement on this Bill. It has been a long time getting to this stage, but there has been engagement. For Northern Ireland MPs, it has sometimes felt like a struggle to have our concerns heard. I thank Members who have spoken in today’s debate, because it has had a very different tone and tenor from the one that we had on the carry-over motion. As a Northern Ireland MP, I welcome that on behalf of veterans and victims’ organisations, who will be listening intently to how the debate is handled.

As we consider this legislation, I believe that our focus should remain where it belongs: those who bear the scars of the Northern Ireland troubles. It is not about veteran against victim or victim against veteran; it is about those people who suffered at the hands of terrorism and who have seen loved ones lost, loved ones traumatised and loved ones still carrying the scars, be they Northern Ireland victims or veterans. I know that some Labour Members think that the victims of war are on their side of the House and the veterans are on this side. Sometimes we feel that mismatch as well, because the veterans talked about by the Conservatives are not the same as the veterans we talk about. When we talk about veterans, it is about members of the Ulster Defence Regiment or the RUC, who did not serve a tour of duty and return home. It is about the veterans who, after they had finished a day’s work, went out and conducted the vehicle checkpoints that the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) talked about earlier, and who still went in and did a day’s work the next day.

The challenge of this debate is that, as the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) mentioned, sometimes we feel that our voice is not heard. That is reflected in the voices of our veterans and victims’ organisations. Rushing through legislation, or even attempting to force through measures without proper scrutiny and consensus, only deepens distrust. This is an opportunity to get the process right, to find a balance, to establish institutions that command broad public confidence, and to resolve these matters for good.

Mention has been made of ICRIR’s work and of its first published report, which is on Rory O’Kelly. A member of his extended family contacted me about the work that was done, and I raised it with the Secretary of State in the debate on the carry-over motion. What concerns me, which is not the same as what concerns those on the Opposition Front Bench, is that victims and their families have lost confidence in ICRIR, because they see yet another process and the creation of another body. I hope the Secretary of State can provide reassurance that the victims and families who do engage will receive full support, and that cumbersome bureaucracy does not mean that they have to restart the whole process over again.

[Chris Bryant]

I can absolutely provide the hon. Gentleman with that assurance. It is really important that we take from ICRIR what is good and build on that, but also that we sort out some of the problems that have existed. He will have seen the Peter May report and some of the problems that there have been in the courts. We will put all of that right, but we are not going to ditch the fundamental principles of trying to get to answers for families.

[Robin Swann]

I thank the Secretary of State for that reassurance, because some of the concerns are raised in the amendments. The right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) mentioned that the second director of investigations must have experience of working outside the UK, and the Secretary of State has provided reassurance on what that means in today’s debate.

I want to talk specifically about the amendments that I have tabled, supported by the Ulster Unionist party. I have tabled a number of amendments to the Bill, but I will start by focusing on amendment 4, which I hope will be for separate decision. I seek support for the amendment this evening, because it would give victims of troubles-related sexual violence the right to a legacy commission investigation. That proposal has support from parties across the House, but it has also been signed by Members from all the Northern Ireland parties that take their seats in this place. I thank the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), for his comments and for supporting the amendment.

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, in its report on the Government’s new approach to addressing the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland, included a recommendation for the Government to address the de facto exclusion of most troubles-related sexual crimes from the commission’s remit. The response to that ask has been incredibly disappointing for victims, because the Government have advised that legacy commission investigations are only for those who were killed or seriously injured, and that victims of sexual violence should raise their case with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State reiterated that point earlier.

That is not good enough, because we have heard that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is overstretched and underfunded as things stand, and the chief constable has raised concerns about the duties that will be put on him and his officers through the legislation we are discussing tonight. The PSNI simply cannot provide the best possible investigation for such victims, because the trauma and the lasting physical and mental injury that these crimes have caused cannot be dismissed. We know that paramilitaries used rape and sexual violence to instil fear and maintain control, which has been overlooked for far too long.

Máiría Cahill, who is known by many in this House, is a victim of sexual violence at the hands of the IRA. Last week, she shared with me and others the real impact of these crimes. She told me:

“My abuser used a conversation about guns to frighten me into silence about his horrendous yearlong abuse of me as a 16-year-old.

His comrades in the IRA later forced me into the same room as him in a yearlong forced so-called investigation into that abuse. When I eventually went to the criminal justice system, it failed us so much that Sir Keir Starmer’s report led to an apology from the then DPP.”

She went on to say:

“Worse still, police intelligence showed that the RUC knew from the year 2000 that my abuser was abusing children—and did nothing. A retired Chief Inspector is quoted as saying that they would not have been interested in the child abuse aspect, because they were focused on the terrorism.”

Ms Cahill, like me, is worried that this Labour Government are going to ignore troubles-related sexual crime victims all over again. That is why amendment 4 is so important, because those victims must be central and they must have access to justice.

Another victim, Paudie McGahon, was raped by a north Belfast IRA man Seamus Marley, when he was in an IRA safe house. He threatened his victims that, if they told anyone about it, they would be found dead on a border road. Marley was later convicted in the Republic of Ireland, but the Provisional IRA members who forced their victims into a kangaroo court—some of them were from Northern Ireland—were not prosecuted. There are other victims out there for whom the criminal justice system is inadequate, because it cannot cope with paramilitary forced interrogations into victims of rape or abuse.

In Máiría Cahill’s own words:

“Sexual crimes have for too long been swept under the cloak of conflict—as have paramilitary actions. If Labour votes down this amendment, my abuser can access the shield of this Troubles Bill and seek amnesty for any of his IRA activities carried out while abusing me—but it affords me no protection whatsoever as his victim.”

Almost 30 years later, Máiría wanted me to share with the Committee that she is still receiving psychological care because of what happened to her as a 16-year-old. These victims deserve an investigation and they deserve justice.

Máiría also asked me to remind Labour Ministers that the then shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Hove and Portslade (Peter Kyle), convinced the Conservative Government to include troubles-related rape in the last iteration of this legacy Bill. He raised a fundamental concern that the legislation, as originally drafted, could allow perpetrators of rape and other sexual offences committed during the troubles to benefit from immunity from prosecution. He warned that the Bill contained no specific prohibition on immunity for sexual violence, so he tabled the then amendment 115 to exclude certain sexual offences explicitly from the immunity provisions. That amendment was supported in Committee, and the Government subsequently brought forward a replacement provision expressly excluding troubles-related sexual offences from immunity.

I will work with the Government and the Secretary of State in remedying this, but it is important that amendment 4 is made tonight, because the context matters. It would demonstrate that Parliament has previously recognised the need to address sexual violence explicitly in troubles legislation, rather than simply assume that existing provisions will adequately protect victims. My amendment addresses an equally important gap in the current Bill, because it would allow victims of sexual crimes committed as part of the troubles, who suffered physical or mental harm, to request an investigation. We must not allow sexual violence or abuse to become an overlooked part of the history of the troubles, nor should victims be left without an effective route to seek answers about what happened. That intervention demonstrated the importance of putting protections into the legislation itself, and I am asking this Committee to apply the same principle on the right of victims to seek an investigation.

This is not about party politics; it is about recognising the experiences of victims, ensuring that sexual violence is properly acknowledged in the historical record and making certain that the legislation does not leave that behind. If Parliament has accepted that sexual offences require explicit protection in the context of immunity, it should also give serious consideration to ensuring the victims of those offences are not excluded from the process of seeking truth and accountability. Indeed, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), when she was the Minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, acknowledged in evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, that in conflict societies sexual violence should be recognised as part of the reality of conflict. She added:

“Of course, anyone who suffered sexual violence because of conflict should be taken account of.”

She also stressed that victims’ experiences must be handled sensitively to avoid retraumatisation.

The hon. Member’s evidence reinforces the principle behind my amendment, because victims of sexual violence during the troubles deserve recognition and the opportunity for their experiences to be properly investigated. I listened to the Secretary of State this morning when he said he wanted to bring forward

“a balanced Bill which gives as many people answers as possible”.

So I ask him to listen to those people. I have tabled a number of other amendments about different factors, but that is the main one I want to put forward.

[Chris Bryant]

I am enormously grateful to the hon. Member. I hope he understands that I think everybody in the Committee wants to ensure that people are not barred from taking forward these issues through the commission. However, as he has just said, this may need to be dealt with so sensitively that the legacy commission might not be the place where they want it to be addressed—they might want it to be addressed somewhere else. I am not sure that his amendment is necessary to achieve what he is trying to achieve. I am very happy to work with him on making sure that we get to a good place on this, but I am just not sure that this measure is necessary.

[Robin Swann]

With the greatest respect to the Secretary of State, the reason I want to put this into the Bill is that it is not there. When we look at the list in clause 27(3), we see:

“‘Serious physical or mental harm’ means…paraplegia;… quadriplegia;…severe brain injury or damage;…severe psychiatric damage;…total blindness;…total deafness;…loss of one or more limbs;…severe scarring or disfigurement.”

The list does not include sexual crime, which does not fall under any of those harms. Previous answers from his Department said that this would cover people who were killed or seriously injured, and that victims of sexual violence should raise their case with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. That could be said about any victim coming forward in this regard. I ask him to seriously consider where sexual violence and crime could fit into the Bill. It is not a wide section of victims, nor will it add multiple cases, but it will bring reassurance to some. I seriously believe that is what the Government want to bring about with this Bill, so I am keen to work with them in regard to this specific experience of many victims and survivors.

We do not feel that the amendment regarding the second investigator or the director of investigations in the commission is necessary, because it undermines the current provision. There has been no serious complaint about the operation of either the commission’s chief executive or the director of investigations that we see would make a second position necessary. I ask Members to support my amendment 4.

[Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I support this Bill for victims and veterans. I support this Bill for truth, justice and the rule of law. I support this Bill for Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom and peace. I welcome the amendments from the Government. I know they have come about following deep and constructive engagement with many people in the House and outside it, and I think they strengthen what we have before us.

The Good Friday agreement is rightly one of the proudest achievements of the last Labour Government. It changed the course of history. While praise is understandably lavished on the politicians who negotiated its terms, they would be the first to tell us that its success is not theirs to own, but that it is owned by the people of Northern Ireland, who, day in and day out, make that progress possible. They do so without fanfare and they embrace it. It is not that they have forgotten the pain and suffering—how could they?—but they chose a different future, and in so doing they wrote a different story for Northern Ireland.

What a story the people are writing! The economy is exciting, and the creative industries, the defence sector and technology are booming. They have the lowest unemployment in the whole of the UK and the highest growth. Excellent schools are helping to equip the next generation—a generation not growing up knowing the sound of a bomb, and not growing up to fear a Protestant or a Catholic. Brilliant charities and community groups are helping a generation to see that they have more in common with one another. I believe that, if we are to protect that progress, we need a legacy process that commands confidence, and I think that is helped by these amendments.

None of that, of course, is to pretend that there are not problems in modern day Northern Ireland. Recent weeks have shown us that the peace we have is not a replacement for the pain, and it has not changed what happened in the past—that can never be changed, and we should never ignore it. Let us be clear: that pain will also be known by those who served in Northern Ireland, whether in the Army or the police, and by their families. The amendments that I support, including stopping repeat investigations, matter a great deal to them, and I will always be in admiration of those who stood in harm’s way to keep people safe. They lost far too much; the way they were tested in their service of our country, I would wish on no person.

Whenever the issue has been debated before in this House, there has been a contingent of veterans in the Public Gallery. Each time, I have learnt so much by going to speak to them. I have learnt about the horrors they encountered. I have learnt how rightly proud they are of their service, and how frustrated they are about the injustices that they, their friends and their comrades faced. Our conversations often turned to whether they would want immunity for that period; they do not. They told me that they fought to defend the rule of law, not to be above it. They simply want equality before it.

Surely, we in this House agree that it is all those people—those who have helped to make Northern Ireland what it is today and to make peace possible—who we should put first. If the Bill helps a father in his late 80s end the torture of not knowing what happened to his daughter in her final moments, can we say that he is not worth our support? Should we tell him how glad we are that he never allowed his grief and devastation to stop his commitment to a peaceful Northern Ireland, but we cannot pass those provisions for him? If the Bill helps a widow of a veteran murdered by a terrorist group get the justice that she has been denied for decades, can we say that that is not worth our support? Should we tell her that her pain and anguish—her children having to grow up without knowing their father—is really awful, and we are sorry, but we cannot do this for her?

It is clearly not right that those brave veterans who helped contain the worst of the violence should be forced into the dock to relive the worst day of their life, when they have already been cleared by an investigation that looked into all of the evidence. They were asked by our state to act; they do not deserve to be tried again and again until a different result is found. That is precisely why the protection from repeat investigations is so important. It is why I welcome the amendment set out by the Secretary of State that strengthens that very protection. That is how we honour the sacrifice of people who went out to defend the rule of law, without cruelly and needlessly making them relive the very worst moment of their lives.

I do not think this Bill will be as totemic as the Good Friday agreement. It will not go down in the history books in quite the same way. But it can deliver with fairness for all those who I mentioned at the start of my speech. This Bill might bring answers—maybe even justice—to people who have lived with very deep pain for many, many years and put their country first. They put peace first. Those are the people who make progress possible, each and every day. I am proud to support them, and I am proud to support the Bill.

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[Chris Bryant]

This has been a good debate; the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) said that she had always wanted better debates in this place. Thirty-one Members managed to take part. As the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said, we all come with different perspectives, and we have managed to hear a lot of perspectives in this debate —perhaps more than have been heard in previous debates. It has also been good to have former Ministers who were directly involved with the legislation involved in the debate.

A few key points have struck me forcibly. First, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) is absolutely right that peace without justice is not peace. The thin veneer of peace sometimes can mask the underlying problems in a society. I also think that balance is absolutely vital. In previous debates, perhaps there has been a focus on one particular part of the UK community, rather than on everybody. Joe McVey, the Victims’ Commissioner, is still with us; it was interesting to hear about some of the people he has worked with, not only here but on previous occasions. Several Members made the point that veterans and families are not two mutually exclusive groups. A very large number of veterans’ families want answers themselves, because they have never been able to get them.

I want to refer directly to the amendment from my—go on, why not?—hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann). I want to be absolutely clear that sexual offences can be investigated by the commission, like any other troubles offence, if they are linked to a death or a serious injury. There is absolutely no bar, and we would not have allowed legislation that had such a bar. Indeed, when previous legislation was brought forward that would have had such a bar, we of course opposed that. If such issues are not investigated by the commission, they could be investigated by the PSNI. I think hon. Members have made the point that sometimes the individual may want to choose the right place—the place that they feel the most confidence in.

[Robin Swann]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I am not going to give way, if the hon. Member does not mind, because I need to make progress. The other point I would make to him is that I am not sure that we have quite got this right yet. I am happy to work with him on ensuring that we do get it right. I do not think his amendment works, simply because clause 27(2) says,

“Where conduct forming part of the Troubles caused a person to suffer serious physical or mental harm, the person may request an investigation under this Part of the conduct.”

I think that already includes precisely the incidents that he is talking about, but if we have not got that right, and if we have not been able to provide enough assurance, then I am happy to work with him and others—I am quite happy to gather people from all across the House—to ensure that we get that right in the House of Lords. That is a firm undertaking from me and the whole ministerial team. We will get that right when it gets to the House of Lords.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) asked why the equivalence issue and the operational context do not apply to prosecutors. He will know, because he is a very clever man, that many of the aspects of the clause are already well-established tenets of criminal law, which we are putting beyond doubt for the specific role of the commission and coroners. I think these things are already in existence.

My great and hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who chairs the Select Committee, asks on behalf of the Committee, through her amendment 286, about the pressures on the PSNI. I am very aware of them, and my predecessor made commitments about trying to get to the right place, because I do not want to overload the PSNI when it already has a very difficult workload. I will work with her and the team to try to get to the right place. I do not want to completely surrender on this point yet, but I am happy to work with her.

The right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) raised the timing of the Omagh bombing inquiry. The terms of reference for the Omagh bombing inquiry are very clear. They refer directly to authorities in the Republic of Ireland on two occasions, and make specific reference to whether the sharing of information by the Irish authorities could have helped to prevent the bombing. The Irish Government have passed legislation to enable co-operation with the inquiry, and they are co-operating. However, the inquiry clearly expects more and has made that clear, and has explicitly stated that it will push the Irish for more and continued co-operation. I will ensure that that co-operation will be forthcoming.