Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

Stuart Anderson Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Louise Jones]

I say to anybody who signed the petition or is here today because they fear the raking over of every firefight, weapon discharge or contact from 50 years ago: that fear is false. I say again: it is complete scaremongering spread by people who are at best naive—perhaps they do not know the details of the legislation or are ill informed on the content.

[Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)]

I have just been outside with a load of veterans who, like me, served on Op Banner. Is the hon. Lady saying that they are naive and misunderstand this?

[Louise Jones]

I have said—the hon. Gentleman can read back—that scaremongering has been spread by people who should know better. They know fully the details of the legislation and the context of Northern Ireland and have gone out to these veterans and said, “There’s going to be lots of malicious lawfare against you if this Act is repealed”, when everybody here knows that is not the case at all. They are pushing a cynical political agenda.

I and my colleagues who are veterans are vehemently opposed to spurious prosecution, to dragging people through the courts where there is absolutely no case to answer and to malicious lawfare. I cannot repeat that enough. I do not want to see a single veteran who has not committed a crime in any sense being hounded. Op Banner was an incredibly complex campaign. I find abhorrent the idea that any veteran should be at risk of malicious lawfare simply for doing their job on a very difficult operation. I call on the Secretary of State to explain how we will protect any veteran who is accused of any wrongdoing in Northern Ireland.

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[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell.

Like many other Members present, I was proud to have served my country. In my case, it was with the Royal Marines in 2006, when I deployed to Afghanistan shortly after basic training. I was a very young and green marine, and it was quite unexpected to go into a hostile and unknown environment. I see many colleagues in the Gallery who may have done something similar several years earlier.

In preparation, we did all that we would normally expect to do as a young marine or soldier: we practised troop attacks, battle casualty evacuations, mine clearances and everything else we might do on the battlefield. But we also spent a long time studying the law of armed conflict and the rules of engagement. I know that the people we were fighting against in Afghanistan—the Taliban—had no qualms about the rules of engagement or the law of armed conflict. Back in the generation before me, my colleagues were fighting an enemy—the IRA and others—that had no qualms about the rules of engagement or the law of armed conflict. It must have been terrifying to go into that situation. But I am proud to say that, as with my generation, there were many hundreds and thousands of people who served on Op Banner with distinction, bravery and real integrity.

Under the legacy Act introduced by the last Government, groups such as the IRA, the UVF and the other terrorist paramilitaries we have heard about have been given immunity. I do not believe it is acceptable that people who have committed crimes and been involved in the killing of thousands of civilians and veterans on our side of the table should be given such immunity. It is unacceptable, and we cannot let such an unlawful and unacceptable Act stand.

My granddad is from Belfast, and when I was in the city earlier this year, I was honoured to meet survivors of the troubles at the Wave trauma centre. We met people who had been targeted or caught up as collateral damage in republican terror attacks—victims whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They deserve the right to seek justice and the opportunity to receive answers. One of them was Máiría Cahill, who was the target of years of sexual abuse at the hands of the IRA. This is what she said about the Conservatives’ legacy Act:

“This bill is, quite simply, disgraceful. The Government say they take sexual violence seriously. Yet they are prepared to grant amnesty to those accused of conflict related sexual offences…in NI or England. It is an affront to victims, to justice and is gross hypocrisy.”

Of course, she is completely right.

The legacy Act has given immunity to those who targeted servicemen and women. Families of the Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombings, where 11 British soldiers were killed by the IRA, were unhappy. One family member said:

“People deserve justice, and their hurt will never heal until that happens.”

The challenge is that the legacy Act has created a moral equivalence, on which I agree with the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis). Those who have committed crimes—the terrorists—are given the same immunities as those who bravely served in our armed forces.

As well as failing the test of victims, the legacy Act has failed the legal test. The Belfast High Court found the legacy Act unlawful. After a challenge from Martina Dillon, whose husband was killed in 1997, the Court found the immunity offered to members of the Loyalist Volunteer Force to be in breach of her human rights. Of course it was in breach of her human rights. She deserves to get the justice and the answers that she pursues.

The Conservatives’ legacy Act has allowed blanket amnesty to terrorists and the perpetrators of offences including murder and torture. The terrorists responsible for 90% of troubles-related deaths have been given a free pass. This is a travesty of justice. The Government have no choice but to amend the Act.

[Stuart Anderson]

Are the Government going to reopen all those cases?

[Alex Ballinger]

We will hear later from the Secretary of State about some of the protections afforded to veterans, but it is also important to note that in the last 13 years only one veteran has been prosecuted and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones), he received a suspended sentence. So the chance of any veterans who served in Northern Ireland being pulled over the coals again and being sent to prison is vanishingly small, and we need to be realistic about that. We need to be honest with those who signed the petition.

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[Fred Thomas]

To clarify, I said there are 500 veterans in Plymouth Moor View who signed the petition, so I am not sure that I can answer the hon. Member because I did not meet with them recently to talk about this issue. I do not think that anyone is suggesting that veterans themselves are naive.

[Stuart Anderson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Fred Thomas]

I have just taken an intervention, so I will not.

Context is king. We have had peace for a generation. Hon. Members have passionately laid out the wrongs, ills and evils of the IRA, going through operational detail, which I appreciate. No one is suggesting that any of those things were justified—that is not the argument that anyone is making—but we are discussing a piece of legislation that, in order to buy the protection of veterans, allows for the protection of terrorists. We are saying, “I don’t think that’s correct.” We need to be able to go after those terrorists. There is a bigger context, isn’t there?

[Fred Thomas]

Not quite yet. The bigger context is that the world is extremely insecure at the moment. We all hope and pray that this country never has to go to war again. Personally, I think we might have to in the foreseeable future. We hope that does not happen, but when and if it does we need the moral, legal and total legitimacy to go in with extreme force and do what needs to be done. If we pass laws, as we did a year and a half ago, that nibble away at our international reputation for having a lawful and professional military, we are going to struggle in years to come. That is the bigger context that we need to keep in mind.

[Stuart Anderson]

The Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021, for which I sat on the Bill Committee, covered that. I also sat on the Bill Committee that considered the Northern Ireland legacy Act, and I saw the months of trying to agree something that we could get through the House to protect veterans. We mentioned naivety; people might be doing things for the right reason, but if we adjust and change that Act, our veterans will face prosecution. I defy anybody who thinks otherwise.

[Fred Thomas]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his service on those Bill Committees. I do not agree with what he said, but that is the nature of this debate, and I am willing to have it.

To close, it has been alluded to that we are yet to see from the Government what the safeguards will be for veterans. I will say this openly: I need to see those. We all need to see those. I ask Opposition Members, and all hon. Members of the House, to bear in mind the big bits of context that I hope I have introduced: peace for a generation, a very threatening world picture, and the need for moral legitimacy.

[Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank all the residents of South Shropshire who signed the petition or came to see me, and all the veterans who have come down today. My dad was one of the first SAS troops to serve in Northern Ireland in the ’70s, and I served 18 months during the troubles on Op Banner, so I have first-hand experience of that. How do I share some of that experience to set out the reality of what it is like to be a soldier on operations?

I was a teenager when I deployed on my first tour to Belfast. I had little understanding of the big political situation, but I knew everything I needed to do, what I could and could not do, and all the rules of engagement, and everybody on the tour followed those. Our pre-deployment training, which the hon. Member for Plymouth Moor View (Fred Thomas) mentioned, was extensive. For months we covered every possible scenario that we could face when in Northern Ireland on operations. I was a rifleman with the 2nd Battalion the Royal Green Jackets. They were tough soldiers, but professional and knew what they could and could not do.

Let us throw a little context on what it can be like on operations in Northern Ireland. Let us imagine patrolling what could be a normal housing estate in the UK—some areas would be more rundown than others, but the structure is the same. When we walk past somebody, we do not know if that person is going to buy something from a shop, pick up their children, or plan to kill us. We do not know what their intentions are. When a car speeds around the corner, as we see every day on our streets, we do not know if that person is late to pick something up, going to an event, a joyrider, or somebody driving past to kill me and my colleagues in a drive-by shooting. We do not know that, but these things happen all the time. We never really knew anybody’s intention.

In 1996, in the middle of my tour, there was a decision not to allow a march to go through Drumcree, and what was a semi-stable environment turned within a matter of hours into complete carnage, with rioting and people being burned out of houses up and down the whole area. All of a sudden, law and order—the whole rule of law—had completely broken down. In about four days, I believe some 750 RUC were injured, of whom four were shot on patrol with us in one night. So whatever people thought it was like, when discussing this many years later people have to add the extreme pressure, the mental pressure, that we faced as we looked under the vehicle every single day to see whether it was a car bomb.

When we were in the riots and somebody goes to throw a brick or a stone, we have a split second to react: is that a grenade? Is it an improvised weapon? Every one of those is designed to cause harm and some are designed to kill. We have a split second to decide whether to open fire—or do me and my colleagues get killed? We do not know. There is pressure. We might have been out for many hours with very little sleep, but we knew what we had to do.

Many soldiers who served in Northern Ireland spend every day remembering their colleagues who did not return, trying to forget what they saw and what they witnessed, and are woken at night by screams. That has not left many people. We asked them to do the most extreme things in the most difficult conditions.

I was proud when the previous Government—too late, in my mind at least—introduced the legacy Act. I sat on the Bill Committee. The Act meant protection for our veterans, which is what I had campaigned for. I had spoken about that many times before, and I had seen new colleagues who were facing prosecution, or the threat of prosecution, for their time. I believe the whole veteran community at the moment sees the repealing of the legislation as a body blow. I do not think the Government realise the anger that the community will feel.

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

My son is a serving soldier, and he tells me that many are leaving the forces because of this issue. We are tens of thousands below our recruitment level. Does the hon. Member think he is right and that this is damaging our ability to defend our country?

[Stuart Anderson]

I thank the hon. Member’s son for his service. Mine joins in two months at the age of 16. I hope that 30 years down the line, when he has defended his country as the hon. Member’s son has, they do not go through this, because morale is at rock bottom. There is no naivety among veterans.

[Louise Jones]

The hon. Member is welcome to check Hansard after the debate, but I was referring specifically to people—we all know they exist—who are scaremongering without knowing the details of the Bill and naively making up things that are not based on evidence. At no point did I say that any veteran is naive, and I know that he has too much respect for our procedures and for colleagues to keep repeating that when it is not true.

[Stuart Anderson]

I think that all the veterans in this room believe that the Government’s current route is wrong—are they misguided, or are they naive? If we go down the route of changing the law in this way, I can guarantee that our veterans will face prosecution for the service that they gave their country for many years.

[David Davis]

Our veterans do not need to read the Bill; they just need to look at the outcome of the Clonoe inquiry—four potential manslaughter prosecutions.

[Stuart Anderson]

As I said, we asked our veterans to defend us and to do the hardest things while others slept soundly in their beds at night. I hope that we never face more conflicts in the future, but I believe we will, and we must have a moral compass that means we protect those who protect us. I demand that the Government set out that the route they are taking will ensure that no prosecution of our veterans happens. The Secretary of State has even heard from Members of his own party that they are not reassured about that. We need to see that no veterans are thrown to the wolves, and we need to protect those who have served their country with the utmost pride.

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[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Mundell, for allowing me to contribute to today’s petition debate; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I will not take any interventions, and I will be as short as I can to allow as many Members as possible to speak.

I start by reminding everyone once again that I am a proud retired Royal Engineer. Although I did not serve in Op Banner, many colleagues and friends did. The Op Banner veterans did their duty in exceptionally challenging circumstances, and I commend them all—each and every one of them. I would also point out to colleagues that, despite not serving in Op Banner, I was in Quebec barracks in Osnabrück in Germany when it was attacked by the IRA in June 1996. I get it, I really do.

What is of the utmost importance is that we deal in facts, and facts alone. Fact one: the previous Conservative Government pushed through the legacy Act in 2023. The Act created one route for dealing with the past, through the creation of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. It received almost unanimous condemnation from victims groups and the political parties in Northern Ireland, for differing reasons, as has been said.

Fact two: the previous Conservative Government publicly stated at the time, despite numerous challenges, that the Act would be fully compliant with the European convention on human rights, the Windsor framework and the Good Friday agreement, and they knew that that most certainly was not the case. In February ’24, the Northern Ireland High Court found that the Act was in fact incompatible with the European convention on human rights, specifically articles 2, 3 and 6, and it was therefore deemed unlawful. It also found that it was incompatible with article 2 of the Windsor framework, and that it should therefore be disapplied. If the previous Government knew that this was the case, they should never have proceeded in pushing the legacy Act through Parliament. It was a deliberate and wholly irresponsible course of action.

[Stuart Anderson]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Foster]

No, I am making progress.

Fact three: in January 2024, the Irish Government launched an inter-state application against the United Kingdom before the European Court of Human Rights, on the basis of the legacy Act violating articles 2, 3, 6, 13 and 14 of the convention. This case against the United Kingdom Government is still live.

These are indisputable facts. If an Act of Parliament is found to be unlawful, the Government must act. However, the repealing of the legacy Act is not a simple exercise—we all understand that—and any changes introduced must offer the protections that our veterans, victims and impacted families all deserve. My deep concern is that, with any new legislation, we must ensure a wholly comprehensive approach to dealing with the past in Northern Ireland that recognises the unique position our Op Banner veterans find themselves in. They deserve our continued and unwavering support.

I am also profoundly concerned at the continued politicisation of our veterans, and at the misinformation being continually spouted by Conservative Members of Parliament, who should know better. This is an issue that Members of all political persuasions should be working on together, not using to seek political gain with inaccurate and misleading statements.

The unlawful legacy Act made false and undeliverable promises to our veterans about immunity, and—I say again—it has been repeatedly ruled unlawful. It generated false expectations, legal uncertainty, and delays for victims, survivors and veterans alike. It was opposed by many, including armed forces families who lost relatives serving in Northern Ireland. It gives immunity to terrorists who murdered British soldiers. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Defence Secretary and the Minister for Veterans are working tirelessly to put in place protections for our veterans, and to ensure that legacy mechanisms are fair, lawful and proportionate.

The Minister for Veterans has met hundreds of veterans and veteran organisations since taking office, including the Royal British Legion and representatives from all major military associations with Northern Ireland service experience, listening to their concerns and incorporating their feedback into the new approach. These are not new arguments, and we have had alternative solutions before, which have just not worked.

This is a hugely complex and emotive issue. All Members of Parliament should be working as one to bring about a lawful solution, supporting Ministers and veterans alike, not spreading a fake narrative. Our veterans will continue to receive the full support of this Government, and any new legislation must be carefully considered. I give my word that it will be.

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[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.

[Stuart Anderson]

It is not just about the final prosecution, but about what people have had to go through over all these years. Will the hon. Member say how many people have actually had the knock at the door, or the call, or had to give evidence? That is the issue that is really hurting people?

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

I call Al Pinkerton, who I assume is coming to the end of his contribution.