I advise Members that under the terms of the House’s long-standing resolution on matters sub judice, they must not refer to specific cases that are currently subject to legal proceedings, including in coroners’ courts. Members may, of course, speak to the general issue.
That this House has considered e-petition 243947 relating to immunity for soldiers.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I extend my gratitude to Karen Webb-James for starting this e-petition, which has attracted over 146,000 signatures, including 238 from my constituency, and calls on the Government not to
“prosecute the military for its work in Northern Ireland”,
and to prevent
“criminal investigations after a period of time.”
I am pleased to address this topic and the sentiment behind this e-petition. Through the Defence Committee’s 2017 report, “Investigations into fatalities in Northern Ireland involving British military personnel”, and written evidence to the Committee from individuals such as Professor Richard Ekins, we have learned more about the extent of this issue, and we have discovered that there could easily be prosecution of our armed forces personnel who were involved in other, more modern, theatres of conflict. I know that right hon. and hon. Members will want to refer to those instances. I pay tribute to all those who have served in operations, especially those who have died in the service of our country.
Given the nature of the petition, I am concentrating my remarks on the situation in Northern Ireland; I hope hon. Members will see that there is good reason. In recent days, the Government have unintentionally drawn a distinction, when it comes to immunity, between those who have served in Northern Ireland and those who have served in other theatres. I hope to address that lack of parity later.
The Government responded to the e-petition on 1 April, stating:
“This Government is unequivocal in our admiration for the Armed Forces whose sacrifices ensured terrorism would never succeed. However, our approach to the past must be consistent with the rule of law…This Government will always salute the heroism and bravery of the soldiers and police officers who served to protect the people of Northern Ireland, and in too many cases paid the ultimate price. It is only due to the courageous efforts of our security forces that we have the relative peace and stability that Northern Ireland enjoys today. Our security forces ensured that Northern Ireland’s future will only ever be decided by democracy and consent, and never by violence. Over 250,000 people served in Northern Ireland during Operation Banner, the longest continuous military deployment in our country’s history, the vast majority with courage, professionalism and great distinction. This Government will never forget the debt of gratitude we owe them.”
My hon. Friend has hit on a key point. Members of the armed forces and security forces went out every day during Operation Banner to prevent people from being killed. They had to make extraordinary life-and-death decisions at a moment’s notice. The terrorists went out to kill and maim; that was their purpose. We have to remember that 90% of the deaths in Northern Ireland during the troubles were at the hands of terrorists.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The armed forces were there from the outset to protect peace; the terrorists were there to inflict harm on people. That is an important distinction to make.
I hold veterans and serving members of our armed forces in the highest regard. I hope and believe that that sentiment is shared across this Chamber. In my short tenure as the Member of Parliament for Southport, I have sought to spend a considerable proportion of my parliamentary time raising issues pertinent to those who have served or continue to serve in our armed forces. I am glad to do so again today, although I think that many hon. Members would agree that this issue should have been resolved some time ago.
I welcome this debate, and I thank all hon. Members from across Parliament who are present, including my right hon. and hon. Friends. I am also delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). His perseverance and unrelenting dedication to our veterans has encouraged the Government to act more swiftly on this issue. While policing and justice issues in Northern Ireland are now ordinarily devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive—or, in their absence, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—the legacy of the troubles remains a matter for this Parliament and the UK Government to contend with. To do justice to the issue, we must meet it with the upmost respect and candour.
In a debate on this topic last May, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) reminded us of the incredibly high number of lives lost during the troubles in Northern Ireland: an astonishing 3,500 people were killed in those terrible years. Let us break that figure down. Approximately 3,000 of those victims were killed by non-state forces—republican terrorists and loyalist paramilitaries. Some 370 were killed by security forces. A total of 722 members of the security services— mainly British soldiers—were also killed. Twice as many soldiers were killed by terrorists as terrorists were killed by soldiers. That should give us British citizens tremendous confidence in our armed forces. It is proof of the commendable restraint shown by the British Army and the Police Service of Northern Ireland at that time.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the powerful case he is making for Op Banner. Does he agree that central to the debate must be the fact that the Secretary of State for Defence is making an oral statement tomorrow in the House of Commons, as I understand it, which will set out a 10-year statute of limitations on all operations around the world, apart from Northern Ireland? Can we deduce from the fact that the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, is answering the debate that Northern Ireland is excluded from tomorrow’s statement because the Northern Ireland Office insisted on that? Would it not be better if a Defence Minister were here to answer on behalf of our soldiers?
My hon. Friend is right. The Ministry of Defence should take the lead on this matter, so as to defend our armed forces as they gallantly defend us.
If the Government used the same tenacity to pursue the real criminals, it would go a long way towards reassuring former and current loyal servants of the Crown, and their family members, that their service had not been and will not be forgotten. The state asked an awful lot of those men and women at the most crucial and bloody time—a time when its existence was in jeopardy. They were willing and ready to answer that call. As representatives of the state, we should do everything in our power to ensure that those people do not live the last years of their lives in fear of repercussions for protecting our citizens, our values and our United Kingdom.
Last week, the Secretary of State for Defence announced that British troops and veterans will be given stronger legal protections against prosecution. Those protections will prevent investigation of actions on the battlefield after 10 years, except in exceptional circumstances, so that there are no repeated or unfair investigations. Although I welcome her announcement, I was disappointed that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) said, the protections will exclude those involved in Operation Banner.
James Gray
The important thing is that the Secretary of State is introducing a Bill to bring in the 10-year statute of limitations, and that Bill will, of course, be amendable. Last week, in answer to my point of order, the Speaker of the House of Commons made it plain that the Bill could be amended to include Northern Ireland. Will my hon. Friend join me in tabling amendments to the Bill, so that the Op Banner soldiers are included with everybody else?
My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is the right thing for us to do. As I look around the room, I see many hon. Members who will answer that clarion call to amend the legislation so that Operation Banner in Northern Ireland is included. That should not have had to be done in an amendment, however; it should be in the Bill already. It is the Government’s duty to care for and look after our precious veterans, who stood on the frontlines to protect us from some of the bloodiest enemies our nation has ever encountered.
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. We all have veterans in our constituencies who are in their 70s and have received paperwork from the Ministry of Defence that they are too scared to open, because they are worried about what it means, and they do not know what will happen afterwards. This is about people who put their life on the line, as he said, but who now do not feel that they have support from their Government or community. The Government need to act.
The hon. Lady makes an important point; we must foster a true caring environment for our veterans. They should not be hounded in old age, and sometimes illness, by the thought that there could be a letter or a knock at the door that will mean them having to answer for something that happened many years ago.
I say to the Government: enough with the hesitation, and enough with the special provisions that, in the name of supposed human rights violations, have caused our country’s dereliction of its sacred duty of care. We cannot let brave former personnel spend the rest of their life in fear of yet more investigations, more trials and more prosecutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) rightly proposed that a statute of limitations be introduced to shield soldiers and police officers from further scrutiny once their names had finally been cleared by our justice system; I am pleased that the Government are looking at that. That is what a motion that he brought to the House would have achieved, and that is what the hundreds of thousands of people who signed the petition want us to do.
Servants of the Crown involved in Operation Banner have had to endure far too much because of the hesitation shown by Governments from 1998, whether in the name of political correctness or out of fear of opening old wounds. It is our duty to put an end to any wavering, and to be decisively proactive on behalf of those who bravely put their life on the line out of a sense of duty and love of country. Indeed, it falls to us Members of Parliament, and to the Government, to protect those who gave their life to protect us.
It is a pleasure to be called so early in the debate. I take your guidance about not speaking about individual circumstances, Mrs Moon. My purpose is to give a voice to the many veterans in Plymouth who have attended my surgeries and stopped me in the street to raise their concerns about what is happening. There is a real sense of betrayal among many veterans with regard to what is going on with veterans of Northern Ireland—not just among those who served there, but among those who wore a uniform anywhere. They feel that an attack on one has become an attack on all.
Those veterans have asked me to pass on their genuine concerns. In particular, they feel that the words spoken to date by the Prime Minister and by Government Ministers have been hollow—they were not meant. There is a sense that when veterans are needed for electoral purposes, there are lots of warm words about supporting them, but when those people who served our country need guidance and wrap-around support from their Government—the people who sent them into conflict and harm’s way in the first place—that is absent.
I would be grateful if the Minister set out answers to some of the questions that I have been asked. The first is about what new evidence means. A number of the reasons given for going after veterans relate to new evidence, but the definition of that is something that many of the veterans who have spoken to me struggle to understand. When new evidence from the past does not look that new or evidential, what does it mean now? That is not a matter of prejudging the guilt or otherwise of any individual but of understanding the legal framework within which any decisions may be taken.
What support are the Government—be it the Ministry of Defence or any other part of Government—providing to veterans to enable them to gain support? A number of the veterans who have contacted me are very old: something that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) also mentioned. In any other circumstance, we would be providing support for them because of their vulnerability. Strength and stoicism in this matter cannot be given as a granted because of the age of the veterans and the severity of what is taking place.
I intervene simply because the command structure does not really come into it. The decision is in the yellow card. Individuals have to make their own decisions about opening fire; there is no time to turn around and ask for permission. The decision can sometimes be made very quickly. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the command structure being involved, but opening fire is a personal decision and the person who makes it has to stand by it and justify it. That is why it is so important to train very hard on the yellow card.
Given his service to the country and experience in Northern Ireland, the hon. Gentleman knows this issue better than many others in this place. Veterans have raised the question with me about how decisions are made because sometimes there is a sense that not everyone who was involved in the operation is being pursued. However, I entirely agree with and understand the hon. Gentleman’s point.
The sense that I have been asked to communicate, and I do so for the final time now, is that many veterans who served in Northern Ireland, and many who did not, feel betrayed and let down by the Government. They hope that whatever comes out of the situation and the debates—
It all comes down to a sense of fairness, for the victims, their families, everyone who lived through the troubles in Northern Ireland and all those who continue to live with the consequences, but also for the veterans and their families: so that they know exactly where they stand and why. It comes back to whether more effort needs to be put into peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, into talking, while ensuring that there is no prosecution at the same time. It is down to fairness for the families—for everybody.
I agree. Fairness is an important part of the solution to dealing with a sense of betrayal. Justice needs not only to be done but to be seen to be done and, at the moment, there is pain in many different communities.
Everyone in this House welcomes and values the progress made in Northern Ireland through the Good Friday agreement. I would like more Members to read that agreement; I sense that an awful lot of debate takes place without its words having been read. However, there is an opportunity here for Ministers—be they from the Northern Ireland Office or, especially, the Minister of Defence—to really understand the concerns of those who served in Northern Ireland and, equally, those who did not but just feel that something is not right here. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed the concerns raised, especially about the definition of new evidence.
I served for more than three years in Northern Ireland, on seven operational tours. I first went there in 1970. Sadly, I lost six men who were directly under my command, and many more in my unit. Almost 50 of the men under my command were wounded—35 in one incident. I have been involved in several fatality shootings. I think I have the right to speak for Northern Ireland veterans today.
We were sent to Northern Ireland by our predecessors. The Glosters were sent in, I think, August or September 1969. We were sent to save lives, to look after people. We were given a yellow card, which was approved by Parliament, and that yellow card told us what we could and could not do under fire. We trained very hard on it. We memorised it. We rehearsed it. Colleagues are nodding their heads. We practised on exercise incidents so that we would learn.
Army training screams out against opening fire in peacekeeping. That decision is an incredibly difficult one to make and it is very difficult in an urban environment because soldiers are thinking, “If I open fire, who else am I going to hurt?” How many times did I see instances of our soldiers not firing when under fire because of the possibility that children or women would be caught in the crossfire? That tactic was used by our opposition. There is huge inhibition to opening fire, and the decision to do so has to be made in milliseconds by our young men. By the way, I worked with some young women on operations, but not in the infantry. When that decision and those actions are judged, it is in some courtroom, warm and nice with time and lawyers. A judgment is being made about a decision taken by someone who is panicking like hell.
Despite the Government’s unwavering gratitude to our armed forces, there remains a disproportionately high, and arguably unnecessary, number of investigations in the light of the number of killings attributed to the armed forces in Northern Ireland. In a speech in this Chamber in 2017, the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) said:
“The reality today is that 90% of the resources of the legacy investigation branch…are devoted to investigating 10% of the deaths during the troubles, and 10% of its resources are devoted to investigating 90% of the deaths.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2017; Vol. 619, c. 68WH.]
This e-petition seeks to address that issue.
All those killings, bar a few outstanding terrorist cases, have been investigated fully—often repeatedly. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), a distinguished and gallant veteran, said last week in an urgent question on the subject that he had been through the process more than once. He is not alone in that. Despite the investigations, matters are complicated further by subsequent developments, poor record keeping, the passing of former servicemen and women, the hundreds of royal pardons that have been granted over time, and the over 500 prisoners released on licence until the year 2000.
The entire process so far appears to have been rigged against our armed forces and in favour of terrorist groups. That does not provide closure or justice. Terrorists and illegal paramilitary forces cannot and must not be viewed or treated as being equal to the police and armed forces, as if they were somehow standing on shared moral ground; they never have done, and never will. However, the legal framework would have us believe that the words “terrorists” and “servicemen and women” should be treated equally in the context of Northern Ireland—they should not.
Having said that, I appreciate the need for closure felt by everyone involved in those tragic years of our great nation’s history. Likewise, I respect the implications of the Good Friday agreement, and understand the pain and suffering endured by the victims’ families, who yearn for justice. Where crimes have been committed—they do happen, albeit rarely—the rule of law should be applied, those involved should be investigated, and prosecutions should be forthcoming. However, let us be clear: in the midst of conflict, those instances are the exception, not the rule. The overwhelming majority of our servicemen and women believe in the preservation of life and the rule of law. They swore to uphold those values in making their vow to the Queen and the people of the United Kingdom when enlisting into the armed forces, and they believe in those values today.
Let us look at some key historical facts. Operation Banner was the longest military engagement in the history of the British Army. During the troubles, as I mentioned, there were more than 3,500 deaths, some 60% of which were murders carried out by republican paramilitary terrorists, mainly from the Provisional IRA. Approximately 30% were carried out by loyalist paramilitaries. British and Irish state forces were responsible for 10% of the deaths; almost all of those occurred as a result of entirely lawful or yellow-card actions, when soldiers and police officers were instructed to act to preserve life and uphold the virtues of the rule of law.
Another stark fact about that period is that a member of the security forces in Northern Ireland was three times more likely to be killed than a member of the IRA, which contrasts with today’s theatres of war, where members of terrorist organisations are three times more likely to be killed than members of the armed forces. That point alone depicts the unrelenting bravery of those who served in Northern Ireland.
Let there be no doubt that paramilitary terrorists were responsible for almost 90% of deaths in Northern Ireland, including more than 3,000 unsolved murders. If we consider that in comparison with the 10% of deaths that have been attributed to those who were serving with the armed forces at the time, we may begin to understand the relentlessness faced by those victims and their beloved families, and the burning injustice faced by our veterans who are being routinely investigated.
The Good Friday agreement, which was hailed as a triumph in 1998, advanced long-term peace in Northern Ireland. For some, however, it may also have inadvertently equalised those who sought to defend the Crown and those who sought to bring it down in the most violent fashion, and have tilted the scale in favour of the terrorists by authorising the early release from jail of many—too many.
Terrorists killed more than 1,000 servants of the Crown involved in Operation Banner. The victims were members of several armed forces divisions, such as the Army, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Irish Regiment. Police forces, including the Royal Ulster Constabulary and other constabularies, also lost hundreds of lives at the hands of the terrorists. We cannot do anything to bring those men and women back to their families and loved ones, but we can do something to honour them: ensure that justice is done.
What did the UK Government do instead? They went to explicit lengths to show mercy to people who had been found guilty of the most heinous crimes. One of many examples is Sean Kelly, the infamous Shankill bomber. Prior to 1998, Kelly had been found guilty of murdering seven people and condemned to nine life terms in prison. As it turned out, he barely served seven years.
Despite efforts to investigate the unsolved murders that occurred during the troubles in Northern Ireland, of which the Historical Enquiries Team set up by the Chief Constable is the most prominent, it is saddening and frustrating to see how little real effort has been put into prosecuting the perpetrators of approximately 90% of the crimes committed, while those who fought to preserve the state have been subjected to multiple investigations. Some of those investigations started more than four decades ago and have been opened and closed multiple times, with no consideration for the old age and welfare of those being investigated.
I have not met a single veteran who has said that someone who breaks the law should not be prosecuted. Indeed, every single one of them has reinforced to me, time and again, that the UK armed forces are the very best in the world because they uphold the law, are trained in what is right and wrong, and understand what is a legal order and what is an illegal one. That sense of training and duty is very important.
Why are the decisions on this matter not going up the chain of command? Veterans have raised a question about how those being looked at now, in the round, are part of a command structure. At what point does the command structure come into play—those politicians and senior officers who may or may not have given orders or set an engagement framework within which anyone serving in Northern Ireland will have operated?