Hilary Benn

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new role, and I genuinely look forward to working with him on these and other matters, given his interest in Northern Ireland, which is shared right across the House. Let me turn to his three specific questions. First, no legislation can enable people to feel reconciled in some way to what happened. In the end, reconciliation has to come from within. The title “reconciliation” will not be in the new name of the legacy commission, because it is a consequence of a process that we are trying to put in place, if families can find answers. I urge the House to concentrate on that, because that is what this is all about—trying to enable families to find answers. Secondly, I did draw attention to the safeguards in my statement, and when the Bill is published later, the hon. Gentleman will be able to see how they are given legal expression. Lastly, on the hon. Gentleman’s point about prosecution, I would simply say that people have made one or two comments in these discussions about politically motivated prosecutions or vexatious prosecutions. I think it is very important that the House upholds the integrity and independence of the prosecutorial authorities. A fundamental bedrock of our legal system is that independent prosecutors make such decisions, and to suggest that they are in any way politically motivated is in my view profoundly mistaken.