Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Obviously the devil lies in the detail in these things, and never more so than in Northern Ireland. Before the Bill comes eventually before us, we really cannot say for certain whether it is good, bad or indifferent, as is often the case. I will raise two points. First, I will mention the agreement—I find it a little wishy-washy—over Ireland’s role in all this, which, as has been said by my hon. Friends, has a huge amount of history attached to it, given that Ireland has previously refused to hand over people who really were guilty of the most vexatious, disgusting attacks on civilians and soldiers. It does seem to me rather peculiar. We will wait and see what that actually means. Ireland says it is committed—I would love to see what that commitment actually means. Secondly, I will mention vexatious prosecutions. The note we have here talks about protection from repeated investigations “unless there are compelling reasons to do so”. My concern with things like that is that they are little hooks that allow development through legislation, instead of being powerful tools to do what the Secretary of State says. I therefore urge him right now to be very clear when this legislation comes forward that this cannot be broken through and to tie down the definition of “compelling”.