Louise Sandher-Jones

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I begin by acknowledging the outstanding service of the many British service personnel who worked so hard on an incredibly difficult operation to protect the communities of Northern Ireland. We should be in no doubt that they upheld British military ethics to the highest standard and rigorously trained, with operations carefully planned and professionally carried out. As a veteran, I was honoured to serve with other veterans of that conflict, albeit at a later time. We must never forget the 722 veterans who paid the ultimate price and did not return. We must never forget their sacrifice, or that of those who were injured. We must remember them and honour their service with pride. The Northern Ireland legacy Act is a prime example of how to get legislation very wrong. In 2014, as part of the Stormont House agreement, the UK and Irish Governments agreed a way forward to deal with legacy investigations, which had broad support from—crucially—victims and political parties. Instead, in 2020, the Conservative Government decided to push on, by themselves, in a completely different direction, and introduced legislation that made false promises to veterans that could not be kept, introducing chaos to the system, and which has immediately failed in the courts.