Hilary Benn

Hilary Benn

Labour — Leeds South

Speaking in the House of Commons on 14 May 2026

Debate

Supreme Court Dillon Judgment

Contribution

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his comments, not least because of his service. As he will know, we have been engaged in very close discussion and consultation with many organisations representing veterans. The honest answer to his question is that people will make a judgment when they see the detail of the amendments that the Government are committed to bringing forward, and those amendments will then be carefully scrutinised and debated in the House. Again, we have to strike a balance that is fair and proper, but I assure him that the Government are extremely seized of their obligations to make sure that the arrangements that we put in place are fair to veterans. What is not fair is to pretend that somehow the immunity provisions contained in the legacy Act were ever going to work. We now know that they were not going to work, they have been found to be incompatible, they had no support in Northern Ireland and they were never commenced by the last Government. We do no service to our veterans by continuing to argue, as some have done, that that is the alternative—it is not.

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