Member

I will turn to the Opposition’s specific amendments. We took careful drafting advice on our new clause 21 from legal experts and retired senior officers. It would set a new evidential standard such that no further investigations of any kind could take place unless they were based on new and compelling evidence. That is a deliberately high bar, intended to prevent the endless cycle of investigation and re-investigation that many of our veterans have had to endure, unless there were evidence that is both original and of a compelling nature, as determined not by a politician such as the Attorney General, but by a UK Supreme Court justice. To be clear, that would not end all investigations under any circumstances, but it would mean that a new investigation could not take place unless the threshold were met.