Mr Paul Kohler

It has been more than a year since the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill was introduced to this House. In spite of the valiant efforts of the Secretary of State and his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn), to deal with the legacy left by the Conservatives, I fear that the Bill still does not achieve the admittedly difficult task of squaring the circle of enabling victims to find answers, while providing veterans with the protections that they need and deserve. It is important to begin by recognising the impact that the protracted gestation of this Bill has had on those who fought bravely, in difficult and dangerous circumstances, to uphold the rule of law and save lives during Operation Banner. It has been more than a year of anxiety, uncertainty and anguish for former service members who feared being dragged back to Northern Ireland for further investigation. It has been more than a year in which veterans have found no solace in the vague, uncertain promises of improved protection through recognition of the reality of the circumstances in which they served. The issues that we face are by no means all the fault of the current Government. If the Conservatives had enacted a legacy Act that was fit for purpose and delivered a suitable mechanism for historical inquiries, this Bill would not have been necessary. Sadly, the Tories opted for a barely conditional immunity principle that drew an abhorrent equivalence between those seeking to defend peace and uphold the rule of law, and the terrorists who sought to exploit sectarian division to murder, maim and intimidate. The Tory legacy Act failed to uphold our obligations to international human rights law under the European convention on human rights, the very convention that was so important to our soldiers—challenging inadequate equipment, unjust LGBT exclusion, and investigating sexual assault, bulling and welfare failures. At the time, that was just collateral damage: a damning indictment of the Conservatives’ cavalier attitude to the rule of law and to our international obligations, but it has now become central to their ill-conceived plans to leave the ECHR, thereby fatally undermining the Good Friday agreement.