Chris Coghlan

We owe our special forces an enormous debt. I understood that more clearly when I served in counter-terrorism in the Foreign Office. That debt has not been honoured with the endless and unjustified litigation against Northern Ireland veterans. In Northern Ireland, there has been a sustained attempt to paint a moral equivalence between those who are maintaining law and order and those who conducted murder. Veterans fear persecution, and that is why I support amendment 129, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), which will require a new evidence certificate to be issued before the resumption of any inquest. As the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) described so movingly, on 8 May 1987 a heavily armed eight-man Provisional IRA team approached a police station at Loughgall. They used a JCB to breach the perimeter, with a 300-to-400 lb bomb in the bucket. They were engaged by the SAS and killed. It was the largest single loss of life for the IRA. Tragically, an innocent civilian was mistaken for an IRA member and was killed as well. There have already been four investigations or inquests into Loughgall. If there is another, what further answers are the families expecting? On their own terms, their loved ones were members of the Provisional IRA, committed to violence for political ends. What would this mean for veterans? Anyone who opened fire would be anxious that doing their duty could be portrayed as a serious crime. I share the grave concerns of SAS veterans and their regimental associations. The failing in the Bill is that there is no robust, objective test to prevent the reopening of inquests without new and compelling evidence. I may be a Member of Parliament, but I am also a reservist soldier in the London Guards. I have served alongside soldiers who know that they have done nothing wrong, but who now worry about the possibility that in 30 or 40 years’ time they too could be hauled out of retirement into court. How can that be right? British soldiers risked their lives for others, and we owe them the just protection of this amendment.