Andy McDonald

I welcome the introduction of the remedial order. It is a necessary and overdue step if the Government are to retain the confidence of the people of Northern Ireland that they are serious about justice, accountability and dealing honestly with the legacy of the troubles. As several hon. and gallant Members have said from the Government Benches, those who served never wanted special protection, exemptions or immunity from the law. They wanted and expected exactly what the public expect: to be judged by the same universal standards of justice that apply to everyone else. Accountability does not weaken the armed forces but strengthens trust in them. The remedial order recognises that basic principle. It removes the conditional immunity and de facto amnesty contained in the 2023 legacy Act—provisions that were found unlawful by the courts in the Dillon case in Belfast. The High Court and the Court of Appeal were clear that those provisions breached articles 2 and 3 of the European convention on human rights and the Windsor framework. The Government accepted that judgment and rightly abandoned their appeal. Those immunity provisions never legally took effect, and it is right that they are now formally removed. The order also restores access to civil claims, reopening an important route to truth and accountability that had been wrongly closed. These processes were never about witch hunts. Since the Good Friday agreement, only one former soldier has been convicted for a troubles-era killing, and he received a suspended sentence. That is not lawfare. What civil cases and inquests have done is to correct false records, expose wrongdoing and finally give families truthful answers after decades of official denial. However, we must honest. The remedial order does not go far enough. Section 45 of the legacy Act, which blocks the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland from investigating troubles-related police misconduct, remains unaddressed. The Court of Appeal found that to be incompatible with human rights, yet victims and families are still denied access to a fully independent investigative mechanism. That failure continues. The Government are, of course, serious about a victim-centred approach to the past, and in pursuit of that further amendments are essential. National security must not be used as a smokescreen for secrecy. Families must have enforceable rights to truth, information and challenge, particularly when the Secretary of State retains wide powers over legacy bodies. That is especially important given the unresolved disagreements surrounding the Public Office (Accountability) Bill.