Hilary Benn

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on having secured this debate. The legacy of the troubles cast a long, dark shadow over the lives of so many people in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom, including on some of those the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and there are many, many others among the 3,500 or so who lost their lives. I would just say to Conservative Members that it is really important that in these debates we acknowledge all of those affected, not just some, even though some are, of course, extremely important. At some point, Conservative Members will need to acknowledge that the last Government’s Legacy Act had no support in Northern Ireland. If we are to move legacy on, there needs to be support for the legislation, and that is why the Government are seeking to change it. The Government, of course, take the concerns of veterans very seriously. Our commitment to Operation Banner veterans is unshakeable. The Troubles Bill, which we will debate next week, will put in place the strongest possible protections for them, none of which were in the last Government’s Legacy Act. The right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington talked a lot about prosecutions. As he knows full well, decisions on prosecutions are taken independently by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland, and nothing that this Government are doing will change that at all. The system will be exactly as it has been for the past 27 and a half years, since the Good Friday agreement. On Loughgall, the reason there is going to be another inquest is because 10 years ago the Conservative Attorney General ordered that the Loughgall inquest take place—that is a fact. Since nothing has changed in the past 27 years, why do we not look at some facts about prosecutions? Since 2012, there have been 25 decisions to prosecute individuals for troubles-related offences. Six of those have resulted in convictions: three were republicans, two were loyalists and one was military, with the soldier in question receiving a suspended sentence. If we look at the current, live cases that are before the courts, six are republicans, one is loyalist, one is a former member of the police and one is in the military category. What do the facts show? The vast majority of prosecutions are against former paramilitaries. At one point in his speech the right hon. Gentleman suggested that there had been five or so prosecutions for all the deaths, but in saying that he ignores the very, very large number of paramilitaries who were sent to prison during the troubles, including many of them for murder. That was a very large number compared with the numbers of military prosecuted, as he well knows. On the subject of immunity, of course I noticed the letter that was published in The Times. When I said repeatedly that the current Legacy Act would have granted immunity to terrorists, I heard Conservative Members saying from a sedentary position, “Well, that is not true”, so let me quote from clause 19 of the Legacy Act. It says: “The ICRIR must grant a person immunity from prosecution” if certain conditions are met, including that the person has asked for immunity from prosecution, that the information describes conduct that formed part of the troubles and is to the best of the person’s knowledge true, and that the commission is satisfied that the conduct would have exposed the person to a criminal investigations. Shouting, “That is not true”, when it is true—[Interruption.] One of the reasons why the Legacy Act had no support in Northern Ireland is because the families of all those who saw their loved ones killed did not want their killers to be granted immunity. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows—