Hilary Benn MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  The commission is an independent body established—

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  I will give way, and then I will make progress.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is indeed correct. That was, in part, the basis on which the Good Friday agreement was reached, and 71.7% of the people of Northern Ireland gave their support to it. Compromise, of course, is essential in the interests of peace. There was anger from many of those who served in Northern Ireland, who saw immunity as an affront to the rule of law that they had sought to protect, and as implying some sort of moral equivalence between those who served in our armed forces and terrorists. There is no moral equivalence whatsoever between those members of our armed forces who acted lawfully in carrying out their duties, and paramilitaries who were responsible for barbaric acts of terrorism. We owe our Operation Banner veterans an enormous debt of gratitude. I say to those watching, and to those in the Gallery: your service and your sacrifice will never be forgotten. We have a duty to care for all those who served. That is precisely why we are putting in the legislation new measures that are designed specifically to protect veterans, and why the Ministry of Defence always provides legal and welfare support to any veteran asked to participate. The safeguards that we are supplying have been designed specifically for veterans, following close consultation with veterans. Some will necessarily apply to others, including former police officers, while others will apply only to veterans. Veterans will be protected against repeat investigations. Part 3 places a duty on the Legacy Commission not to do anything that duplicates any aspect of previous investigations or proceedings unless it is essential. That is a very high threshold. If a veteran is asked to give evidence publicly to an inquest, or in the commission’s inquisitorial proceedings, they will not be forced to travel to Northern Ireland. They will be able to do so remotely.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  If the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I shall come to his question a bit later. Crucially—this is something that the House has to recognise—the 2023 Act failed because it did not command any support in Northern Ireland among victims and survivors, or the political parties. That was no basis for progress or reconciliation. That point has to be acknowledged. One of the principal reasons for that lack of support was the Act’s attempt to offer immunity from prosecution, including to terrorists who had committed the most appalling murders. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), who is intervening from a sedentary position, needs to go back and read the legislation that his Government passed. I have it here. Immunity was a false promise. It appeared to offer soldiers something that was completely undeliverable. The measures were never implemented, and were struck down by our courts. Families who had endured unimaginable suffering through paramilitary violence were simply not prepared to see those responsible given immunity.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. On 11 June 1966, a 28-year-old storeman, John Patrick Scullion, was shot dead on the doorstep of his home in west Belfast by the Ulster Volunteer Force. It is regarded by many as the first sectarian killing of the troubles. By 10 April 1998 and the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, the death toll from this horrific period of violence in our country had risen to over 3,500, including almost 2,000 civilians and over 1,000 people who were killed while bravely serving the state, and 90% of those who lost their lives were killed by paramilitaries. Some of the incidents—Warrenpoint, Bloody Sunday, the Kingsmill massacre, the Miami Showband killings, the Birmingham pub bombings—are, sadly, all too well known. Many others are less well known, although for each family, their grief, privately borne, has been just as strong and just as painful—fathers and brothers, mothers and daughters, children, people from all walks of life—and each one is a tragic and needless loss of a loved one. I say “needless” because there was always an alternative to violence, an alternative made real when the Good Friday agreement was signed. Some found that agreement, which included the early release of prisoners convicted of troubles-related offences, very hard to accept, but over 70% of voters in Northern Ireland backed it in a referendum, because they knew that this was the moment to lay a foundation for peace that could give hope to citizens right across these islands for a future free of violence.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  I would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to reflect on what I have just told the House: anyone who was previously involved in paramilitary activity will not be appointed to the victims and survivors group. I am giving the House that assurance as the Secretary of State. These measures will be complemented by other commitments to ensure, for instance, that no veteran is cold-called. The Defence Secretary and I will continue to work with veterans, the Royal British Legion, the Veterans Commissioners and others to ensure that we get this right.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. It is for the simple reason that the commission has the power to see all the information and evidence—everything. It is already investigating the Guildford pub bombings, the M62 coach bombing, and the Kingsmill massacre, and I hope that others—

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point, which we have discussed in the House before. As he has acknowledged, there is currently a public inquiry, set up by the last Government, into the terrible events that occurred at Omagh. I think the right and proper thing to do is to let that inquiry proceed with its work and, I hope, provide the answers that families are looking for. Northern Ireland is now a largely peaceful place, but many people—including those I have had the privilege of meeting and who have shared with me their grief, their pain, their anger and their loss—still live with the effects of those decades of violence. Far too many have still, all these years later, been unable to find an answer to the simplest of questions: what happened—how did my loved one die?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy · Hansard source

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  He is.

• 13 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy · Hansard source

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  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—

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends who are Ministers in the Ministry of Defence will have heard what my hon. Friend has said. The protections in the legislation that has been brought before the House are the result of extensive discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence, the armed forces Ministers, and veterans’ organisations.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  I have already expressed the Government’s thanks in my answer to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and I think those sentiments are felt right across the House.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  We all want Northern Ireland to be able to move on into a better age and a better future, but we have a responsibility to those families who are still searching for answers to put in place a system that will help them to get those answers, including in the cases that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. I simply point out that it is estimated that between 25,000 and 35,000 paramilitaries served sentences of imprisonment during the troubles for a wide variety of offences, including murder. If he looks at the cases currently awaiting trial, he will find that most of them relate to former paramilitaries, not to our armed forces.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  The legislation that the Government have put before the House will make no change at all to the basis on which decisions about any potential prosecutions are made. Indeed, that system will remain as it has been right through the course of the troubles and in the 27 and a half years since. [ Interruption. ] It is the case. Decisions about prosecutions are taken independently by prosecutors, and it is not for us to gainsay the decisions that those prosecutors make, because that is the absolute bedrock of our independent judicial system.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not accept the characterisation he used at the end of his question. This is not a politically correct process; this is about trying to find a way forward for those families. The honest answer to the fair point that he raises is that each family deals with the loss of their loved one in their own way. Some do not come forward. They live with their grief silently, alone. Others have campaigned. If it had not been for the campaigning of the Bloody Sunday families, there would not have been a Saville inquiry and we would not have got to the point where the former Prime Minister stood at this Dispatch Box to apologise for the killing of their loved ones. Having said that, in the vast majority of cases, no one is likely to be held to account through a judicial process, and that is why one of the focuses of the new commission will be on fact-finding and the new body for information retrieval, using all the means at our disposal to try to provide answers to those families. It will then be for them to decide how they come to terms with what happened. We owe it to them to leave no stone unturned and to put a better system in place.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  The letters of comfort—or the on-the-run letters, however one wishes to describe them—had their origin in the time after the Good Friday agreement, as the hon. Gentleman will be well aware, but, as I explained a moment ago in answer to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), they did not give anyone immunity from prosecution. That is an extremely important point to make. Anyone who gives the impression that they gave immunity from prosecution is, I am afraid, causing people unnecessary worry when the facts do not support that.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  The trial of Soldier F concluded on 23 October with a not guilty verdict. The Ministry of Defence rightly provided him with legal and pastoral support. I and the Secretary of State for Defence have, of course, noted the judgment, but I do not think it appropriate to be drawn on the particulars of these independent legal proceedings. The House will recognise that it was also a difficult day for the families of the 13 people shot dead on Bloody Sunday, in circumstances that the former Prime Minister Lord Cameron described as “unjustified and unjustifiable”. I am sure that the sympathies of the whole House remain with them. We all understand the continuing pain felt by families and communities in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom as a result of the troubles. The Government remain committed to establishing a legacy process that can provide answers for families who are still seeking to find out what happened to their loved ones. We will always remember the dangers faced by our brave soldiers, police, and others who served during the time of Operation Banner and who tried to keep people safe, and will always remember, especially at this time of year, those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Their service will never be forgotten, and we owe them a profound debt of gratitude. It is, however, important to note that the case of Soldier F of course involved no role for either this Government or the last one. The independent proceedings were ongoing before the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, and they were not halted by that legislation. Decisions by the prosecution service in Northern Ireland are always taken independently, in the light of facts and circumstances, and we should all respect that independence. A prosecution can only ever be brought when the evidence presents, in the view of prosecutors, a reasonable prospect of a conviction, and when it is in the public interest to proceed. I also recognise that all those affected by the troubles, including veterans, want a system that is fair, balanced and proportionate. That is what the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is seeking to put in place, with a new legacy commission and strong protections for veterans that were not included in the last Government’s legacy Act. That act offered a false and undeliverable promise of immunity to our Northern Ireland veterans. These measures will provide what the three UK veterans commissioners have called for—not immunity from the law, but fairness under it.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  The Irish Government do not have a veto. I stood next to the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, and I made commitments on behalf of the British Government and he made commitments on behalf of the Irish Government. All of us in the House who wish families to get the answers for which they have been searching for so long should welcome the fact that the Irish Government are prepared to move from where they are now, because they oppose the legacy Act too, to a place where they will give this their fullest co-operation. In the course of that, we all hope to provide more information to give more families answers. That is what we are trying to do, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that the two Governments are working together on this, because it will help the families.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. What I said was absolutely accurate, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows. On the circumstances of the trial of Mr Downey in relation to the Hyde Park bombing, the reason why the judge called that to a halt was set out. But subsequent statements made it quite clear that those letters of comfort did not constitute immunity, as the subsequent events—not least the impending prosecution of Mr Downey—demonstrate.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  I say to the hon. Member that the Saville inquiry report made for very sobering and distressing reading for all of us. Like many Members present, I was in the House to hear the former Prime Minister, Lord Cameron, make that apology to the families—something for which they had campaigned for years and years when justice was denied to them. I will always remember the photographs of the fists that came out of the window in the Guildhall in Derry/Londonderry as people heard what the Prime Minister at the time had said from the Dispatch Box. On the hon. Member’s first point, it is right and proper that the Ministry of Defence provides support to any veteran who is facing a criminal justice process. I think we would expect nothing less.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says and his characterisation of the immunity provisions in the legacy Act. Nick Pope, the chair of the Confederation of Service Charities, said that the confederation welcomes “the development of the safeguards that have been put in place to offer protection to those within the armed forces community who are affected by legacy issues.” We drew those up having spoken to veterans. I hope that when people look at them and see how they work, they will recognise that we have acknowledged our particular responsibility to treat veterans fairly in the process. That is the right way to proceed.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Member that 90% of those who were killed during the troubles were killed by paramilitary terrorists, which is why the vast majority of those who have been prosecuted and convicted have been paramilitary terrorists. However, I do not agree with her when she uses the phrase “vexatious prosecutions”. There are no vexatious prosecutions. [Hon. Members: “What?”] There are no vexatious prosecutions, because if the hon. Member is arguing that a decision to prosecute is vexatious, she is criticising the independent prosecuting authorities, which make their decisions on the basis of whether there is a reasonable prospect of a conviction and whether it is in the public interest to prosecute. We should be extremely careful about trying to undermine an independent judicial system.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  It would indeed be possible for them to refer the case to the commission.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the protections that we have put into legislation following the discussions that we have had with veterans, which I referred to earlier. I join him in again paying tribute to the extraordinarily brave service of all those who served during the time of Operation Banner in trying to protect the people of Northern Ireland from the terrorists. I will make a point that I know the whole House will agree with: while some people argue that there was no alternative to that terrorism, there was, and we saw it in the signing of the Good Friday agreement and what happened thereafter. There was always an alternative. That is why we should always support those who did their duty honourably.

• 3 Nov 2025 · “Soldier F” Trial Verdict · Hansard source

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  I will do so when we have been able to inform the families in those cases. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would accept that it is only right and proper that we inform the families first, and then I will make a list available. On the reason for the Loughgall inquest, he will be aware that the former Attorney General said on 23 September 2015: “Following careful consideration of a huge amount of material I have come to the decision that new inquests into the Loughgall deaths are justified.”