In my column a couple of months ago, I wrote about the impact of the Troubles on Northern Ireland and the legislation that I have been working on to try and find a way forward. Earlier this week, that Bill took a major step forward in the House of Commons. It’s provoked some controversy, however, so what is it all about?
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 – regarded by many as the first sectarian killing of the Troubles. By 10 April 1998 and the signing of the 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. 90% of those who lost their lives were murdered by paramilitaries.
Some of the incidents – Warrenpoint, Bloody Sunday, the Kingsmill massacre, the Miami Showband killings, the M62 coach bombing and the Birmingham pub bombings – are, sadly, all too well known. Many others less so, 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 a tragic and needless loss of a loved one because there was always an alternative to violence. An alternative made real when the Good Friday peace agreement was signed.
Northern Ireland is now a largely peaceful place, but many people still live with the effects of those decades of violence. Far too many have, all these years later, been unable to find an answer to the simplest of questions: what happened and how did my loved one die?
So, what is this Bill aiming to do and why is it needed?
It is trying to put in place a way of dealing with this issue that can actually command broad public support in Northern Ireland and help those families to find answers. It is needed because the previous Government’s legislation, whatever its intentions, didn’t work. It was legally flawed, and it failed to gain any support in Northern Ireland among victims and survivors, or the political parties. That was no basis for progress or reconciliation.
One of the principal reasons for that lack of support was the Act’s attempt to offer immunity from prosecution to soldiers but also to terrorists who had committed the most appalling murders. The problem was that it was undeliverable. It was never implemented and the courts found against it.
Families who had endured unimaginable suffering through paramilitary violence were simply not prepared to see those responsible getting away with it. There was also 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, because it implied some sort of moral equivalence between those who served in our armed forces and terrorists. There is no such moral equivalence, and we owe our veterans who served in Northern Ireland an enormous debt of gratitude. And that is precisely why we are putting in the legislation new measures that are designed specifically for veterans.
Veterans will be protected against repeat investigations. If a veteran is asked to give evidence in public, they will not be forced to travel to Northern Ireland. They will be able to do so remotely, and they will also be able to seek anonymity. The health and wellbeing of elderly witnesses, and whether it would be appropriate for them to give evidence at all, will also have to be considered.
Decisions about prosecutions are made independently – that is the absolute foundation of our legal system – based on the evidence, so those who claim that this legislation will somehow lead to a huge increase in prosecutions of veterans, or that it is only veterans who have been prosecuted in recent years, have got it wrong.
If one looks at the facts, in the 27 and a half years since the Good Friday Agreement, just one veteran has been convicted for a Troubles-related offence, and with the passage of time the chances of any more prosecutions get slimmer and slimmer. The majority of those who have been convicted, and indeed of those currently facing prosecution, are in fact paramilitaries.
Mary Moreland, who was widowed when her husband John, a reservist in the Ulster Defence Regiment, was killed by the IRA nine days before Christmas in 1988, says:
“As a veteran and war widow I strongly believe in accountability and the rule of law for all and take pride in the fact that the British Armed Forces are the finest in the world. Like many others I have always been opposed to the Legacy Act [the last Government’s legislation]. It was legislation that was fundamentally flawed. I tentatively welcome the process of repealing and replacing the Legacy Act, [but] the new legislation must be balanced, fair, rights-based and capable of delivering meaningful outcomes for victims and survivors.”
For many families in Northern Ireland, time is running out. With every year that passes, memories fade, witnesses are lost, and crucial evidence grows weaker. That is why as a government we have to fix the mess that we inherited.
I believe that this legislation represents our best and possibly final chance to fulfil the unrealised ambition of the Good Friday agreement by helping families to find answers. Nobody will like everything contained in the Bill – that’s inevitable given the differing views held by many – and if fixing legacy was easy, we would not be discussing it 27 years later. But above all, I hope that all who seek a fair and effective way forward will recognise that the Bill represents a fundamental reform of current arrangements, and that it should be given a chance to succeed.
And with that, may I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
First published in the December 2025 edition of South Leeds Life, available online here https://southleedslife.com/mps-notebook-northern-ireland/