PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Troubles - 4 December 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Before calling the Secretary of State to make his statement, I remind the House that on 19 November Mr Speaker granted a waiver from the House’s sub judice resolution in respect of the case of Dillon and others v. the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. As such, reference may be made to that case during the statement and the questions that follow.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the legacy of the troubles in Northern Ireland. The timing of the statement was chosen so as not to take time away from the Opposition day debates we have just had, while also enabling the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal to be updated today.

Addressing the legacy of the troubles was one of the aims of the Good Friday agreement, but this task remains incomplete. Too many families I have met have had to wait too long to find out what happened to their loved ones. I have found it difficult to listen to their stories about the brutality of the killings, the way some of them were treated afterwards, and the passing of the years without finding answers.

The approach taken to legacy by the last Government was wrong. It was rejected by the Northern Ireland political parties, victims’ groups and the Irish Government, and it was opposed by the Labour party when we were in opposition. Aspects of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 have now been found by the courts to be incompatible with our obligations under the European convention on human rights. This must be remedied, and the Government are committed to repeal and replace that legislation, as set out in our manifesto.

I am today laying a remedial order under the Human Rights Act 1998 to take the first steps to honour that commitment. This order will remedy all of the human rights deficiencies in the legacy Act identified by the Northern Ireland High Court in February in the case of Dillon and others, and one issue from the Court of Appeal judgment in September. Specifically, the order, if adopted by Parliament, will remove all provisions from the Act relating to the immunity scheme, which—let it not be forgotten—would have enabled any of those who perpetrated the most appalling terrorist crimes to seek immunity from prosecution from the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, although, as many victims’ families recognise, with the passage of time the prospect of successful prosecutions is increasingly unlikely.

The order will also enable all civil proceedings that were prohibited by the legacy Act, including future cases, to proceed. This means that individuals will once again be able to bring troubles-related cases to the civil courts—a basic right denied them by the legacy Act.

In addition to laying this remedial order, I can also announce today that I will introduce primary legislation when parliamentary time allows. This legislation will implement our promise to restore inquests, starting with those that were previously halted by the legacy Act. It will also, in direct response to the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal’s findings, amend the disclosure regime so that it is fair, transparent and, crucially, allows for the greatest possible disclosure of information, following very closely the model for statutory inquiries and other established processes.

We will also ensure that, in specific circumstances—namely, in cases that are unable to proceed as an inquest—the independent commission is able to hold public hearings, take sworn evidence from individuals and ensure that families have effective representation. Although the courts have found the commission be sufficiently independent to conduct article 2 compliant investigations, the confidence of families in its work is paramount, so we will make further changes to reform and strengthen the commission’s independence, powers and accountability. As part of this work, we will consider provisions previously included in the draft Stormont House agreement legislation, as well as learning from the experience of Operation Kenova.

The steps I am outlining today seek to correct the mistakes of the previous Government’s approach, ensure compliance with the ECHR and deliver on what this Government have promised: the removal of conditional immunity; the reinstatement of legacy inquests halted by the legacy Act; restoring civil cases; and reforming ICRIR, while enabling it to continue working on behalf of the growing number of families who have already sought its help.

The many conversations that I have had with interested parties in recent months have been invaluable in the development of this approach. I will now undertake further discussions on specific measures to be included in primary legislation so that, together with the remedial order, the Government fulfil our commitment to repeal and replace the legacy Act. This will include families, victims and survivors groups, Northern Ireland parties, civil society and the veterans community, recognising the dedicated service of the vast majority of police officers, members of the armed forces and the security services who did so much to keep the people of Northern Ireland safe during the troubles. I want to take the opportunity to reassure the House that the Government are committed to ensuring that veterans receive the right welfare and, where appropriate, legal support.

I will, of course, also continue to have detailed discussions with the Irish Government, who, as co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement, are an essential partner in this process. I hope that the UK and Irish Governments will be able to agree a way forward that is underpinned by the principles set out in the Stormont House agreement.

I am sure that everyone recognises that, as time passes and families grow older, we need to get on with enabling them to obtain the information, accountability and acknowledgement that they have long sought. In parallel, the Government also need to set out the grounds for appeal on elements of the Court of Appeal judgment. As I have said, the Government will use primary legislation to respond directly to a number of the Court of Appeal’s findings on disclosure. However, the primacy of the Executive in decisions relating to the security of the state is a principle long recognised by UK courts and is a crucial element of our ability to keep people safe. For this reason, we will appeal the Court’s specific finding relating to the Secretary of State’s power to preclude the disclosure of sensitive information in circumstances where such disclosure would prejudice the national security interests of the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, the Court’s findings relating to effective next-of-kin participation in cases that would otherwise be inquests raise issues that could reach far beyond the scope of the legacy Act. It is important that the Government seek legal clarity from the Supreme Court, and that is why we have decided that the Government must seek to appeal on this particular issue as well. The Government will also pursue an appeal in relation to the findings on article 2 of the Windsor framework, for reasons I set out in my written ministerial statement of 29 July.

I would like to say as clearly as possible that these decisions on appeal are to address wider concerns and their potential impact far beyond the legacy Act and Northern Ireland. They will not slow down our efforts to seek agreement and bring forward legacy legislation so that the ICRIR, which has begun its work, can demonstrate its capacity to assist victims and families.

Finally, what is all this for? It is to ensure that families who have lost loved ones—families who above all should be in our hearts and minds today—can finally learn what happened. Nothing will ever ease the pain that they endure to this day, but we must hope that society in Northern Ireland, which has come such a long way since 1998, can begin to heal the terrible wounds of the past and look to a better future. I commend this statement to the House.

I call shadow Secretary of State.

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, for giving an oral statement on this very important subject, and for scheduling the statement at such a time as would not interfere with the Opposition day debates—that was very decent of him.

I do not intend to rehearse all of the long debates that were had in the last Parliament over the legacy Act. The Labour party won the general election on a manifesto that included a number of measures that the Secretary of State has just discussed, and it has a mandate to make the changes it wants to make. But I will say this: there was an attempt by the last Government—a desire from the last Government—to draw a line under many difficult things that had happened, and with the actions the Government are now taking that line is being erased.

I will remind the House of the central reasons why the last Government legislated. They did so to try and protect some elderly people, including servicemen, who were being brought before inquests to discuss events that may or may not have happened very many years before. This was a process inevitably weighted against the police and the armed forces, who kept records and whose servicemen were easily locatable and contactable. Tonight there will be many such men harbouring a sense of dread. I know the Government are taking a different approach, but I do ask them to spare a thought for those men this evening and to think very deeply about what they can do to support them and what help they can offer them.

I have a number of questions for the Secretary of State. I appreciate that he may not be able to answer them all this evening, so I would be grateful if he would undertake to write to me on these very important matters.

The first issue I would like to touch on is the ICRIR, which was set up by the legacy Act. Indeed, for all the Government’s current talk of wanting to replace the legacy Act, a very large part of that legislation is concerned with its establishment. I was very pleased earlier in the year that the Secretary of State affirmed his support for the ICRIR and for Sir Declan Morgan, who is doing an admirable job of overseeing it.

In his statement, the Secretary of State said that he will

“reform and strengthen the commission’s independence, powers and accountability.”

I would be grateful if he could set out exactly how and why he intends to do that, given that in September Sir Declan made it clear that he already had the necessary independence and powers to do his job.

Secondly, I was pleased to hear that the Secretary of State intends to appeal the Court’s specific finding regarding the Secretary of State’s power to preclude the disclosure of sensitive information in circumstances where disclosure would be prejudicial to national security, but will he confirm that, in the event that his appeal is unsuccessful, the Government will legislate to ensure that national security is protected? If he does so, he will have our support.

Thirdly, I must ask the Secretary of State about the new regime that is emerging—it seems rather more by accident than design—and how it will work. We will have inquests, the ICRIR and inquiries. Who will decide which route a family goes down? Will it be the family, the Government or the courts? What criteria will be used? How will disputes about the route chosen be adjudicated? One of the qualities of the legacy Act was that it greatly simplified the system. The system is now being returned to complexity.

Finally, I must ask the Secretary of State to give the House some clarity on the Government’s position on article 2(1) of the Windsor framework. I am pleased that he is continuing his appeal against the Colton judgment handed down in July. That was a decision in which the Court of Appeal sought to disapply statute, and in his statement in July he referred to it as a technical point of law, but it is quite some technicality. Article 2(1) of the Windsor framework is very important in this judgment, and I would like him to be able to give clarity on the Government’s position. Is it, as the last Government’s position was, that the rights available to the people of Northern Ireland under the Belfast agreement should not be diminished as a result of our leaving the EU, or is it that a broader range of rights available at the time of our departure from the EU should not be diminished as a result of leaving the EU, or is it that the rights of the Northern Irish people should keep pace with EU law as it develops? Those are incredibly important points of law that will have a long consequence in British courts. I would be grateful if he could give the House clarity on those matters.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the manner of his response and for acknowledging that the Government have a mandate to introduce the changes I have set out today, although he did not comment on the fact that a number of elements of the legislation that the last Government put in place have been found to be incompatible with our international obligations under the European convention on human rights, and that alone is a demonstration of the failings of that particular legislation.

I acknowledge the point that the shadow Secretary of State raised about veterans, and we hold them very close to our hearts, as I know does the Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), who is in the Chamber this evening.

The shadow Secretary of State asked about the ICRIR. Indeed, the courts have found it to be independent, and it has considerable powers. It is currently investigating a first case that I referred to it yesterday, following a report from the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The purpose of the changes that I will be discussing with all the parties I set out in my statement will be to further build confidence in ICRIR. Part of the reason ICRIR does not currently command the confidence of all survivors and victims groups is because it was created in an Act that closed off any other route of remedy. People were told, “You cannot have a civil case. You cannot have an inquest. If you are having an inquest now, we are cutting it short on the 1 May deadline, and the only place you can then go is ICRIR.” If I may say so, that damaged confidence in ICRIR. I have great confidence in Sir Declan Morgan, and people have now started coming to ICRIR, and I want to build confidence. That is the basis of the further changes that I propose to come to later on.

On the hon. Gentleman’s question on disclosure, I have to say that, if we get leave to appeal, we will have to wait and see what the Supreme Court has to say about that. When it comes to the different regimes, as he will know, for ICRIR, families can approach it and say, “I would like there to be a review or, if you think it appropriate, an investigation.” Certain people have powers to refer cases to ICRIR—I have just done so in the case I have outlined. It is for the Government to decide whether to launch public inquiries.

Yes, there is some complexity, as the hon. Gentleman might say, but it does give people a choice, and it does give them their rights. How could we say to citizens in one part of our important United Kingdom that they could no longer have the right to bring a civil case? That is what the legacy Act did, and that is what the Court of Appeal has recently found to be incompatible.

Finally, on article 2, I am not a lawyer but I think the hon. Gentleman set out quite well the range of issues that arise out of the way in which the courts have thus far interpreted article 2 and its application. As the courts have taken what I might describe as an expansive view of what article 2 means compared with what some people might have thought when it was originally written, it is important for the Government, and indeed for the country, to go to the Supreme Court and ask, “Which is the right interpretation?”

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Earlier this week, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), visited Northern Ireland, where it was clear from our discussions with many stakeholders that real progress has been made since 1998 but that there is much more to do so. First, how does the Secretary of State think this announcement will bring people in Northern Ireland together? Secondly, will he tell us when he plans to bring forward the primary legislation to which he referred?

The answer to my hon. Friend’s second question, as I have already indicated, is when parliamentary time allows. In answer to his first question, I hope that people will see a Government seeking to address the evidential shortcomings of the legacy Act, but it is my wish to achieve as much consensus as possible. I am not naive, and I am not going to stand before the House today and think that in the end I will get everybody to back the proposals that I have already brought forward and will bring forward in due course, but all of us in all parts of the House should have that aim.

I hope that it might be possible to reach agreement with the Irish Government about how we take this forward. Whether they withdraw the interstate case is, of course, entirely a matter for them, but only yesterday I had discussions with Micheál Martin, the Justice Minister Helen McEntee and the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in which we discussed these matters. I regard that dialogue as very important to building confidence.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s second question on when the legislation will be forthcoming, I can only repeat myself: when parliamentary time allows. On his third question on keeping open the prospect of abolishing ICRIR, I simply say that one could do that—there are those who would argue for it. That would bring to a halt the cases that have already started, and to each of those families who have taken the decision to approach ICRIR, that case really matters. We would be saying to them, “Right. Forget that” and we would waste all the money that has been put into establishing ICRIR so that it has the capacity to do its work, and waste another year or two. As I have said, nobody is getting any younger.

In the end, in most of the discussions that I have had, I have asked people, “Do you think we need an information recovery function?” They have said yes. I have asked, “Do you think that we need a means of continuing investigation?” They have said yes. That is what was contained in the Stormont House agreement, and I am not yet persuaded that scrapping that, to recreate something that ends up looking not dissimilar from what we have at the moment, is a terribly sensible or pragmatic approach to take. However, I am open to conversations in the way that I set out about what more we can do on ICRIR to increase the public’s confidence in it.

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I was in Belfast this week with other members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and it was clear that all sections of Northern Ireland society were opposed to the legacy Act as it was constituted. Will the Secretary of State work with all stakeholders going forward, including the Irish Government, as he plans a new way forward on legacy and as he considers how to have full co-operation from the Irish Government in relation to information they may hold on legacy cases?

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. I have had a lot of meetings and discussions already, and to quote that phrase, I shall have further such meetings over the next few months, because I am determined to work as hard as I can to try, as I indicated a moment ago, to find a way forward. The discussions that we have had thus far with the Irish Government, who were resolutely opposed to the legislation that the previous Government put on the statute book, along with everybody else, and the fact that we have demonstrated our willingness to be open to a debate about changes that can be made, has been a real step forward.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I disagreed with both the manner and the detail of the last Government’s Act. This tilts back in favour of the rule of law and in favour of families. Will he continue to manage the expectation of families, given the impact of the passage of time? Will he press the Irish Government on Omagh, on Dublin and Monaghan, and on specific terrorist atrocities that they have information on and we need them now to pass over?

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He played a distinguished role during his time as Secretary of State. He knows, as I know and we all know, the importance of trying to build a consensus to move forward. He raises the question of Omagh; I raised that with Micheál Martin only yesterday. I welcome very much the commitment that the Irish Government have given to co-operate with the Omagh inquiry, and I know that the inquiry looks forward to receiving that co-operation in the months ahead.

I thank the Secretary of State for the decisive action that he has announced today and for bringing it to us in the House. Nothing can be allowed to jeopardise the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland. Will he confirm that the thread running through this action, and any future action, is the Government’s firm commitment to the victims and families, and to getting them the answers that they so richly deserve and finally need?

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. I have talked tonight about a lot of process, future legislation, remedial orders and so on. That is why I said at the end of my statement that, in the end, this is about the families—the families, whom many Members in the House will have met, who still do not know what happened and who carry the incredible pain from what they have been through with them to this day. The very least we can do is to try really, really hard to find a way of giving them the answers that they have been seeking.

I welcome the fact that the Government, as part of their appeal, will appeal the way in which the scope of article 2 has been extended, even to include overreach into national policy. I say to the Secretary of State that as long as article 2 remains, there will always be contention about how much say the EU will have—not only on law and activities in Northern Ireland, but on policy made in this House.

On the decisions he has made on inquests, civil cases and disclosure, the Secretary of State has to be honest with this House: that is not going to result in terrorists being taken through the courts or through the process in Northern Ireland. It will result only in ageing members of the security forces being dragged once again through the courts and suffering as a result of the service they gave in Northern Ireland. He said he intends to continue to speak with the Irish Government. The Irish Government have shamelessly taken our Government to court while doing nothing about the collusion and activities of the Irish state and Irish security forces in aiding and abetting the killing of soldiers and genocide along the border. Will the Secretary of State ensure that if there is a discussion on legacy, they address the past sins they are guilty of?

In dealing with the legacy of the troubles it is important that everyone faces up to the consequences of what happened and of what they did or did not do—everyone. It is a painful and difficult process indeed. The implication of what I have announced to the House today is that nobody can escape prosecution, because the immunity that was offered by the legacy Act has been removed. If there is evidence—although I acknowledge to the House that with the passage of time that becomes more and more difficult, for reasons the right hon. Gentleman alluded to—at least that possibility remains.

On article 2, I would simply point out that this agreement was reached between the British Government and the European Union, and it is the British courts—not the European courts—that have interpreted it. That is why the Government are of the view that we should seek to get a definitive ruling on the nature of that interpretation from the Supreme Court.

On 21 November we marked the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings. That date will have been felt most heavily by the families of the 21 people who never came home, and by many more who still carry the mental and physical scars of that day. The Secretary of State knows that the announcement of the repeal of the legacy Act was welcomed at the time it was made. Will he agree to enter into correspondence on the potential implications of his announcement tonight for that campaign?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that appalling atrocity. When I was the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I met a number of the Birmingham families over video. They have lived for so long with the pain and suffering, and, of course, with the fact that the people who were put in jail for allegedly having done it had not done it, which has only added to their distress. Because it happened in Great Britain, it is a matter for the Home Office. However, I would say that ICRIR is now beginning to look at the case of the Guildford pub bombings. Why? It is because the families have approached ICRIR. I would just point out that it is open to the Birmingham families—if they wish—to approach ICRIR and ask it to look at what happened to their loved ones.

I am less enthusiastic than many people for this development. If, as the Secretary of State says, the purpose is for the families to find out the truth, can he confirm first of all that the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 remains in being, so that if somebody is prosecuted successfully for the most heinous of offences, they will not serve—whether they are from the armed forces on the one side or the terrorist forces on the other—more than two years in jail? Given that that is the case, which is the more likely to give the families the truth: trying to take people to court, where they will defend their position and try to cover up inconvenient facts; or trying to have an amnesty—that hated word—coupled with a truth recovery process, where the truth can be said because people know that they will not go to jail as a result?

Clearly, legislation on the statute book, and the provisions that it contains, remains in place until such time as it changes. On the right hon. Gentleman’s important point about what the families would prefer, the answer must lie with the families themselves. I, as I know he will also have done, have met a very large number of families. A lot of them acknowledge that a prosecution is unlikely but want the truth. Some of them still want there to be a prosecution for justice to be done. Our responsibility is to give families, and the bodies investigating on their behalf, the means to provide the answers that the families, after all these years, are looking for.

As a veteran, I pay tribute to the service of those police officers, members of the armed forces and the security services who did so much to keep people in Northern Ireland safe during the troubles and in some cases paid the ultimate price. None the less, any solution that does not have the support of victims’ groups and political parties in Northern Ireland is not, in my view, tenable. Can the Secretary of State assure me that any veterans affected will receive all welfare and, if appropriate, legal support where necessary?

I can indeed give my hon. Friend that assurance. It is absolutely what we should do when we are thinking, in this particular case, of those who served in the armed forces—the 250,000 people who served in Northern Ireland as part of Operation Banner.

In this place on 11 September, the Secretary of State made a statement with regard to another inquiry. At that point, I asked him whether, for those families who had lost loved ones to terrorism, he had closed down all the other options for an inquiry. He told me at that point that ICRIR would be the only option. My understanding tonight is that he has now put back on the table several cases, inquests and inquiries. What confidence do those families now have in ICRIR when the Secretary of State says tonight that it needs reform, that he will bring forward further proposals to reform it, and that he has not detailed them? On the Stormont House agreement, I remind him that the Ulster Unionist party did not support it.

On the one inquiry I announced to the House, in relation to the murder of Pat Finucane, I explained the unique circumstances that led me to reach that conclusion. If I may correct the hon. Gentleman, inquiries were never taken off the table as an option. They have remained on the table. It is for the Government of the day to decide whether a public inquiry is ordered or not. He is right that civil cases and inquests in due course will return. It is the case that some people do not have confidence in ICRIR. That is why I think it is important that we should take further steps to try to build that confidence, but I have no doubt about its capacity to do the job that is required on behalf of the families that seek its help. As I made clear in the House previously, in the end, ICRIR’s effectiveness will be judged by those families. Do they get the answers that they have sought for so long by approaching it? I know that Sir Declan Morgan is really committed to making sure that he can do that.

I, like a number of others, served in Northern Ireland. We did not ask to go, and I lost a very good friend there—and others, at the same time. That man’s parents died without ever knowing what had happened to him, but it turns out that he may well have been dismembered and disappeared completely. There is no closure for them, and there is no chance, unless Ireland opens up its books and looks into this, that we will ever get any justice for him. He had a family as well, and many friends who wonder what happened to that brave man, and there are many more like him. So I say on their behalf: yes, let there be justice for families, but let us not forget all those soldiers who will now, in some cases, be hounded for no reason at all—those who lost their friends and their children and who did not want to go there in the first place. Where is the justice for them?

Let me first thank the right hon. Gentleman for his service in Northern Ireland. Let me also say how sad I am to hear about the case that he has just described. Justice information should be—must be —available to all. I would just point out, however, that there are service personnel who lost their lives in the conflict in Northern Ireland who did not support the legacy Act, precisely because it proposed to give immunity to people who had killed their loved ones. That is another reason why I think it is right to remove immunity from the statute book, which the remedial order that I have laid before the House today will do.

I welcome the news that the Government are to pursue an appeal in relation to the findings on article 2 of the Windsor framework in the Dillon judgment. I trust that it is not just an academic pursuit to find out which is the right interpretation, but a determination on the part of the Government to resist the imposition on Northern Ireland, through the Windsor framework, of laws, rights and expectations that do not apply anywhere else in the United Kingdom. If the Secretary of State fails in his appeal to the Supreme Court, will he undertake to legislate to the effect that article 2 cannot have effect in domestic law in Northern Ireland?

The Secretary of State has said that he will be bringing to ICRIR the same disclosure rights that apply to statutory inquiries. Why, then, do we need the Finucane inquiry, if ICRIR will now have the same powers? He said that he would discuss the way forward with the Government of the Irish Republic. They are a Government who have been vigorous in demanding accountability from the British Government, but giving no accountability as to their own forces and a support for terrorism across the border for many years.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the purpose of article 2 was to ensure that there was no diminution in the rights of people in Northern Ireland as a result of our withdrawal from the European Union. I certainly support that principle, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman does as well. The last Government thought it right to put it in place, because they negotiated that arrangement.

In respect of an appeal, we will just have to wait and see what the Supreme Court—if we reach that point and it goes there—has to say. I will not prejudge either a verdict or, indeed, what might flow from that. Let me just remind the hon. Gentleman, in relation to the Finucane inquiry, that there were very specific reasons. The previous Labour Government had made a commitment that in certain cases, if an independent judge determined that there be a public inquiry, we would hold one, and I believe that when Governments make commitments, we should keep our word.

I welcome the news that the Secretary of State will repeal the legacy Act. This is something that the previous Government—I say this with great respect—simply did not get right, and this Government now have an opportunity to get it right. The Secretary of State has outlined the greater scope for investigation and inquiry. I led an Adjournment debate in the last Parliament about the 10 Kingsmill workers murdered by the IRA in Newry, and I would seek an inquiry for them, for the victims of the La Mon massacre, in which the IRA murdered numerous innocent people, and for the four Ballydugan soldiers murdered on 9 April 1990.

Stuart Montgomery was three weeks out of police training college when he was murdered by the IRA in Pomeroy. My cousin Kenneth Smyth was murdered by the IRA on 10 December 1971. His friend Daniel McCormick was murdered beside him. Raymond McCord’s son was murdered by loyalists. I could mention many, many others. Will all those who seek justice be able to access that which they have requested in the past, which they have been denied so often—and equal to the decision for the Finucane family? Can the Secretary of State please further expand on the support that will ensure that there will be no witch hunt against armed forces and RUC officers, who served honourably for Crown and country? I apologise for the emotion.

The hon. Gentleman has no reason to apologise to anybody, because he has just demonstrated what I said in my statement about the pain that endures to this day on the part of families who have lost dearly loved family members. The way that he put his question, and the emotion that he was not afraid to show—I think he had no control over it; of course not, because this is how we feel when we reflect on these terrible incidents. He mentioned one of those killings, and here we are in December, which is a particularly difficult time of year. There are a number of anniversaries, and we are approaching Christmas, when we feel the loss of loved ones so greatly.

We have to work together as hard as we can to provide—if it is possible, because it may not be possible in all cases—the means through which the families can get some answers about what happened. But in the end, each family has to come to terms with the loss that they have endured in their own way. I cannot think of anything that is more difficult to do, but we need to stand with them every step of the way. I stand with the hon. Gentleman—he is my hon. Friend—in saying that.

I thank the Secretary of State both for coming to the House to give his statement and, indeed, for the timing of it; it is hugely appreciated.