Today in Full Council, I seconded a Motion on Notice seeking to gain whole Council Support for including Northern Ireland Veterans in any future legislation giving veterans immunity from fresh prosecution more than ten years after an operation.
Unfortunately, the local Labour Council group made significant amendments to the motion, thereby changing the main meaning of it. However, as well as watching my comments on the amended motion, you can also read my speech on our initial motion below:
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This morning, a number of us attended the raising of the Armed Forces Day flag. Armed Forces Day is rightly a big event for our city.
As we all know, Plymouth is home to thousands of veterans - men and women who have served our country in a variety of roles, in different theatres of conflict across the World. Recognising the important role they play and how grateful we are for their service across the world on our behalf is the least we can do to show our support for them.
Using our role as elected members of this Council protect all our veterans from allegations being brought against them more than ten years after all operations is a further way we can show our support for them.
Operation Banner, which lasted from 1969 to 2007, was the longest continuous deployment of British Armed Forces personnel in all of British military history.
During that time, over a quarter of a million military personnel served in Northern Ireland. Many of these veterans are now well into their 70s and live with the uncertainty of whether or not allegations will be brought against them, even where they have been exonerated in previous legal proceedings.
There are stories of individuals across this city for whom this is a reality.
In recent years, there has been significant coverage on the issue of historical allegations against military personnel and veterans. It has been the subject of several Defence Select Committee reports, debates in Parliament and many newspaper inches.
However, whilst I welcome the recent announcement of Government legislation to ensure investigations into the actions of servicemen and women on the battlefield do not commence after ten years, the proposal only covers overseas operations.
Although this will go a significant way to ensure those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan for example are no longer hounded by the equivalent of the IHAT group - the Iraq Historical Allegation Team, it is not proposed to include the actions of those who served in Northern Ireland over the thirty eight year period of Operation Banner.
This is the heart of the reasoning behind today’s Motion on Notice.
The method required to implement this legal protection for servicemen and women ten years after any alleged offences took place is called a ‘statute of limitations.’
The 2017 Defence Select Committee report titled: ‘Investigations into fatalities in Northern Ireland involving British military personnel.’ said:
“We believe that to subject former Service personnel to legal pursuit under the current arrangements is wholly oppressive and a denial of natural justice. It can be ended only by a statute of limitations. Our expert witnesses agreed that the UK Parliament has it entirely within its power to enact such a statute and we call upon the Government in the next Parliament to do so as a matter of urgency.”
For a while, the Government looked likely to include this option for a statute of limitations for Northern Ireland veterans in the public consultation on how to address the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past. However, when the consultation was published, it did not include anything on this.
Subsequent announcements on legislation to protect veterans in this way have not included the actions of those who served in Northern Ireland.
That is why we are seeking to show this Council’s support for including Northern Ireland Veterans in any future legislation protecting our servicemen and women from historical allegations about their conduct being made ten years or more after the operation took place.
To treat those who served in Northern Ireland in exactly the same way as we treat those who have served overseas.
In the words of one Northern Ireland veteran in a recent Westminster Hall debate, a man now more commonly known as the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions - Rt Honourable Iain Duncan Smith MP:
“I urge the Minister and his colleagues to recognise that those of us who served in Northern Ireland did not ask to. We did not, in a fit of passionate patriotism and bravery, suddenly volunteer to go there on our own. We were told to go there because we were soldiers. That was the command. We were told that it was an operation; it was not some other affair, as we now seem to hear. We went on that operation—Op Banner was an operation—and did our duty.”
What happened in Northern Ireland over those 38 years is incomprehensible to those of us who had no direct contact with it. The closest I’ve even come to even beginning to gain an understanding of the conditions men and women, civilians and military personnel alike must have faced was on my first visit to Belfast back in 2001. I remember being in a car in Belfast and seeing what I now know was a Police Station, and asking my friend ‘what on earth is that building’ when faced with a fortified building like nothing I had ever seen.
In total, around 3500 were killed during the troubles. Over half of these were military personnel but we also know that many civilians were also tragically caught up in the conflict.
It is of course right to factor in the victims and their families in any consideration of how we take things forward in our duty of care to civilians and veterans alike. However, as Johnny Mercer described in Parliament recently:
“There is an impression that we have no feelings for the victims, that they play second fiddle, and that there is no effort to pursue justice in any way… Victims and families get this impression because legal teams drag them down a pathway and get them genuinely to believe that they might, in the end, have all their questions answered. There is nothing more disingenuous than using their grief, anger and sense of unjustness to propel a totally false narrative, which is used simply to extend the conflict.”
It does not serve victims and it does not serve veterans to enable historic allegations to be brought up indefinitely.
We must see veterans of Operation Banner given the same assurances as those who have served in other operations which happened to be overseas rather than on UK soil. That ten years after their active service it will no longer be possible to pursue them for alleged actions undertaken during their participation in any operation.
To finish, let me use the very eloquent words of another member of the Defence Select Committee, Damian Moore MP:
“Where crimes have been committed—they do happen, albeit rarely—the rule of law should be applied, those involved should be investigated, and prosecutions should be forthcoming. However, let us be clear: in the midst of conflict, those instances are the exception, not the rule. The overwhelming majority of our servicemen and women believe in the preservation of life and the rule of law. They swore to uphold those values in making their vow to the Queen and the people of the United Kingdom when enlisting into the armed forces, and they believe in those values today.”
I hope that today, in supporting this motion, the Council sends a message to the many veterans in our city that we are grateful for their service. That we will do our bit to ensure they are protected by legislation that will mean they can live without the perpetual fear of allegations being made years after service or long-settled investigations re-opened.
