During Operation Banner every single time a paramilitary was killed by a British soldier it was subject to judicial investigation. The Director of Public Prosecutions went through the evidence at the time, interviewed people, looked at planning documents and was able to talk to people contemporaneously while they could still remember it. It was not a rubber stamp; it was rigorous, as was proven by the fact that where necessary it led to prosecution. What is happening now is double jeopardy. Worse still, it is double jeopardy under new rules but with no new evidence indeed there is a risk of lost evidence and lost memory given the passage of time. I have heard what the Secretary of State has said but will he commit to ensuring that soldiers who were subject to reviews at the time will not be subject to further risk of prosecution under the Government’s replacement for the legacy Act?

According to the 2021 census there are more than two million veterans living in Great Britain clearly some of them have been busy lately their parliamentary petition entitled “Protect Northern Ireland Veterans from Prosecutions”, with support from the Daily Mail, the Express and others now has more than 160,000 signatures and will be debated in Parliament on July 14th. Which Minister will respond to that debate so that we can ask them why the Government’s current remedial order is drafted to help the likes of Gerry Adams sue the British taxpayer while throwing our veterans to the wolves?

The Government could have appealed to the Supreme Court on this but deliberately did not. I do not doubt the Secretary of State’s personal sincerity however, at Prime Minister’s questions on 15 January the Prime Minister promised veterans: We are working on a draft remedial order and replacement legislation, and we will look at every conceivable way to prevent these types of cases from claiming damages it is important that I say that on the record. Why then despite the PM’s solemn promise is the order still unchanged surely he is not expecting to order his own MPs many of whom represent red wall seats from which those veterans were originally recruited through the Aye Lobby just to do Gerry Adams a favour he is not going to do that, is he?