MPs vote on Troubles Bill as critics warn amendments expose veterans to fresh inquiries

MPs are voting on the government's Troubles Bill after ministers tabled amendments that critics say could reopen investigations into former security force personnel. The Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, David Johnston, warned that the wording could open 'the floodgates' to reinvestigations into matters that were examined and closed decades ago. The government introduced new clauses and amendments to legislation it had hoped would make things better.

Solicitor Philip Barden, a partner at Devonshires, shared Johnston's reservations. He said the government is setting up a legacy commission to which victims or close relatives can refer cases. The commission would then investigate. The government says there will be no repeat investigations, but Barden said the legacy director would have power to reinvestigate any matter considered 'essential'. The word is not defined, he said, beyond examples such as new evidence or a flaw in a previous investigation. There is no threshold for what counts as new evidence, and any lawyer who has worked in Northern Ireland could find a flaw. Barden argued that all material should go to the legacy commission, which should be able to examine historic papers. Veterans should be engaged only where there is new and compelling evidence. At present, he said, protection is offered to witnesses, but most soldiers in these cases are suspects, not witnesses.

Former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said he had been concerned about the one-sided nature of the government's approach. He said the decisions were taken for the right reasons as part of a peace process that has held, but he could see the problem coming. His solution was straightforward: no more prosecutions, no more coroner's inquests and no more investigations of elderly men who served in the armed forces. He and Barden agreed that some form of statute of limitations was needed. Barden said a line must be drawn. He called for a rule that there can be no reinvestigation unless there is new and compelling evidence certified by a judge outside Northern Ireland. That could allow prosecution if a terrorist or bomb maker is identified, but not repeated cases against soldiers, some of whom have been investigated four or five times. He said this was not about truth or justice but about a process that damages people.

The cases discussed included Soldier B, who is waiting for a Supreme Court hearing on whether he must continue with his case, expected to take four or five months. The litigation has lasted nine years. Soldiers A and C shot Joe McCann in 1972. They were seen by the Historical Enquiries Team in 2009 and prosecuted in 2016. The prosecution service in Northern Ireland was told there was no evidence. It took until 2021 for a judge to agree. In 2024 a fresh inquest was ordered. Barden described that sequence as disgusting. The sequence was also described as fundamentally wrong.

In a later segment, as the Commons debate continued, the SAS Regimental Association warned that the legislation would leave former soldiers exposed to endless re-investigation. The coverage also cited a Sunday Times investigation into five SAS soldiers who faced a three-year murder investigation after shooting two teenagers linked to ISIS during an operation in Syria. The Director of Special Forces referred the case to military police. The soldiers never went to trial, but the investigation remained hanging over them. A panellist said the process itself was part of the punishment.

The panel split on how to balance the law and military operations. One commentator, Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, said veterans in their seventies or eighties faced being treated as criminals. He criticised the safeguards as vague, saying the Attorney General's sign-off could take months or years and there was no requirement for compelling evidence, only a promise to consider it. He called the process 'lawfare' by risk-averse, politically posturing people. He said it damaged morale, recruitment and the bond between the state and soldiers. He also warned against treating service personnel and terrorists as equivalent, and said veterans were disadvantaged because the British Army kept records while terrorists did not.

Nigel Nelson, a senior political commentator, accepted that soldiers are not above the law. He said the law should account for split-second life and death decisions that civilians do not face. He said the balance was tricky. He noted that the proposed concessions included no repeat prosecutions, but that did not mean everyone was off the hook. On the Syria case, he said the soldiers were under investigation for three years while still expected to go on operations. He argued that investigations should be speedy but conclusive, and that the case had been referred by the Director of Special Forces, suggesting there was at least a case to answer, yet it never went to trial. The soldiers were neither acquitted nor known to be guilty.

During the Commons debate, Sorcha Eastwood, the Alliance Party MP for Lagan Valley, was speaking. The discussion reflected a wider argument about language and victimhood. One panellist said the government now calls everyone victims, creating a false equivalence. Another said the law still had to be upheld and that some prosecutions may follow if soldiers went too far, while soldiers must stick to the rules of engagement. Both panellists agreed that leaving veterans and soldiers in limbo was damaging to operational readiness and national security.