Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 11:51 am on 5 November 2025.
Lord Caine
Shadow Minister (Northern Ireland)
11:51,
5 November 2025
My Lords, as part of the small team that helped my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton draft his apology for Bloody Sunday, I stand by every word in that Statement. But in the case of soldier F, 15 years after the 12-year Saville inquiry, the judge was clear that the evidence presented fell well short of the standard required for a conviction. Meanwhile, last month, a different judge in Belfast dismissed the challenge against another former soldier, after four years of investigation, as being “utterly divorced from reality”. Does this not reinforce what we have consistently said about the chances of successful prosecutions at this distance from the Troubles being vanishingly small? Given that, will the Government now think again about the provisions in their Troubles Bill that will leave the terrorists largely untouched but mean elderly veterans once again facing lengthy investigations and being dragged back before the courts?