Alex Burghart MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

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  I just want to make sure that I understand—I hope the Minister will forgive me if I do not. In his case, was it his permanent secretary as the accounting officer who verified that the messages he had were not admissible to the process?

• 1 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. If the story in The Times is to be believed, he may be positioning himself to be the chief successor to the Prime Minister. I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving me advance sight of the material that was published today, which I was fortunate enough to see this morning. However, it is important to put on record that only a very few Members of this House were able to see it this morning. It was available at 9.30 am, yet it was published only at 2 pm, so here we are today with hon. Members not having had a chance to read it and yet being expected to ask the right hon. Gentleman questions. I know the response will be that we are going to have a general debate on Wednesday, but as Government Members will know, if the Minister chooses not to take interventions in a general debate, there is no scrutiny at all. At worst, this is obfuscation; it is an attempt to deny scrutiny in a way that is unnecessary. The documents should have been published at 9.30 this morning in advance of this statement.

• 1 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response · Hansard source

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  It was on the news. The case of Peter Mandelson’s appointment remains of the utmost national importance simply because it touches on national security and on the Prime Minister’s honesty, integrity and competence. I want to make two basic points about the material before us today: the first is about disclosure, and the second about the process by which Peter Mandelson was appointed. On disclosure, although we have a huge number of documents, it is clear that very many are missing. Some have been withheld, some have been lost, and it is clear that some have probably been destroyed. Because of the approach the Government are taking, however, it is impossible for hon. Members to know which documents fall into which category. We are told that the Metropolitan police has requested that certain documents be retained, but the Government have refused to tell us which documents are being retained. I respect the fact that the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has told us about three broad categories now—this is progress. We did ask for those categories some time ago and were told that we could not have them, but it turns out that we can have them. We know there is no good legal basis for the Government not to disclose to this House which documents are being withheld. The Government should tell us. Indeed, it would be possible for them to disclose those documents to the ISC or to certain Members of the House on Privy Council terms. Again, this is obfuscation. It is an unnecessary attempt to defer or deny scrutiny, and the Humble Address did not allow for the Government to redefine the request in this way. If the Government wish to retain documents because the Met police has asked them to do so, they should come back to the House and change the terms of the Humble Address. They have not done that and, consequently, they risk being in contempt. Some Ministers have duly handed over their WhatsApp messages; it is clear that some have not. Are we to believe that there was no WhatsApp exchange at all between the Prime Minister and Peter Mandelson? We know that there was, because it has been reported in the press, and yet those messages reported in the press do not appear in the release today. It is clear that some messages have gone missing. It is also the case that, in all these documents, the Prime Minister’s presence is almost non-existent. Despite the fact that he was appointing a man to be head of our most senior mission, we have almost nothing in his name. It is as though somehow he appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador without leaving any documentary trace of that decision at all. It really beggars belief. Take, for example, the former Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, well known to be a friend and ally of Mandelson. He appears to have submitted a nil return on his WhatsApp messages. I hope the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister will tell us why. Why was it that there were never any messages? That seems unlikely. Was it that those messages have been deleted? The House has a right to know. The House has a right to know in each case whether information has gone missing or it has not been handed over. We know that Peter Mandelson has refused to hand over his phone—it is in the document. We know that he was asked to give over his phone on 31 March, some time after the Humble Address. He has declined to do so, and it is simply not acceptable that the Government should allow this to pass without some sort of pushback. The Government has within their power the opportunity to take legal action to recover the exit payment they gave to Peter Mandelson if he is not playing ball with the Humble Address. There is then the matter of redactions. There are acres and acres of white space, a constellation of asterisks—perhaps all too appropriate for a Labour document. It is clear from the reports in the press that the ISC has had serious concerns about the redaction process. I listened to what the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister said, and I will listen with interest to what members of the Committee say in a moment. There are a huge number of redactions under the heading “Third Party”. On what grounds have those redactions been made? For example, on page 251 of part III, Mandelson refers to someone who is “currently staying” with him in Government property. This name is redacted. Why has it been redacted? Why cannot the House be told who was staying in Government property with the ambassador? On the national security vetting material, it seems once again that the Government are happier to provide The Guardian with more information than they are prepared to provide to Parliament. Preparation of the security vetting document for publication appeared in recess, leaked by someone in Government who was familiar with it, and then we have seen that The Guardian has multiple sources saying that concerns were raised by the vetting agency about Peter Mandelson’s foreign contacts with the Chinese Minister, with Oleg Deripaska, with Tamir Hayman and so on. There were multiple sources, and yet we are being asked to believe that this information was only seen by a tiny handful of people within Government. Someone somewhere is not being frank with us. If we had time, and we will have time on Wednesday, we could talk about the concerning information about Chagos. We could talk about the fact that Peter Mandelson, after he had been appointed, asked whether he could do paid work in Shanghai on a private basis. We could talk about the fact that Peter Mandelson wrote to the then Foreign Secretary saying, “if you were minded to appoint me I would make sure you never regret it.” The truth is that we must return once again to the process by which Peter Mandelson was appointed. Everything in the documents released today shows that the Prime Minister did not follow the instructions he was given by the then Cabinet Secretary on 11 August 2024. He was told to get security vetting done before the appointment was confirmed, which he did not do. He was asked to do that because the Prime Minister had been provided with a due diligence document by the Cabinet Office that said that Peter Mandelson had an ongoing friendship with Epstein after he had been sent to prison, that he had been a director of a Russian defence company that had supplied arms to Putin during his invasion of Crimea, and that he had maintained unhealthy business relations in China. Despite this, the Prime Minister did not get the security vetting done before he made the appointment: he went ahead and made it anyway. The rest of the system was then scrabbling around afterwards to try to make up for the error, but it was the Prime Minister’s error. It was clear that due diligence was not followed. It is a failure that is visible from space, it is a failure that will define this Prime Minister’s premiership and it is a failure that will be written as his political epitaph.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges · Hansard source

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  This has been a long and sometimes interesting debate. We have had some revelations. I was interested to hear the speech by the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey). I am sure we are all delighted to hear that the Liberal Democrats are now opposed to sanctimony. I was also interested to hear from the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), that he is not particularly political. I welcome the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister back to his place. I congratulate him on the fact that, on the “Today” programme this morning, he was being lauded as the Prime Minister’s right-hand man. I hope that he will be not made too anxious by what has happened to all the Prime Minister’s other right-hand men. The motion before us is very simple. It is about starting a process that will take what has been discussed in this House and put it in the hands of a Committee of our peers, who will get to adjudicate, because there is no agreement on these points. That process has long existed in this House to resolve issues such as these. We are doing this for a reason. It is simply because— [ Interruption. ] Yeah, okay. Come on. We are doing this for a reason. It is because Members of all parties have reason to believe that the Prime Minister may have misled this House. Those Labour MPs who said sanctimoniously, to the horror of the Liberal Democrats, that this was some sort of political stunt— [ Interruption. ] Okay. All right. Do they think that the hon. Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) was part of a political stunt when she said that “good, decent colleagues will be accused of being complicit in a cover-up”, or when she said that this was “a matter for the Privileges Committee”? Was she part of a political stunt? Was it all about the local elections for her? The hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) explained that she had no Labour opponent and did not have any local elections; was she part of a political stunt? When the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who is not in his place, said that he does not believe that the House was misled by the Prime Minister, but does think that the Prime Minister should be referred to the Committee, was he part of a political stunt? This claim falls away at the first hurdle. Labour’s objection to the motion is political, because the Labour party knows that the Prime Minister may well be in the wrong and is scared of referring him. That is the only reason why the Government needed to put in place a hard three-line Whip and started twisting arms. Do they really believe that the hon. Members for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) and for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who is absent and has tweeted that if she was here she “would be voting for the motion”, were part of a political stunt? No. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) said at the start of the debate, if the Government have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear from the Privileges Committee. A number of Labour MPs have objected, saying that they think the Prime Minister is innocent, and they are perfectly entitled to make that case. We think that case is wrong. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) elegantly pointed out, that is why we need the Privileges Committee to adjudicate. A number of Labour MPs thought that the Prime Minister should have referred himself; indeed, he should have. It would have been the simplest way of moving on this whole process without any further need for the House to agonise over it. As for those Labour MPs who said how sad it was that they could not debate all the other things that they wanted to debate today, they could have done so if the Prime Minister had referred himself. This ground has been well trodden this afternoon, but I will make the case again briefly. It rests on two points: full due process, and pressure. We know because of the Humble Address—and only because of it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) eloquently said—that the then Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, set out in November 2024 what full due process looked like: the Prime Minister’s appointee had to have security clearance before he was appointed, and he had to declare his interests before he was appointed. So far, the Government, despite being asked on many occasions whether Peter Mandelson filled in a conflict of interest document, have been unable to tell us. They did not release it following the Humble Address, and have not even been able to tell us whether such a document exists. On the security clearance aspect of the case, we know that process was not followed. We know that the Prime Minister immediately went ahead and made the appointment anyway, despite being told by the Cabinet Secretary that he should not. There are plenty of other reasons why we know that full due process was not followed. It does not require any great experience of government to know that full due process does not involve reading a due diligence document by the Cabinet Office that says that Peter Mandelson was a director of a Russian company during the Russian invasion of Crimea, and then thinking, “Well, we just need security clearance later.” That is obviously not full due process. It is obviously not full due process to ask Peter Mandelson’s Labour Together friends to complete the clearance process for him. It is not due process to not keep any records of meetings, calls or decisions in a way that is clearly in violation of all the guidance given to civil servants. In no way was that full due process, although people have nobly tried to make the case that Wormald, the later Cabinet Secretary, said that all that was done was fine. Let us remind the House that Wormald’s letter to the Prime Minister was written on 16 September. By that time, the Prime Minister had already told the House that “full due process was followed” —[ Official Report , 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 859.] The system was trying to defend a position that the Prime Minister had already made very clear in the House repeatedly. At that moment in time, on 10 December when he told my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that full due process was followed, the last piece of advice given to him by a Cabinet Secretary was from Simon Case. He knew that he had not followed full due process. On the point about pressure, it is very clear that the Prime Minister mis-spoke, at the very least, in the House last Wednesday. He said that Sir Olly Robbins “went on to say: ‘I…have complete confidence that…recommendations to me and the discussion we had and the decision we made were rigorously independent of’ any ‘pressure.’” —[ Official Report , 22 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 316.] But what Sir Olly actually said to the Foreign Affairs Committee was, “I also have complete confidence that their recommendations to me and the discussion we had and the decision we made were rigorously independent of that pressure.” There is a difference between no pressure and there being pressure. Sir Olly made it clear throughout his testimony that he and his office were put under pressure, so when the Prime Minister said, “Sir Olly was absolutely clear that nobody put pressure on him to make this appointment”, —[ Official Report , 22 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 316.] that was manifestly false. What Sir Olly actually said was: “Throughout January, honestly, my office and the Foreign Secretary’s office were under constant pressure… While I think the Department felt under pressure, we were proud of the fact that we had not bowed to that pressure.” He also said that he found an “atmosphere where this was not just, ‘Please get this done quickly,’ but, ‘And get it done.’” That was— [ Interruption. ] Well, it deserves to be said loudly, because it is important. The Prime Minister appears to have misled the House and not corrected the record. Ministers sometimes make mistakes, but as everyone knows, under the ministerial code, they must come and correct the record at the earliest available opportunity. The earliest available opportunity was Thursday. We could probably have squeezed that to include Monday, but it is now Tuesday, and the Prime Minister is still pretending that he has done nothing wrong, even though what happened is here in black and white, for everyone to read. There is clearly a case to answer. I have sympathy for all those Labour MPs who have spoken in this debate and have deep concerns and grievances about this. I also have a great deal of sympathy for those who feel the same way but have not spoken. The Prime Minister’s failure to self-refer, as several Labour MPs have suggested he should, has put them in this position. They are being whipped to support something that they know is wrong. They are being whipped to support something that they know their constituents will hate. They are being whipped to defend the Labour Together machine, which has brought such shame on the Labour party. [ Interruption. ] You can get angry, but you have all taken money from them! Well, not all Labour Members, to be fair—some of them have called for an investigation of Labour Together, and rightly so. They are being whipped by a Prime Minister who will lead them over the edge of the cliff, if they let him. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) said powerfully, in politics, it is important to be able to look at oneself in the mirror at the end of the day. I know that many Labour MPs will struggle to do that after going through the Lobby tonight, but they need not vote against the motion. They all know where this ends. It ends with the Prime Minister not fighting the next general election. It ends with them having to justify what they have done. It ends with them having only what is left of their reputation.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Dunmurry Police Station Attack · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) on having secured this urgent question. I associate myself with her remarks and those of the Secretary of State, although I gently say that it would have been better if this had been a Government statement. I cannot help but feel that had that car bomb been placed outside a police station in Westminster or Birmingham, Government Ministers would have come to the House with a statement. It is, of course, profoundly depressing that we should be discussing this issue at all. However, it is an enormous relief that we are not today talking about casualties. As the hon. Member for Lagan Valley said, but for the grace of God, we would have been; but for the bravery of local people, we would have been. I pay very deep tribute to all those brave men and women in the Police Service of Northern Ireland who serve and keep our country safe. They were the target of this despicable operation, and it will be their hard work that brings its perpetrators to justice. The people who have attempted to break the peace in Northern Ireland have no mandate and no public support—they represent only themselves, and are seeking to serve only their macho egos. The silver lining is, of course, that we are watching people in Northern Ireland from all communities come together this morning, united against them. We have come an incredibly long way, but as the Secretary of State referenced, this does appear to be the start of a pattern of new and deeply concerning behaviour. That is reflected in what happened in Lurgan last month, but also in the marching of masked paramilitaries in Easter parades. Will the Secretary of State confirm to the House that the PSNI is going after those people who broke the laws that were laid down during the peace process, just as I know they will be going after those who tried to blow up the police station in Dunmurry? The attack on Sunday raises a number of questions to which I hope the Secretary of State can provide answers, because he has responsibility for national security in Northern Ireland. Can the Secretary of State assure the House that the Chief Constable has the resources he needs? I say that because, notwithstanding his remarks about funding, the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is going to put a huge additional financial burden on the PSNI. Even if the Chief Constable believes he has the resources he needs today, he will not have them tomorrow.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I will give way now.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and there will be ample opportunity for them to do so tonight. Tonight the Government and Labour Back Benchers have a choice, and the choice is simple: to reject this controversial and unloved legislation, which promises much but would do no good.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I happily give way to the hon. Gentleman.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  We will get to immunity in a moment, but the Labour party needs to look down within its soul and its history before it says such things. The Bill will reopen the door to vexatious litigation. It will drag old soldiers through the courts and subject split-second decisions taken under high stress decades ago to the post hoc algorithm of a legal framework that did not exist at that time. The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) said that military forces were not given adequate protection at the time—what has happened subsequently is that the legal framework has changed beneath their feet and held them accountable in a way that could never have been intended at that time.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I have read the Saville inquiry, and the hon. Member will have just heard me say that even after one of the longest, most expensive and detailed public inquiries in British legal history, it was impossible to get a conviction. Yet we are asking victims in Northern Ireland to believe that there will be some magical moment where suddenly it would be possible to get convictions in other cases. That, the House must understand, is for the birds; it will not happen. Victims will have their hopes raised and dashed in front of this legislation.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman raises a significant issue about the terrible events of Bloody Sunday, but I will not attempt to relitigate the whole of the Saville inquiry this evening—I understand the remarks that both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) have made. Similarly, over the past few months, very senior veterans, senior generals and former members of the special forces have come out decisively against the Bill. On Armistice Day, in an unprecedented intervention, nine four-star generals wrote to warn that highly trained members of the special forces are already leaving the service. In January, seven SAS commanders wrote of the acute dangers of how “a peacetime human rights framework” now wields “an effective veto over efforts to close the past.” Last month, Generals Wall and Parker wrote that “those who…did their duty in circumstances not of their making…are left exposed, without the shield of context or accountability that should rightfully belong to the state”. This month, we read public reports that members of the special forces are quitting because they sense that the lawyers of the future will come after them. I implore the House, on moral, practical and political grounds, not to support the Bill. I know that Labour Members will not wish to take it from me—and they do not have to—but they should take it from generals and special forces veterans who have dedicated so much of their lives to protecting their country and do not want to see their comrades-in-arms persecuted or their country weakened and put at risk. As politicians, I draw the attention of Labour Members to the fact that the Bill is not beloved by their constituents. They are being sent through the Lobbies tonight by people who may well change their position tomorrow. The failings of the Bill, should it be passed, will be quickly seen but long felt. The House has the power to stop it tonight. If we do not, and the Government persist, the next Conservative Administration will repeal it and once again draw a line under the troubles.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I genuinely respect the hon. Lady and the work that her Committee does, and she will remember that I was at that Westminster Hall debate. I must respectfully say that my outrage is not faux; I feel this very deeply. I have spent a lot of time talking to the people who are affected by this. When the peace process was going through, when Labour was in power, it had no problem at all with creating immunity, and in 2005—as the Secretary of State will remember, because he was in the Cabinet at the time—Peter Hain, the then Secretary of State, brought forward a Bill that would have given immunity to terrorists, and terrorists alone. It was removed only when, under pressure from the Conservative party, the Government agreed to introduce immunity for veterans and Sinn Féin pulled its support, so the Government pulled the Bill. Immunity is one of the things on which the peace process was founded, yet now in government, the Labour party has forgotten all about this and said it cannot possibly apply to anyone again. The Labour party has said that it cannot support immunity, and yet it used to. Similarly, the Government have said that they cannot support our legislation on the grounds that there was no support for it in Northern Ireland, but I am afraid that by that criterion this legislation has also failed, because where is the support for it in Northern Ireland? It is not there among Northern Ireland Members, and it is not on the streets of Belfast. This is an unloved Bill. There are lots of people who appreciate that this is the wrong way of going about things.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is quite right. The process has become the punishment. The process is being used to continue the conflict by other means.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I fear that the hon. and learned Gentleman is right. This morning, we saw that Sinn Féin have spoken out in opposition to the very idea of amendments, so we wonder how it will be possible for the Secretary of State to table amendments without the agreement of Dublin, without the agreement of Sinn Féin, and without the whole framework he has built collapsing beneath him. The Bill promises victims the earth. It raises their hopes, but I am afraid that in practice it will offer nothing in the way of conclusion or finality. That is because although there will be court cases, inquests, trials, reviews and challenges, as the Secretary of State himself has said, the prospect of conviction now is vanishingly small. The number of answers that victims will get will be minimal. All the while, veterans will be hauled before the courts, investigated for years and subjected to all the pain and ignominy that that will bring. The process has become the punishment. That is why none of the amendments that the Government are speculating to the press about tabling will do anything to solve the problem before us. The Opposition have long argued that a different approach is necessary: one that draws a line under the conflict, draws a line under the legal conflict that has subsequently followed and builds a new system that builds on the strengths of the peace process as it was defined in 1998. In 1998 it was understood that there could be immunity in return for information; it underpins the legislation brought forward to support the peace process. That is why we have legislation on the destruction of weapons; it enables forensic information to be destroyed. It is why we have legislation that enables people to come forward and reveal where bodies are buried without fear of prosecution; that is immunity. It is why we had letters of comfort and royal pardons of mercy. It was understood that immunity would be an essential part of the peace process, for everyone who was not a veteran.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I strongly encourage the hon. Gentleman to take time to read the Armed Forces Bill amendment paper. The two gentlemen sitting either side of me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), have tabled very many amendments. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to go out this evening and to try to find one veterans organisation that supports what his party is trying to do with this Bill.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  At the outset, I pay tribute to the veterans who came to Parliament Square today, the veterans who have sent messages of support and are watching at home, and the veterans who are with us in the Gallery. I also pay tribute to the shadow Defence team, who have done so much to hold this Government to account for the mistake that they are making.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I must agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this is clearly what vexatious litigation looks like. This is vexatious litigation moved against men who did nothing wrong but are now confronted with a legal framework that creates endless potential for challenge against them.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend always speaks incredibly powerfully on this point. The Government have also argued that our Bill was found to be incompatible with human rights legislation, but that is only partly true. The truth is that the Government failed to challenge the findings in the courts, and those findings themselves were highly questionable. There are high-level, highly credible legal arguments that show that the legacy Act may well have not been incompatible, precisely because the same logic around immunity had been used in 1998. So unless we are prepared to say that the legislation passed during the peace process is itself potentially incompatible with human rights law, the argument on the legacy Act falls. This is what is being considered in the case of Dillon before the Supreme Court now. The Government cannot argue that that legislation was incompatible with human rights, because they failed to see the process to its conclusion. All of that has been made clearer and clearer over the lifetime of this law’s delay. In the time that it has taken the Bill only to get through its Second Reading, we have seen, starkly and painfully, regular real-life examples of the problems it will perpetuate. I will give a few small examples. In February, this House debated the terrible ruling in the Clonoe case. This was the case from February 1992, when four men—known terrorists armed with semi-automatic weapons and a Dushka machine gun capable of firing 600 rounds a minute at a range of 1,100 yards—attacked a Royal Ulster Constabulary police station and were in transit to commit further crimes. They were confronted by members of the armed forces, who killed them. Those terrorists called themselves an army, carried weapons of war, sought to kill and operated entirely outside the bounds of any law, yet we were asked to believe that the use of lethal force against them was not justified. I am afraid that that case is now being challenged, and the men involved are being subject to unjust and unfair scrutiny of decisions they made in a split second, decades ago. Nothing in the amendments that the Secretary of State has discussed with the press will do anything about that. In November, we debated the findings in the case against Soldier F from Bloody Sunday. He was found not guilty after the longest and most intricate inquiry in British legal history. Indeed, Judge Patrick Lynch told Belfast Crown Court that the evidence even then fell “well short” of the standard required. He said: “A 53-year-old statement cannot be cross-examined, nor can I assess the demeanour of a sheet of A4 paper”. The House must see again that it is becoming vanishingly difficult to get convictions, because the 1998 agreement was 27 years ago and the ceasefire began 31 years ago. Nothing in the Secretary of State’s proposed amendments or in this Bill will do anything to right that situation. Several times the case of Soldier B, a former SAS officer, has been raised in the Commons. In October, the case was thrown out by a court in Belfast, where the judge described it as “ludicrous” and said it should never have come to his court—but not before the man in question had been investigated for four years. A further challenge was then mounted despite the judge having said it was “ludicrous”, and only recently has the veteran in question been freed from the weight of that. I am afraid that if the Government’s Bill goes ahead, we will see a return to this repeat investigation of innocent men who will be dragged through the courts, and then at the end the legal cavalcade will move on, leaving them bearing the emotional burden of being investigated for having done nothing wrong. Nothing that has been speculated about in the press this weekend will do anything to right that wrong.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I am sad to say that I am not surprised by either of those things. I am not surprised that the Government are living on vague promises to table amendments—despite having had six months to do so. I am sorry to say that I am not surprised that certain Government Front-Bench Members have chosen to absent themselves while expecting Labour Back Benchers to turn up and go through the Lobby without them.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  I have read that letter. I have great respect for the WAVE trust; I did some work with it when I first came to the House. I respectfully disagree with what is in that letter, for reasons that I will set out in due course.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over) · Hansard source

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  No. We are now entering the season finale of the tragedy that is this Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. It has been a long season. Despite taking office in July 2024, with a manifesto commitment to repeal and replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, they have taken 15 months to bring this Bill to the House. Despite a Second Reading in November, nearly six months ago, the legislation has gone nowhere. Despite bringing forward their remedial order to strike down parts of the legacy Act in January, the Government have since failed to bring it before the Lords, because they know that the Lords do not support it. The troubles Bill is stuck in a legislative purgatory, “Doomed for a certain term to walk the night” till its “foul crimes” are “burnt…away.” The reason for that is an open secret in Westminster. The truth is that the Bill is trapped between the Northern Ireland Office, the Ministry of Defence and No.10, with the Prime Minister and his team unable and unwilling to make a decision about what the outcome will be. We have read this script before. For its part, the Northern Ireland Office is simply carrying out the orders of the Prime Minister when he came to power—the instruction in the Labour manifesto—and the orders of Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, about whom, it must be said, some extremely serious allegations have been made in recent days: not least that he may have drafted or approved documents alleging serious crimes by soldiers without reasonably credible evidence, and that he continued pushing settlements after being told that his clients were lying. The Ministry of Defence is all too aware of the open hostility held towards this legislation by members of the armed forces, present and past. It is all too aware of the dangers the Bill presents to morale, retention and perhaps even recruitment, but its Ministers are not always prepared to say what needs to be said in order to get their way.

• 27 Apr 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On this afternoon’s carry-over motion on the Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, over the weekend, the Government briefed journalists that they would bring forward amendments to the Bill in order to give Members reassurance that adequate protection would be given to veterans. However, this morning, no Government amendments appeared on the amendment paper. Is there anything that His Majesty’s Opposition can do to require the Government to publish those amendments in advance of this afternoon’s debate?

• 27 Apr 2026 · Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response Update · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and for taking this statement himself; it is good of him not to delegate. This was not his mess—that was the 2024 Budget—but I am afraid it is now his mess to clear up. I have to ask: where are the documents? The Humble Address was nearly 12 weeks ago. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that on that occasion the House asked for a huge range of things: the due diligence document that was passed to No. 10; the conflict of interest form; the material that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Cabinet Office provided to UK Security Vetting about Peter Mandelson; papers for and minutes of meetings relating to the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson; electronic communications; and so on. Where are they? Since February, the Government have asserted that they are working with urgency and that everything will be available very shortly, that they are working, in that least reassuring of Government phrases, “at pace”, and—today’s favourite—that the information will be available as soon as possible. That is, no doubt, as soon as possible after the local elections. In the documents that have been released, what we appear to see is either an enormous cover-up or a very significant breakdown in the expected process of government. We have seen nothing from the Prime Minister, nothing from his chief of staff and nothing from Peter Mandelson himself; we have seen no minutes of meetings, no billets-doux, no annotations and no box returns. The official civil service guidance on this matter says explicitly: “Keep submissions with ministers’ comments. If ministers write on a hard copy, keep the minister’s handwritten comments. Keep correspondence reporting ministers’ responses along with background provided to ministers in the medium in which they were created”. We have seen none of this. This is either a cover-up or a terrible return to the days of sofa government under Tony Blair. Simon Case told the Prime Minister that in order to complete due process, there had to be security clearance before he made the appointment, and a conflict of interest declaration had to be made by Peter Mandelson. To date, we have seen none of that information. I am pleased to hear the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister say that material associated with Mandelson’s vetting is now being handed to the ISC, but where is the conflict of interest form? I hope it is not the case that this is being disguised as personal information of the sort that the right hon. Gentleman said would not be disclosed, and I would be grateful if he could confirm that it is not. I would also like the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister to confirm that that declaration of interest form exists. There is no good reason why he cannot tell us whether it does. Indeed, the former Attorney General wrote the other day in the papers that there is no legal reason why the Government cannot tell us which documents are being retained by the Metropolitan police. There should be a catalogue of all documents that exist; even if the House cannot look at them, we should be allowed to know what is out there and what will come to us in due course. The titles of documents will themselves not prejudice a trial. The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has today talked about the non-disclosure of personal information. I ask him again to tell us about the conflict of interest form and whether Peter Mandelson’s personal information is considered to be in scope of that ruling. Will he set out the Government’s precise approach to redactions vis-à-vis the documents that will be given to this House, rather than the ISC? It will be useful to understand his thinking. On electronic communications, despite this being in the Humble Address on 4 February, I understand from the Cabinet Secretary, who wrote to me over the weekend, that there was no instruction to hand over non-corporate comms until 13 March—about five weeks after the Humble Address. Why this delay? Is the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister confident that no material was deleted in that five-week period? How can he be sure? I again ask the right hon. Gentleman to confirm or deny whether the ISC release contains the information about Lord Mandelson’s interests. This is of specific concern to the House, given how Peter Mandelson may have behaved when he was ambassador in Washington and given the meetings that he may have taken the Prime Minister to. It is time the Government come clean—not on their own terms or to their own timetable, but on the terms set down by the House. Will the right hon. Gentleman finally tell us a hard deadline for when these documents will be handed over?

• 23 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Last week, someone in the heart of Government leaked some extremely sensitive documents to T he Guardian . This appears potentially to be a crime under the National Security Act 2023. Has the Cabinet Office reported it to the Metropolitan police?

• 23 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Cat Little, the permanent secretary, has just told the Foreign Affairs Committee that a very, very small number of people have actually seen the document in question. Will the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister commit to the House that when he has identified who leaked it, he will report them to the Metropolitan police?