Troubles Bill reinforced with permanent legal protections and safeguards for veterans

• Government introduces a significant package of amendments to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill to provide lasting protections which ensure former Armed Forces and police personnel are treated with fairness, dignity and respect.
• New measures will put into law a recognition that there is no equivalence between soldiers and terrorists, and ensure that the uniquely challenging context  that front line soldiers were operating under is properly considered.
• Amendments will also require the Commission to consider if there is any new or compelling evidence before it can require the participation of a witness. 
• Further assurance around prosecutorial decision making with an amendment requiring the consent of the Attorney General acting quasi-judicially to proceed with any prosecution.   

The UK Government has today [Monday 12 October] tabled a significant package of amendments which enhance existing protections in the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, establishing robust legal safeguards for Armed Forces veterans and police officers who served honourably during the Troubles.

The comprehensive package of further legal protections is the direct result of extensive engagement with veteran associations, organisations, and representatives to ensure the law delivers robust, permanent safeguards. 

Today's amendments provide key protections for Troubles veterans, significantly reducing their exposure to rinse and repeat investigations. 

Under the updated bill, the Attorney General must provide consent for any serious Troubles-related prosecution. For the few veterans who may give evidence, the legislation guarantees they will be treated with fairness, dignity and respect. 

This is on top of existing protections already baked into the Troubles Bill that will limit elderly veterans' exposure to legacy processes, and ensure that, in circumstances where they are asked to provide information, they are treated with the care and respect they deserve.  

They will not have to travel to Northern Ireland to give evidence; they will not be cold called; they have the right to seek anonymity; they will have protection in old age, including an assessment if they need to give evidence at all; they will have the right to be heard and they will not face repeated investigations.  

The amendments fulfil the Government's commitment to deliver on the Good Friday Agreement by addressing the legacy of the Troubles, enabling families, including bereaved families of soldiers, to seek answers on what happened to their loved ones. We will do this in a way that can command confidence across all communities, respects the rule of law and ensures former service personnel receive a duty of care. 

Speaking on the Government's package of amendments, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said:

This Bill is about completing the unfinished business of the Good Friday Agreement, getting answers for the many families, including veterans' families, who lost a loved one.  I am confident that this legislation will be a significant step towards a more reconciled society.

We want to get the Bill right. So today we have introduced a significant package of amendments, establishing robust, permanent safeguards that ensure former Armed Forces personnel and police officers are treated with the fairness, dignity, and respect they deserve. 

These amendments have been developed through extensive engagement with veterans' groups, whilst ensuring that this Bill will also enable victims and bereaved families, including the families of soldiers, who have waited long years for answers, to seek information and, potentially, closure, on what happened to their loved ones.

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said: 

For too long, veterans have faced uncertainty over historic investigations, despite serving honourably during the Troubles.

These changes will give veterans the robust, permanent legal protections they deserve and ensure there is no equivalence between those who served this country and the terrorists they were sent to defeat.

The amendments will help ensure that decisions on historic cases properly take account of the operational realities faced by our Armed Forces, who often make split-second decisions in exceptionally difficult circumstances.

More than 300,000-armed forces served under Operation Banner in Northern Ireland over a three-decade period. In that time, nearly 1,800 members of the security services died. Thousands more civilians in Northern Ireland and other parts of the United Kingdom died, the vast majority killed by paramilitary violence.  

The Troubles Bill will enable people impacted by the Troubles to seek answers about what happened to their loved ones, including those who were killed serving bravely to protect law and order. It replaces the Legacy Act 2023 which included a conditional immunity scheme, found by UK courts to be incompatible with human rights obligations and almost universally rejected by stakeholders across the United Kingdom. This includes many veterans, who saw it as drawing an equivalence between those who served and the actions of terrorists.

As part of its package of amendments, the Government will also transfer provisions to repeal the conditional immunity scheme from the Remedial Order into the Troubles Bill. This will guarantee that the Bill's protections for veterans are anchored in law at the exact moment immunity is formally and rightly removed. 

The key amendments brought forward today include:

• Compelling New Evidence: requiring the Commission to consider whether compelling new evidence exists, or the likelihood of a witness being able to provide new information, before any witness can be approached. 
• Attorney General Consent: Requiring Attorney General consent to all serious Troubles-related prosecutions. There is precedent for this approach, including for national security issues. The Attorney General must act quasi-judicially and independently of Government, applying well established prosecution principles of evidential sufficiency and the public interest.
• Explicit Rejection of Equivalence: Amending the legislation to state clearly that, in exercising its functions, the Commission and coroners must not regard the lawful conduct of  members of the Armed Forces as equivalent to the actions of  paramilitaries responsible for acts of terrorism.
• Operational Context and Command Orders: Mandating that the Commission and coroners evaluate actions within the unique operational environment our armed forces were operating within - taking into account a soldier's training, split-second decisions under fire, official orders, and the asymmetric nature of fighting non-state terrorist organisations that kept no records. This means that such factors will be properly considered by the Commission and coroners.
• Protection Against Cold-Calling: Placing explicit protections into the primary legislation to prevent veterans from being cold-called without warning, while extending provisions for remote attendance so that it applies across all aspects of the Commission's work.
• Veteran Representation: Securing statutory representation for at least one veteran or veterans' representative on the Victims and Survivors Advisory Group (VSAG), while legally barring former paramilitaries from appointment.
• Prosecutorial Safeguards: The Commission will also be legally required to consult prosecutors early and throughout the investigative process to ensure that cases without sufficient credible evidence are not needlessly referred for a prosecutorial decision. 
• Statutory Review Mechanism: Introducing a formal statutory review of the implementation of veteran protections to evaluate how the measures function in practice and ensure they deliver as intended.

Notes to Editors

A table of the key amendments to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill that have been tabled today can be found here: Northern Ireland Troubles Bill - Key Committee Amendments (PDF, 98.4 KB, 3 pages)