Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
“It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us.”
“We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me.”
“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio.”
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“Small charities are embedded in communities throughout the UK, and it is important that local and placed-based giving is encouraged so that smaller charities are supported and can continue delivering their vital services. I also picked up a general concern, which is quite right, about the fall-off of corporate giving in the UK towards the small charities sector. The big problem is that—forgive me, I cannot remember who made this point—something in the order of 80% of charitable giving goes to about 20% of all charities. They are the big charities that are staffed up with lots of people to lobby us and to always come in and see us. The small community groups and charities, however, that do 80% or more of the work often do not get access to that.”
“This has been an excellent debate, not least because all parties have been represented in it, and all parties have spoken with one voice. We value the incredible efforts made by local community groups and charities, but all of us also recognise that much more can be done to release them and to recognise some of the incredible schemes that they have come up with—I named a number of them. There have been many suggestions about the best way to do that. There have been comments about the need to modernise gift aid, and to uprate the thresholds of the gift aid small donations scheme, so that charities that receive small cash donations can get gift aid-style repayments of tax. That is a useful idea that has been put forward. There is also the whole idea of placed-based giving.”
“The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) has just raised a case that I am aware of. I do not want to steal her thunder on that, but I will say that there is a real issue with what is happening in Hong Kong. China has trashed the Sino-British agreement. Hong Kong no longer uses common law, and every single system is being abused. When will the Government deal with these deficiencies by sanctioning somebody? America has sanctioned many people. Many other countries have too, but the UK, which used to run Hong Kong, has sanctioned absolutely nobody. Surely we should do so now.”
“May I take the Prime Minister back to his earlier position? I do not think his own MPs quite realise what he has said. He said that his reason originally for not allowing RAF Fairford, for example—or even Diego Garcia—to be used was that it would constitute, for him, a breach of international law, because it would mean that we were condoning an offensive operation. However, he has changed his position because of attacks on allies and on a UK base. That means that he is authorising the Americans to act in defence by taking out those kinds of missiles that would attack us. Surely that means that the UK armed forces—in this case, the Royal Air Force—could now be used by the Government in no breach of international law in a defensive action to take out those missiles as well.”
“I welcome the right hon. Lady’s ambition, but where in all this will she retain the power to do something about councils that simply fail completely? An Ofsted report of my local council referred to it as disjointed and having weak co-ordination and limited accountability. It also talks of services falling short, parents being ignored and EHCPs never being granted when they should be. This is the reality for many of the parents that I meet. They are petrified. Will the Secretary of State explain what can be done about local councils’ failure? She speaks about EHCPs, but I have talked to parents recently and they are very worried. They struggled to try to get an EHCP, and now they are worried that somehow they will lose it. Could she reassure those parents that that will not happen?”
“That is absolutely right, although I do not understand why it took so much for us to get those on his side of the fence to agree, finally, to take such abuses out of the supply chains for Great British Energy, given his stated views.”
“Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) said: “We are very clear on our position regarding the abhorrent practice of modern slavery. It is a terrible crime which we are determined to eradicate. I assure you that this Government takes this issue seriously and is continuing to assess and monitor the policy tools available to ensure we can best tackle forced labour in supply chains.” The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), has also said that “our clean power mission should not come at the expense of human rights…This involves confronting human rights abuses, including modern slavery, in energy supply chains”.”
“The Prime Minister has said: “We’re not going to raise human rights standards if we ignore it in trade.” He said: “It shouldn’t be up to the consumer…to research every product and work out every ethical aspect of it.” I say yes, because of course it is impossible to do so as an individual. When I had a row with Amazon and other companies, I said, “Why don’t you make it easy to find out what the route in your supply chain is? People don’t know where something was made until they actually have the product land on their desk. Why can’t they see that on their computers and be able to identify that?” However, those companies do not want to do that, because they think people may not buy the products. In May 2025, when he was the Trade Secretary, the right hon.”
“The amendments are all about trying to shut down another possible loophole, in this case on finance. We believe that UK Export Finance is currently exposed to forced labour. For instance, in 2022-23, it supported businesses involving a subsidiary of AVIC—Aviation Industry Corporation of China—a company sanctioned by the US as a People’s Liberation Army entity. This is something that nobody, if they really ask themselves, on either side of the House wants, and I am sure that the Government do not want it, so the question is: how do we shut this down? I want to quote a couple of really quite senior people in the Government who have spoken about this in the past.”
“The Government then decided not to oppose the amendment, which was absolutely the right thing to do in the end. However, I wish we had not had to go through all of that. Surely there is a moral purpose in all this, which is that if we have any suspicion that a product or a supply chain has elements of forced labour—we know China does it endlessly, and Russia and other countries use it—we should not allow that. When we compare ourselves with the United States, the reality is that its Governments, no matter who is in power, have a very simple rule: it is the responsibility of companies importing to check their supply chains, and the excuse that they did not know or could not find out is simply not good enough, so they are prosecuted if there is slave labour in the supply chain.”
“Together, the amendments would ensure that, if the Secretary of State has reason to believe that modern slavery is present in a recipient’s supply chain, the permitted financial assistance for that export drops to zero—in other words, no finance. For those who may not have followed what has been going on, we had to amend the original Health and Care Bill to stop slavery being used in relation to the NHS. Last year, as the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston said, we had to amend the Great British Energy Bill. The Government decided to vote down that amendment, but the Bill was amended in the Lords. Many Labour Members suddenly realised that they were going to be asked to vote in favour of slave labour in the supply chains of Great British Energy, and they said no.”
“We have been through this issue again and again, and I just hope the Minister, who has been a stalwart supporter of this drive, can give me a very clear sign when he responds to the debate that the Government want to adopt the amendments, which are critical to cleaning up what has essentially become a supply chain too often full of the products of slave labour. I am in favour of the Bill, not against it. In principle, I think it is right basically to raise the limit to £20 billion and the aggregate limit to £160 billion to account for inflation. However, it is also absolutely right to ensure that this increased financial firepower is not used inadvertently to fund modern slavery.”
“Madam Chair, it is a great honour to speak to this packed Chamber on my amendments, and it was good of you to call me so soon—there are so many people ready to speak. I rise to speak in support of amendments 1 and 2 that appear in my name and those of my colleagues and friends, and it is my intention to press them when the time comes. Why is this necessary? In this particular area, I refer to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) as my hon. Friend, because she has been stalwart in campaigning against slave labour and forced labour. I bow to her because of her stalwart support. As she said of the amendments, it is vital to safeguard UK export finance and ensure it is legally protected from any exposure to forced labour and human trafficking.”
“I understand what the Minister is saying very clearly, but a couple of the examples I gave where things had slipped through the net show that the system is not perfect. Does he think that the Government are likely therefore to deliver, as that said they would, on taking the Modern Slavery Act and beefing it up to such an extent that companies importing and exporting have a responsibility to check their supply chains, and if they do not it would be a criminal offence?”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the 20-year sentence imposed on our brave British citizen, Jimmy Lai.”
“Why did they not at least hold back on planning permission, so that they could say to the Chinese Government, “You must release Jimmy Lai now and cancel the prosecution altogether, or you will not get your embassy”? Instead, we have given them the embassy for nothing, and the Prime Minister was treated like dirt while he was out there. Sebastien and Claire Lai, Jimmy Lai’s children, have fought for him. I feel sorry for them, and my thoughts go to them. Surely, this is a sad day for anybody who believes in freedom, justice, and the legitimate rule of democratically made law. Will the Government now call for a humanitarian parole?”
“Will the Minister change the statement and refer to him as a British citizen, which is what he is? Why do the Government constantly refer to Hong Kong and the national security law? The reality is that the British Government have sanctioned absolutely nobody in the Chinese Government for trashing the Sino-British agreement and installing the Chinese national security law, which is the reason why Jimmy Lai was arrested. He has been convicted and sentenced for nothing more than standing up for freedom of speech and peaceful protest for democracy. The Government went on a visit to China recently. Before doing so, they granted full planning permission for the huge and ghastly Chinese embassy in London.”
“I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. Today, as the Minister said, Jimmy Lai, a British citizen, has been sentenced to a further 20 years in prison. Given his poor health and the fact that he sat for five years in solitary confinement, that is not a sentence; it is a death sentence for that brave man. The authorities have trashed everything that we would consider reasonable in law. For example, like others, I was named—nine times—in the prosecution case, and I have never even met Mr Lai, or spoken to him, sadly. I simply ask the Minister why the statement that the UK Government released today refers to Jimmy Lai as a “British National”. Lord Cameron finally changed that, and made it clear that Mr Lai was a British citizen.”
“Surely this is ultimately about the Prime Minister’s judgment in overruling anything that he found and deciding for his own purposes that this man should be appointed as our ambassador.”
“I do not doubt the right hon. Gentleman’s desire to put things right. What I slightly doubt today is this: everything is about the Prime Minister’s judgment right now, and this looks a lot like smoke to me—this is right, but not right now. The point is that all this stuff about Mandelson was known in conversation and discussion. He was sacked twice for impropriety in Government office. He ended up on Deripaska’s yacht when the EU was discussing taxation on aluminium—improper again. All this stuff leads to the final question: why him? Then, of course, the vetting was not good enough, but it could have been, had they bothered to check everything. There is a big question to be asked here.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member on his work on Ukraine and on securing the debate. He is talking about the occupied territories, and I want to raise an issue that we have discovered. In the occupied territory of Alchevsk, there are currently 100,000 people without heating or any form of support, not because of attacks by Ukrainian missiles; it is down to Russia’s incompetence and failure to even look after the territories that they have occupied. Does that not show their lack of care for areas they say should be part of Russia? It is another nail in their coffin of lies. They do not have any interest at all in individuals; they just want the territories, and it is an abomination.”
“My right hon. Friend is making an excellent start to this attack on the Government, but I will ask her a simple question. Should we not also dig a little deeper on the links between the Prime Minister and some of his earlier colleagues? That way, we would learn that Phillipe Sands, who was representing the Mauritian Government, had a deal done with the Russians over Crimea, in which he assured them, I understand, that the granting of independence and ownership for Mauritius would not impinge on their right to stay in Crimea. That was what brought their vote, and their support for this deal. Does that not look to my right hon. Friend as though it was absolute method traitorship?”
“Further to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), I understand that the Prime Minister of Mauritius made it clear yesterday that he would not allow or agree to the placing of any nuclear weapons on the islands. Can the Minister please answer the question of how the Government can reassure the USA?”
“This is a really important point, because the Government say that they have cleared this with the Office for Budget Responsibility, but the actuaries have been clear that we cannot calculate this on the basis of what happens in Mauritius, given its social issues and inflation—that would be ridiculous—and that we have to calculate it on the basis that the agreement we have made gives a total at the end, which is £34.7 billion. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that dodging around that really is a low position for the Government to take?”
“I made this point to the Minister earlier, but perhaps my right hon. Friend might also explain it. The Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius made it clear as recently as yesterday that—as the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) said—there is no ambiguity at all: no nuclear weapons on Chagos for any Government.”
“I ran the Department for Work and Pensions, which spent the whole time looking at net present value. The key problem is that we do not use net present value when dealing with a foreign country for a very simple reason: we have no idea what social issues will erupt or change. While we have control in the UK, we do not have control of a foreign country. That immediately distorts the payment amount, plus net present value strips out relevant inflation, which makes it much cheaper, officially. The real cost that we have to bear is the £34.7 billion that the actuaries have stated, not this nonsense of net present value.”
“Any one shipyard in China today builds more naval ships than the whole of the United States of America and probably Europe as well, and China has many naval shipyards.”
“They would be able to choke the trade going from east to west whenever they wished to do so. People might say, “Well, they wouldn’t do that, would they?” Oh yes, they would. They are now talking about blockading Taiwan as part of that process. I know that the hon. Gentleman is a realist, and on that basis I simply say that we need to look at the Chagos islands, and to look at this treaty, in the light of the threat to the free world from this unbelievably brutal but enormously growing power—a threat that is itself growing in plain sight. It is worth our reminding ourselves that the Chinese are building a navy that, as even United States experts accept, will outgrow US naval forces within two years. That is really important.”
“What China is doing in the South China seas is against international law and has been condemned by the United Nations, absolutely and clearly. China has no right to that area, historic or otherwise, but the Chinese have ignored that, and are now putting defensive forts in the area. We have seen them threaten the Philippines, barge their boats out of the way and fire shots over them. The same goes for Vietnam. They are threatening Taiwan as well. All those countries lay a certain amount of claim to the area, but the Chinese have ignored that. The one thing that the Chinese want to do is extend their position to the trade routes. If the Chinese Government could gain control of the east-west trade routes—which, strangely enough, flow right past the Chagos islands—that would be an absolute win for them.”
“I will try to keep my words brief, because so much of this has already been laid out by my colleagues, although I see no reason why I cannot repeat it. In essence, this whole thing falls on to a couple of stools, but there is an intervening issue. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) and I have been to Ukraine together, and I have a very high regard for him. The Government ought to put him on their Front Bench as soon as possible, because he will make less of a mess of it than the others. [Interruption.] It was a compliment. Having been in government, I have to tell him that it was quite a compliment. The hon. Gentleman talked, quite rightly, about ambiguity—sometimes determined ambiguity, and sometimes inadvertent ambiguity.”
“We are in a new environment, and that new environment requires us to understand the nature of our assets and how we would maximise those assets, not minimise them. My argument here is slightly different: we have taken the wrong decision over Chagos for the wrong reasons. If we had stepped back and then asked ourselves about this in 10, five or even two years’ time, when China is estimated to have a more powerful fleet in the Pacific than the United States can muster at any stage, would we really say that we ought to let the Chagos islands go and put them in the hands of Mauritius, which China lauds in almost every announcement that it makes and with which it has a very good relationship?”
“I will come on to that, but my right hon. Friend is right. I just wanted to provide the background information on what the problem is. The problem is China. Remember that China supports Russia, so the very idea that a British citizen—Philippe Sands in this case, representing Mauritius—should actually negotiate with and talk to the Russians about how this would not make it difficult for them to hold on to Crimea strikes me as astounding. It is astonishing that a British citizen should even engage with them on this. That tells us that the nature of some of the people who are involved in this is questionable indeed. The background, then, is “What is the threat?” It could be argued, I think, that the threat is now greater than it has been at any time since the second world war, and certainly since the end of the cold war.”
“I will repeat what has been said by a number of colleagues: we know from yesterday, if we needed to know it at all, that the Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius has made it categorically clear that there will be no allowance for nuclear weapons, either parked or landed, on the Chagos islands while the treaty exists. The hon. Member for Macclesfield rightly spoke about studied ambivalence, but there was no ambivalence in the statement from the Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius. He is completely clear, yet we are ambivalent. For us, ambivalence is a mistake, because it allows the statements of fact to be presented by those who will take control of Chagos. That is not just a mistake, but a disastrous mistake.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I fundamentally agree with him. In a way, I am sorry that the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) is not here—that is not to say that I have a detrimental view of the Minister now on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard)—and I worry about why he is not here. I hope he is not suffering from “long Chagos.” Maybe we should send him a “get well” card very soon. We miss him, because we are definitely seeing studied ambivalence at the Dispatch Box as a master strategic plan.”
“It has been horrific to see how quickly the Government want to get the Bill through. I honestly think that it is madness. I come to the cost. The other bit that is completely wrong is the Government’s desire to show how little they have had to pay under the treaty to get what they consider to be a reasonable lease. Is it not ironic that the Government are now moving against leaseholders here in the UK? They do not like leases. Apparently, people do have enough power over their leases. I simply say that the Government should learn from their own views about what is happening domestically. The lease is a terrible thing at times, because it gives people so little control. This is going to be a lease.”
“I do not think the Government ever bothered to explain that, because I seem to recall that when this whole debate began, it was never mentioned. The Government did not come forward and say, “Yes, we’re going to get this Bill through. It’s not in the Bill, but we’ll exchange letters with you afterwards, because although it’s relevant and it’s completely sovereign, we don’t want to talk about it.” The Government have to explain why they have never made any significant mention of that at all, because it now has a massive bearing on what happens to this really poor treaty, which is badly drafted, hurriedly written and only a few pages long. I sat through the debates on the Maastricht treaty—rebelling, of course—and the reality was that it was huge. Every aspect of our arrangements was in there and was debatable and amendable.”
“The Government say that this is not a big problem and that we can just exchange a few letters to each other: “How are you getting on?” “Fine. What about you?” “We’re just going to give the islands away. Are you okay with that?” “We’re okay with that—no problems. Can you give us a bit more detail?” “We will when it is all passed. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be with you on this.” No, it is a treaty. It has the substance of being a treaty, and that substance states categorically: “The Territory shall remain under United Kingdom sovereignty.” We cannot arbitrarily change that; we have to have full agreement from the USA. I do not believe that the United States really understood that it would not have sovereign rights over the base.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, as he normally is. The reality is that the treaty to which he refers is very clear that its signatories cannot modify it; they must categorically agree not to have nuclear weapons on their territory. We are in the business of giving that territorial right to Mauritius, so there is no question but that the treaty will apply to Chagos. That brings me to the other thing that the Government simply do not want to face up to: the 1966 treaty between the USA and the UK is absolutely clear. The Government obfuscate by calling it an “exchange of letters”, but it is actually a treaty. When we talk about an exchange of letters, it sounds like a “get well” card or something that one puts in the post.”
“If we give way, let the treaty go through and do not end this nonsense, we will forever have it over our heads that we lost control of the most critical area in the world.”
“You’ll be allowed back to the islands, with full rights, and we’ll negotiate with you on how we will work together, with British control overall but with you being paid.” I would rather pay the money to them, so that they can live their lives better, than to Mauritius. We know that many of the Chagossians have had terrible problems in Mauritius and have been treated like second-class citizens. For that reason, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has come out and said that the treaty should not go ahead, and I agree with that. There is both a factual problem and a human rights problem with the treaty, and there is an overarching threat to our freedom and to the freedom of those elsewhere in the free world.”
“It was wrong to have chucked the Chagossians off their islands in 1966—it was a bad decision and an immoral one, and we need to own up to that fact. My Government should have done so, and we should own up to the fact that we owe the Chagossians something better. The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, has talked about a referendum, and that is one of the possibilities, but I will tell the House what I would do if I was in government. I would say to the Chagossians, “Listen, we’re not going to do the deal with Mauritius; we’ll do the deal with you.”
“There is no way on earth that a Government should use net present value for a foreign treaty that covers a period of over 90 years—it is an absurdity. We have no control over the social obligations in Mauritius, which may shift and change. We have no control over what the Mauritians’ economic policy will be and the impact of inflation. The treaty can only really be used for domestic issues, and I think this is a shimmy by the Government to try to get the cost down, absurdly, to £3.4 billion, when in fact it is £34.7 billion. That figure is probably wrong, because I think it will be more than that over the long term. This is another absurdity and an excuse to be got rid of. All the other points have been made, so I will not dwell on them, but I do want to dwell on this point.”
“Indeed. In fact, rather than us winning the argument, the Government have simply lost the argument. That is even more powerful, because they are making no effort to explain it. I honestly feel sorry for Ministers. I have sat in government, and I know that Ministers are sent out to bat and to defend the indefensible, which they have to do well. I have a high regard for the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, as he knows, but good luck to him on this one—he will need to make his speech brief, because we will intervene. I simply say that the cost is nonsense. My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) brilliantly laid it out, so I will not repeat the specifics. As I said to him, having sat in government, I know how these figures are put together.”
“I completely and utterly opposed my Government when they started this, categorically— [ Interruption. ] Oh, I did. I have been in opposition no matter who is in government. I have to say to the Minister, though, that it is not what you start; it is what you finish. Even though I was opposed to the negotiations, when I spoke to Lord Cameron and said that he had to stop it, he took the decision to finish it. Why will this Government not see the evidence and stop this now?”
“Is it not clear that the Minister, who is normally very benign, is now rather tetchy? If he was so sure of what he says, why did he not make a statement rather than be dragged to the Floor of the House by the Opposition? When the previous Foreign Secretary made the clear statement that, if the US says no, this deal is off, was he referring to the 1966 arrangements or was he just doing it off the cuff?”
“In essence, what my hon. Friend is talking about here with the agreements about the destruction of weaponry and the loss, therefore, of any ability to prosecute or proceed was, in a sense, one way. There is no way on earth that the same process would have been allowed for soldiers who had served in Northern Ireland. All evidence was kept, captured and can be used against them, whereas the weaponry that was destroyed and all other matters, such as letters of comfort, tended in one direction. When the Government talk about equivalence, they are wrong. It has never been about equivalence; it has been about one-way traffic.”
“He said that that was the worst thing, but he understood why it was necessary. He swallowed it and determined against a prosecution. I was hoping that with the previous legislation, we could get to the truth of things, rather than have this ridiculous pursuit, which will never end, of those gallant veterans who, like me, served in Northern Ireland.”
“So of course there have so far been more prosecutions of terrorists, but there will never be enough while we cannot get the records—they do not exist—of those who committed these foul acts. I again make the point to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East that it is a one-way street. Time is limited, so I will finish simply by saying that I remember a conversation with Norman Tebbit, who died quite recently, during which I asked what was the worst thing that had happened to him. He said that it was not lying under the rubble or even believing that his wife had died as she lay next to him after the bombing. He said that the worst thing was when he had to swallow hard and watch the person who had set the bomb and blown his wife into a different future walk free.”
“There is nothing to say that Ireland will now agree to drop what it is doing and open its records. So much of what happened is in its records, because people fled there from their brutal crimes. This is not about equivalence, which was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis). As have I said before, equivalence came about when a limitation was put on incarceration periods back in 1998. That brought equivalence to terrorism and to terrorists. The hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), who is not in his place, made the point that the vast majority of prosecutions have been of terrorists, but over 3,000 of the deaths were down to terrorists and only about 300 had anything to do with the armed forces.”
“I also say it as one of those who lost a good friend, whose name I have mentioned before—Captain Robert Nairac. The main point I am making is that I no longer wish to pursue the people involved. His parents have died, and the rest of the family do not want to pursue those people for justice; they want to find out what happened to Bob Nairac. Nobody knows, and no one will come forward with the possibility of prosecution hanging over their head. What happened was terrible, but we want to know what it was. That is the bit I feel strongly about: the knowing is important to end this and draw a line under it. I am afraid that the Bill will continue the pursuit of individuals, particularly those who are Northern Ireland veterans, as I am. There is no help here in respect of Ireland and its pursuit. What are we going to do?”