The legislation would repeal and replace the controversial Legacy Act introduced by the previous Conservative government, ending the immunity scheme brought in under the law that was ruled unlawful in the courts.<\/p>\n
The British Labour party\u2019s Bill, agreed as part of a joint framework with the government here in Ireland, will put in place a reformed Legacy Commission with enhanced powers.<\/p>\n
MPs have already backed a remedial order which removed the measures in the previous Act providing conditional immunity from prosecutions for Troubles-era crimes in exchange for co-operation with a truth recovery body, as well as scrapping a bar on future legacy compensation cases.<\/p>\n
The Tories will seek to block efforts on Monday to bring the proposed legislation into the next parliamentary session, which is due to begin after the King\u2019s Speech on May 13.<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s huge majority in the Commons means it is unlikely they will stop the Bill being taken forward.<\/p>\n
Sir Keir Starmer has sought to ease concerns raised by armed forces and veterans communities that Labour\u2019s Bill will leave those who served in Northern Ireland open to vexatious litigation.<\/p>\n
Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said last week that \u201cadditional protections and reassurances\u201d for veterans would be added when the Bill returns to Parliament, while also insisting there is no such thing as \u201cvexatious\u201d prosecutions.<\/p>\n
Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Alex Burghart said: \u201cThe Government must kill this Bill and end its hounding of our brave veterans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Bill will reopen vexatious litigation against those who courageously served during the Troubles and laid the foundation for peace.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Conservatives have led the fight against this Bill. We have been unequivocally clear: we completely oppose this and will move immediately to reverse it if we return to Government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour said its proposed legislation was the only viable way to give victims and their families answers, and said that safeguards for veterans would be strengthened when the Bill returns and is scrutinised at committee stage.<\/p>\n
A Labour Party spokesperson said: \u201cThe Conservatives\u2019 failed Legacy Act made undeliverable promises on immunity and has been repeatedly rejected by the courts. It created false expectations, legal uncertainty and delays for victims, survivors and veterans alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have worked closely with victims and families, as well as with our armed forces community, to ensure this legislation includes robust and meaningful safeguards that properly reflect the service and sacrifices of our veterans. And we will strengthen these further at committee stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Troubles Bill is the only viable way of delivering answers for victims and families, including the families of soldiers murdered by the IRA, while ensuring genuine safeguards for our veterans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legislation would repeal and replace the controversial Legacy Act introduced by the previous Conservative government, ending the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,898,43],"class_list":["post-419043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}