Mr. Alan Brecknell:

The issue that Ms Urwin highlighted earlier regarding the work of Jon Boutcher comes to the heart of this aspect. It does so insofar as we seem to have gone down this road because of what he is doing concerning the Glenanne gang. That is obviously what we have experience of. There is a barrier in this regard because it is classed as a review and not an investigation. We are not sure how high that barrier is currently and that is part of the difficulty and frustration. If the Stormont House Agreement had been implemented, then these are issues that would have been dealt with four or five years ago. There was always going to be a need to deal with these issues. Ms Urwin has rightly pointed out that there was not an historical investigations unit south of the Border, but we have always said that there should be and that there had to be if there was going to be information sharing between North and South and South and North. A small body had to exist that was capable of doing that. We felt that not having such a mechanism built-in to the Stormont House Agreement from the start was an oversight.

From the perspective of having details regarding information sharing between North and South, the ombudsman's office in the past had the same difficulties whenever it was looking at cross-Border material. Those difficulties were got around, so it can be done. The inquest system worked most successfully regarding the Kingsmill killings. There were issues in that context about sharing information and that problem was also got around. Therefore, there are ways to be found if people are willing. This is about ensuring that people are willing to do this and do not look at this matter from a purely legal perspective. People need to look at this situation and realise that it affects people’s lives daily. It may be difficult for some people to look at this situation from that vantage point unless it has touched them and their lives or someone they know. However, that is what we must convey in some way. From what has been said today and in other hearings of the committee, perhaps an understanding can be imparted to the people who make decisions that this should not necessarily just come down to a rule-of-law issue or a situation where the attitude is one of the "computer says no" and therefore it is not possible for anything to be done about it.

To pick up on some of Ms Hanna’s other comments, the consensus in Westminster is something we have also been talking about.

Nearly everyone says the way to go is to try to talk to people in the lodge because they, believe it or not, seem to be a bit more liberal about these things, which surprises me at times. Another issue people talk to me about is rule-of-law Tories. If one can talk to people who believe in the rule of law as opposed to what the red tops have to say about vets and "We have to stand behind our vets", etc., that is a huge issue. Whether we can do that or not is another thing.

It was heartening, to a small extent anyway, to hear that Brandon Lewis, when he was interviewed after the meeting this morning, said they were not rushing through the legislation. There had been a feeling that it may go through before Christmas. It may still do so, because he said he would not give a timeline. The issue there is they have come up against hurdles they did not expect. They thought initially they could promise vets they would not serve any time and that they were 100%. Then they were told if they did it for them, they would have to do it for everyone. That was an issue for them. Then they thought that because they had an 80-seat majority, they would get it through, and did not expect the pushback from all political parties in the North, on this island and from America, as well as human rights organisations across the world. It has become more difficult for them, though I am not saying it will not happen.