Sir Julian Lewis: I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for making the point about there being no moral equivalence. Does he recognise – I hope he does – that there must be legal equivalence between everybody who goes before this process? A particular question arises about the fact that if somebody is found to have been guilty of a murder, no matter how heinous it was and no matter how many people were killed, the provisions of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 would still apply. Nobody – whether it is a terrorist or a soldier who committed a murder – will go to jail for more than two years. We have to recognise that when we are talking about the search for justice, there will not really be any justice in terms of the sentence reflecting the gravity of the crime.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Chris Bryant): The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. One of the things he said to me last week was that he would be very grateful if I said in this debate that there is no moral equivalence, and I have done exactly as he asked. He is right.]