Sir Julian Lewis: May I ask the Secretary of State to clarify whether his earlier remarks mean what I think they do, which is that even if it had not been for the guidance of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Government would have wanted anyway to have repealed the legislation of the legacy Act? It is a political decision. Given that he said that he did not believe that there would be convictions at the end of the process, does that not mean that there will be several, if not many, trials? If no one is convicted at the end of the process, how does that help anyone? How does that avoid just torturing the people put through a trial?

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn): If I may, I will correct what I think is the interpretation that the right hon. Member has put on what I had said. I made it clear a moment ago that had the Joint Committee on Human Rights reached a different conclusion about the appropriateness of the remedial order, the Government would of course have respected that. I also made it clear in my earlier comments that the Government came into office committed to get rid of immunity – we have been quite clear about that from the start – and the remedial order will seek to give effect to that.

We have discussed prosecutions of veterans. If one looks at the figures, one sees that there has been one successful prosecution of a veteran since the signing of the Good Friday agreement. The point I was making, if one looks at the figures – [Interruption.] Well, there are currently nine live cases before the courts relating to the troubles; seven of them relate to paramilitaries, and six of those relate to the Provisional IRA. I have heard the argument from Opposition Members that, “Oh, none of the paramilitaries are getting prosecuted.” That is not the case. It is really important that we have these debates on the basis of facts.]