New Troubles legacy deal will mean justice for victims and justice for veterans

As a young Army officer, I had the privilege of working alongside service personnel who had served in Northern Ireland, many over several tours of duty. What has stayed with me from listening to them is just how difficult an operation it clearly was, serving in a very different context to my own experience in Afghanistan.

It was an intensely challenging campaign and I am very proud of the hugely professional standards maintained by thousands of personnel over many decades. The dangers they faced during The Troubles were ever present, with a staggering 722 UK service personnel killed when doing their job of providing security in our country. I want to be very clear, I oppose the previous Government's Legacy Act precisely because it disgracefully promised giving blanket immunity to the terrorists - such as the IRA - who waged a bombing campaign across the UK - car bombs, pubs and shopping centres.

Over 200 investigations into the deaths of British service personnel were shut down by this failure.

That's over 200 families blocked from ever getting accountability for what happened to their loved ones.

I'm talking about families like that of Martha Seaman, whose son Tony Harrison , a paratrooper cruelly shot in the back and gunned down in his girlfriend's home in East Belfast in 1991. He was just 21 years old. A future stolen as he tried to keep the peace.

There are those that say denying these families justice is the price worth paying to protect our veterans from lawfare. I strongly disagree. The Act did no such thing and it never will - it has already been struck down in the Courts. It protects no veterans.

We must and will always hold our service people to the highest standards.

But we cannot and will not let the justice system be weaponised against those who have only ever served our country.

To stop this, after months of talks with victims' groups, political parties in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government, we are this week taking a critical step in delivering on our manifesto commitment to right these wrongs, unveiling sweeping reforms to the Legacy Commission.

Our new approach has the rights of our veterans at its heart, with a 6-point plan of protections - that the previous government failed to put in place with its botched legislation.

There will be no unnecessary repeat investigations, no more cold calls from investigators, and no more forced travel to Northern Ireland to give evidence.

We've given veterans a route out of the current legal wild west that left them exposed after the previous act failed across the board - with protections for old age, a right to seek anonymity for witnesses, and a stronger voice in the process.

The new system serves all victims - from Belfast to Birmingham, Warrington to Warrenpoint. It strips terrorists of immunity and protects those who served with honour.

I know from my own service that our service personnel expect to be held to the highest standards.

But that should not leave them exposed to a lifetime of legal jeopardy or lawfare.

Neither should the families who lost loved ones be denied justice. Our reforms acknowledge the dangers of serving in The Troubles, restore hope to those bereaved families denied it by the Act, and finally give veterans the real protections they deserve.