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First World War Soldiers (Pardons)

: I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) on securing this debate on the soldiers who were executed in the first world war. I wish to state at the outset that the Government did not believe that the review that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence carried out in 1998 would end this issue, and this debate has demonstrated that. The issue has been raised many times in this House and outside. It provokes powerful emotions, and there are strong and principled views on both sides of the debate. It is not solely a moral question, or a point of law, or an exercise in historical investigation. Rather, it is a complex debate with strong moral, legal and historical factors, every one of which is relevant, and every one of which is powerfully argued. I am glad to have had the opportunity to listen to the points raised, and to have this chance to explain the Government's position. The previous Government considered these cases and decided that they were not able to take any action. The Labour party when in opposition promised a full and open investigation. We honoured that pledge when we came to office in 1997. The then Minister for the Armed Forces, my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State, immediately set up a review into the whole subject of the executions and the possibility of recommending pardons. The summary of that review is in the Library. The best view is of course that looking back—the view of ““what if?”” and ““if only””—but we must not forget the circumstances in which the cases were brought. We must be very careful not to blame the members of the courts martial. The officers who conducted the trials were honourably and conscientiously doing their very best to discharge their responsibilities and their duties and to see that justice was done. The review made a detailed consideration of shell shock—of both the way in which it was understood and treated at the time, and the way in which courts martial dealt with it as a possible defence or mitigation. All the issues were set in their historical context and all the case files held in the country were reviewed. As the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reviewed more than 100 cases himself. The review sought advice from historians, lawyers and medical experts, and of course veterans and the people seeking the pardons played a vital part in the discussions that my right hon. Friend held. It is important to make it clear how and why pardons are granted. A free pardon excuses a person from all penalties imposed at trial in recognition that that person was technically and morally innocent of the charges against them. A conditional pardon reduces the penalty to a lesser one. In order to make a recommendation to the sovereign for a pardon under the royal prerogative, the Secretary of State would need to be satisfied for a free pardon that each individual was technically and morally innocent of the offence, and for a conditional pardon there would have to be compelling grounds that a lesser sentence than the one imposed was more appropriate. The hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk is a distinguished historian, and I am sure that he would agree that anyone who has studied the records and eye-witness accounts, heard or read the poetry, looked at the photographs or talked to those who survived the trenches, will realise that some places came as close to hell on earth as anyone could possibly imagine, and that it was an awful experience for those involved. That conclusion is borne out by the tremendous weight of evidence—there really is no doubt about it. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about the evidence that survives from the courts martial that condemned the soldiers to death. There is no doubt that the records are very thin. I have the documents for the Harry Farr case; there are six and a half pages, and they are handwritten. Therefore, there is very little information about what was actually said at his court martial. Those records that have survived are—and were intended to be at the time—a summary rather than a full account of the proceedings and leave many questions unanswered. At the time of the review, my right hon. Friend wished, as do many others, to treat together all those who were executed. However, in order to consider pardoning a group of people, there needs to be sufficient evidence to meet the test in each individual case. As that level of evidence is lacking in most—perhaps all—of the cases, consideration of a blanket pardon was believed during my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's review not to be possible. The approach that I described, in which each case is treated individually, was considered to be proper in the context of possible statutory pardons as well as pardons under the royal prerogative. Since my right hon. Friend's review, the New Zealand Government have passed an Act of Parliament establishing a form of statutory pardon for each of the five members of the New Zealand expeditionary force executed during the first world war. The stated aim of the Act was to remove, as far as practicable, the dishonour that the execution of the five soldiers brought on them and their families. The Act is relevant to our considerations. A number of Members in this House and the other place are pressing the Government to consider a similar Act of Parliament to pardon all those executed to whom we have referred in this debate. That would represent a major step, but it could not be undertaken without careful consideration of its far-reaching implications. I am aware of the private Member's Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), which will be considered on Second Reading on 3 March. The Bill requires pardons to be granted to all those executed, possibly after consideration of each case by an international body of judges that would have to be appointed. However, when my hon. Friend presents his Bill, an important point to consider will be the fact that it does not state exactly what test would be applied in order to make a decision, and that is key to reaching any conclusions on the subject. At the end of the detailed review of all the issues in 1998, my right hon. Friend concluded that it would not be just or compassionate to put the cases of those who were executed to the pardon test just to see most—quite possibly all—of them fail. He particularly did not wish to take a course of action that, although it might lead to pardons for a few of the men, would leave most without a pardon and thus still condemned.