---

Armed Forces Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It has been a cross-party campaign. I regret that no Irish Members are in the Chamber, because the campaign united various sides in Ireland, if only symbolically. Private Crozier from the Shankill and Private Sands from the Falls were both executed in similar circumstances. They were ordinary, poor, inarticulate soldiers, as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out. They could not articulate their case and were not represented fairly at their trial. A soldier who was unable to advance when ordered to do so, or who ran away—whether they came from Belfast, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, London or elsewhere—was likely to face a court martial and execution. Many officers suffered shell shock, too, but they were likely to be returned to the love and care of their family in England and the best medical attention available. There was unconscious discrimination in the treatment of shell shock. The question of history has been raised. One of the consequences of the campaign is not the rewriting of history, but writing a chapter of history that has been suppressed. We spend millions of pounds each year teaching history to schoolchildren and university students, so we need to write it with clarity and precision, including the parts that we find uncomfortable. We are now writing that history. Until 1992, the matter was suppressed. It had been suppressed in Parliament; Ernest Thurtle had been refused access to the papers, which were restricted for 75 years. There were only the books by Judge Anthony Babington and Julian Putkowski.