The former Tory Cabinet minister, Lord Tebbit, who was badly injured and whose wife was paralysed in the IRA's 1984 Brighton bombing, has attacked plans to free paramilitary prisoners. During a Lords debate on the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill last night, he said: "There can be no peace without justice and this Bill reeks and stinks of injustice."
He would seek to amend the measure to delay its introduction until the release of Scots Guardsmen Jim Fisher and Mark Wright, jailed for killing a teenager while on duty in the North. Lord Tebbit also pledged to seek changes in the Bill to ensure each paramilitary prisoner agreed before release to the conditions of the Belfast Agreement.
Tory MPs were accused by the government earlier this month of breaking the cross-party consensus on Northern Ireland when they voted against the Bill's third reading in pursuit of a clearer connection between early release and arms decommissioning.