TORY proposals to grant an amnesty to ex-troops and paramilitaries during Northern Ireland’s Troubles are “profoundly offensive” to victims and fail to uphold the rule of law, Labour has said. 

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis confirmed proposals in the Commons today for a statute of limitations “to apply equally to all Troubles-related incidents.” 

Acknowledging the decision would be difficult for some people to accept, Mr Lewis claimed it was the “best way to help Northern Ireland move further along the road to reconciliation.”

He said that the current system for dealing with the legacy of the Troubles was not working and that the focus on criminal investigations “is increasingly unlikely to deliver successful criminal justice outcomes.” 

But Labour said the proposals, which will be introduced as legislation in autumn, would fail to deliver either truth or reconciliation. 

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Louise Haigh told MPs that trust among victims had “hit rock bottom.”

“No wonder that many have greeted today’s proposals with deep scepticism and question whether it is more an exercise in shoring up narrow party support than it is in delivering the reconciliation communities in Northern Ireland crave,” she said. 

The proposals would prevent legal proceedings being taken against former British troops, paramilitaries and IRA members for any crimes committed before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. 

“At the heart of these proposals is an amnesty in all but name which is profoundly offensive to many,” Ms Haigh said. “Ministers today appear to have concluded that the rule of law no longer applies.” 

Northern Ireland's five main political parties, the Irish government and several victims’ groups have also been highly critical of the plans. 

Northern Alliance MP Stephen Farry told the Commons the proposals were an “assault on the rule of law and human rights.”

And families of victims killed by British soldiers in the Ballymurphy massacre in 1971 said they saw the move as a “cynical attempt to bring an amnesty and a plan to bury its war crimes.” 

Relatives of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, in which 21 people were killed in an IRA attack, have also protested against the proposals. 

Amnesty’s Northern Ireland campaign manager Grainne Teggart said the government was showing an “appalling and offensive disregard for victims.

“In pursuing a statute of limitations to put state forces and other perpetrators above the law and beyond accountability, government debases natural justice,” she said. 

Symon Hill of the Peace Pledge Union told the Morning Star: “Reconciliation processes sometimes involve painful decisions. However, this proposal does not seem to involve any process of reconciliation but only a simplistic attempt to avoid prosecutions. 

“Innocent people hurt or killed by British troops, by the Provisional IRA, by Loyalists or by anyone else, deserve much better than this shambles of a proposal.”

The package of measures follows concerted attempts by Tory ministers to shield veterans from prosecution in its Overseas Operations Bill.