National Crime Agency

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The point of today’s debate is to say that, while discussions between the Chief Constable and the SDLP continue, there are 140-plus criminal gangs operating through the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the UK and smuggling not millions, but tens of millions of pounds-worth of illegal drugs. Some of that activity could be prevented by the full operation of the NCA.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The situation goes even further. According to the police today, there has not been one single civil recovery of a crime asset since the NCA took over, because the PSNI does not have the surge capability to do that. We are actually losing our ability to make civil recoveries.

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which is a damning indictment of those who still hold back from offering support for the full implementation of the NCA. I note from recent reports that, while meetings between the police and the SDLP continue—they do not appear to have come to a satisfactory conclusion—Sinn Fein has not responded to requests from the Department of Justice for a meeting about the issue. That is the scale of the problem we face.

Northern Ireland

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will adhere to that time. It is a pleasure to serve under your deputy speakership.

The debate has been telling and important. As many right hon. and hon. Members have said, it is being held on the 20th anniversary of the Shankill road massacre. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) outlined in very emotional yet diplomatic terms what happened on that day. October 1993 was an horrendous month. As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and others have outlined, we had not only the Shankill massacre, which resulted in nine murders, but the Greysteel massacre a few days later in my constituency, which resulted in eight murders. They are to be condemned equally. Without equivocation or hesitation, we utterly and totally condemn all those murders. In fact, 28 people died in October 1993, such was the nature of the violence that year.

[Ian Paisley]

My hon. Friend will vividly recall that on that morning we were sitting in a meeting of party officers in a hotel in Dungannon when we got the news of the atrocity at Shankill. Many of us raced to the Shankill road and saw for ourselves the horrid vista of violence that was visited on the people of Northern Ireland. When we witness such things with our own eyes, it drives home how atrocious terrorism in Northern Ireland has been, and how grateful we should be that we can start to move on.

[Mr Campbell]

We all recollect exactly where we were and our reactions at that time.

I welcome the shadow Secretary of State to his new position. He indicated that he has been in place for only 14 days, and yet he is rapidly getting to grips. He understands that his position is a challenging profile. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson)—the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee—said that the future had to be better than the past. All hon. Members concur with that. My hon. Friends the Members for Upper Bann (David Simpson) and for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), and other colleagues, elaborated on double standards.

The hon. Member for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) made a reasonably positive contribution, although I do not get what connection the Planning Bill, which was debated yesterday in the Northern Ireland Assembly, has with dealing with the past. I will leave that to one side. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) spoke at some length about the need to reconcile the distinctive and profound differences, which all hon. Members understand.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) said that honesty was required, and I shall speak in the remaining moments I have on the theme of honesty. There is a distinction in Northern Ireland, but it is not between Unionism/loyalism and nationalism/republicanism. There is a distinct difference in how we look at the past. The vast majority of people, be they Unionists or nationalists, look at the past and see that there were those who carried out evil, heinous atrocities. There were then those in the RUC, the UDR and the Army who had to respond and try to deal with the problem that had been created by the paramilitaries. The vast majority of people on both sides know that that distinction is absolutely clear. The security forces endeavoured to contain the paramilitaries that carried out so many atrocities, whether they were republican or loyalist organisations. Unfortunately, that containment was for many years restricted by political considerations. We always knew that the decoded message was, “Do not rock the boat. We’re trying to include republicans in the political process. Please do not rock the boat.”

Ovarian Cancer

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing this important debate, which I hope will be a springboard for increasing awareness and for encouraging the Department to pick up the gauntlet set before it today.

In the next 12 months, between 11 and 15 women in my constituency will die because of ovarian cancer. That is not a high or low figure; it is the average across the United Kingdom. We must wake up to the reality and that figure must be checked. We must embark seriously on a national campaign that will achieve better survival results, as has happened with major cancers such as breast and lung cancer.

I want to put four important and sobering statistics before the House. Most of the women who are diagnosed—75%—have late-stage disease, when survival rates are very poor. That is a very high figure. Also, 30% of women are diagnosed following admission to their local accident and emergency ward, not by their GP. Women with ovarian cancer are five times more likely to die within a month of diagnosis than women with breast cancer, and the UK’s late diagnosis is thought to be the key driver for those survival rates. Only 4% of women are confident that they can spot the symptoms of ovarian cancer.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, why, as the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr Brine) said, is there not yet any Department of Health-led activity to improve awareness of symptoms? That is the key to addressing the issue. Secondly, I take the view that what is not measured is not done, so why is there no national measurement for ovarian cancer?

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that greater awareness and early detection were the key to the significant progress made with other cancers? Many charities became involved with departmental officials to ensure that those things became the driver, which led to reductions in numbers. That is the key for ovarian cancer as well.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point incredibly well. We have all come to realise that there is a lack of awareness because of lobby groups, patients in our constituencies and the families who come to see us saying, “Why did we not know? If we had known, we would have done something else and gone to the GP earlier.”

As I have said, a gauntlet has been thrown down to the Department. Let us have better national measurement of outcomes established and followed up—year in, year out—so that the disease, which has been described as a silent killer, can be properly tackled and we can achieve the same successes as we have with breast, lung and bowel cancer survival rates.