Britain in the World

Danny Kinahan Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

How do you follow that? We would love to see many of those houses being built in Northern Ireland. I have greatly enjoyed listening to the other hon. Members making their speeches and learning about their constituencies, and especially the very moving speech by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer).

It is an immense honour to have been elected to this House as an Ulster Unionist—the first Ulster Unionist here for 10 years—and I pledge to work tirelessly for absolutely everybody in the constituency of South Antrim. But first I very genuinely would like to thank Rev. Dr William McCrea for his many years of work as the MP and especially his staff, who suffer the consequences of losing an election, for all their hard work.

South Antrim is a typically farming, rural and also urban constituency, providing that great produce that is typical of Northern Ireland—Irish beef, lamb and pork. In 2016, Northern Ireland is going to have a year of celebrating our local produce, and I hope all Members will go there to taste our fare, especially the eels from Toombridge.

Within the constituency we have many enterprises of size that thrive. We have the world’s top web-based bicycle company; we have the world’s top pharmaceutical diagnostic company with 5% of the world’s population using its diagnostics; and we have one of the world’s largest vehicle tyre pressure gauge-producing companies. But I want to see many, many more businesses, small, medium and large, moving to Northern Ireland, so that we can tackle the unemployment that is rife in so many places.

South Antrim is also brimming with history and historical sites, and it is timely to remember that towns and villages like Ballyclare and Randalstown with their long-established horse fairs were key to the supplying of horses for the great cavalry regiments and the artillery at Waterloo and in the first world war.

In sport, we are lucky to have the greatest jump jockey ever in A. P. McCoy, two of the world’s top golfers, one of the world’s top snooker players, and not long ago, but very much still with us, probably the greatest rugby player of all time—all from South Antrim.

I am born and bred in South Antrim and, despite the dulcet tones that do not quite match those of my colleague the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), my life has encompassed so much of what is referred to by so many as the troubles, living only six miles from the Aldergrove military base, where the RAF, the Army Air Corps and many infantry and cavalry regiments were based, and through which most units entered Northern Ireland. Just close to home in Antrim is also Massereene barracks where the Royal Engineers were to make their home. The military presence in Northern Ireland was part of day-to-day life. Horrors and heroes abound, but with the mention of Massereene we should remember Sappers Quinsey and Azimkar, who were so cruelly murdered by dissidents on the eve of going to do their duty in Afghanistan.

Today I would like to ask everyone in this House to remember all those soldiers, sailors, airmen—some 250,000—and also the politicians, the civil servants, the businessmen, and so many more who over the last 45 years have done so much for Northern Ireland, 1,441 giving their lives. I would like every Member of this House to go back to their constituencies and say a huge thank you, because all those have helped us to get where we are today and we are phenomenally grateful.

I want to see this House carry on with spend on defence—2%, but even more—but I pledged to my electorate that I would do everything I politically could to make sure that the military covenant was put in place properly in Northern Ireland. The current situation cannot be allowed to continue, with some military veterans feeling like second-class citizens in their own country.

I had a 10-minute speech, which became an eight-minute speech, a six-minute speech and then a four-minute speech. The other great point I want to make is on the Union. Everyone here has a little bit of every country in them and, thinking back to the great Union Brigade charging at Waterloo, there were the Scots Greys, the Inniskillings, the Royals and many, many more. We need the Union to hold together, because it is the Union working together that will keep making this place great.