Britain’s Place in the World

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I have a lot of respect for the right hon. Gentleman so I am sorry to have to say this to him, but the Bill that he brought forward, which we refer to as the surrender Act now—I know other colleagues would refer to it differently—reduced the negotiating position of the Government. Our policy still is a preference for a deal, but he must take his share of responsibility if we end up with no deal on 31 October.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Alok Sharma]

No, I will not; let me make some more progress.

I was talking about the opportunities that we will have outside the European Union, and of course there will be opportunities that will boost British businesses with strong trading relationships with countries around the world, championing free trade.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and the all-party group for the work that they do. I know how close this issue is to his heart and how much he feels this personally. The difficult situation here is that the one-year survival rate for those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is about 20% and the five-year survival rate is only 5%, and that is not good enough. We are spending more money on research. We are investing a record £800 million over five years in a series of biomedical research centres, including the Liverpool pancreas biomedical research unit. We need the research to go in and for these new treatments to be properly tested so that we can improve these cancer survival rates as we have for other cancers.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Four weeks ago, a 150-year-old industry in my constituency announced that it will be pulling out of Northern Ireland, with the loss of 900 jobs—the equivalent of 32,000 jobs in the United Kingdom. To say that is a body blow would be an understatement. Will the Prime Minister agree to meet me and industry leaders to see if we can find a strategy and a way of keeping some of those jobs in Northern Ireland?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to discuss this with the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps on a forthcoming visit to Northern Ireland, we might be able to meet in Ulster and discuss these issues. I think the issue he refers to is also plain paper packaging, where I want to see us make progress; I think there are important health benefits there. I am happy to discuss the issue with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend’s support for the reforms is hugely welcome, and I know that he follows these issues very closely. It was not just he who welcomed the speech that I set out yesterday: also, I had express support from the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians, the NHS Confederation, Macmillan Cancer Support and Breakthrough Breast Cancer. I think we are seeing a coming together of people who care about the health service, who use the health service, of professional bodies in the health service, who can see that this Government are listening, getting their changes right and will add the money that is required—and that only we are committed to—with the reforms that are necessary to make sure the NHS can go on and thrive in future.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Prime Minister will be aware of the dastardly murders of senior police officers Breen and Buchanan, and the subsequent public inquiry, established in consultation between this nation’s Government and the Irish Republic’s Government. Will he make sure that nothing is allowed to impede Anglo-Irish relations by making personal representations to the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, such that they cannot restrict the time, the effort and the money put into that inquiry, so that we can get to the truth and find out how those two brave police officers were murdered in so dastardly a way?

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly look very carefully at the issue the hon. Gentleman raises. There is still, on all sides in Northern Ireland, and indeed in the Republic, huge concern about things that happened in the past. Often, people ask for an inquiry, a public inquiry or a process. I think in most cases, what people really want is the truth. I found with the issue of the Saville inquiry that what really mattered, actually, was not the £120 million, the five years and all the rest of it. What people wanted was the unvarnished truth, so then they can come to terms with what happened in the past. I have said that I do not want to see further open-ended inquiries; but I do think there is still more that we can do to uncover and be frank about the truth, and that goes for us on all sides of this debate.