St Patrick’s Day and Northern Irish Affairs

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It has been an enormously enjoyable debate. I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee). From the perspective of Conservative Members, he is one of a depressingly large wave of new entrants into this place, but he has definitely marked himself out as one to watch. He produced a tour de force—a wide-ranging review of the historical community ties between the nations of the British Isles.

The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) gave us a very interesting history of St Patrick. I certainly learned more from his speech than I was able to find in my Wikipedia search in preparation for this debate—that is an admission. The hon. Member for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins), who is, I think it is fair to say, a proud trade unionist, and other Labour Members highlighted the strong connection between people of Irish descent and the trade union movement—so though that movement has not all been good, some of it has been.

My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) called with great force and, in my submission, quite rightly for a bank holiday to celebrate St Patrick. If the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme put forward a proposal to celebrate both St Patrick’s day and St George’s day as bank holidays, I would be one of the first to support him. My hon. Friend the Member for Romford also mentioned the now defunct order of St Patrick, and his campaign to reinstate it. That sounds like a sensible thing to do. He made reference to the green of St Patrick. From my research on Wikipedia, I learned that St Patrick’s colour was actually blue, not green. Green is a development of the most recent centuries, so we might have to do a bit of work there.

The hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) celebrated—boasted about, frankly—having the largest Irish diaspora of any UK constituency. She highlighted, as did others, the huge contribution that people of Irish descent have made to the local economy and the local community. I will skip to the hon. Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon), who spoke of the Tayto diaspora and celebrated the London Irish community. He made an eloquent plea for support for his campaign on Philomena’s law.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) rightly described the significant contribution of Northern Ireland to this nation’s fight for freedom in the second world war, but he went on to recognise some darker aspects of the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and of the east-west relationship, and I do not think he was wrong to do that. If we are to have a mature relationship built on trust and respect, we need to recognise each other’s weaknesses, as well as being sentimental about our shared history. We should be clear-eyed and recognise the failings of others, as well as ourselves, in our shared history. While I do not agree with everything he said, there were points when I thought, “Yes, you are quite right. We should be clear-eyed about this.”

That takes me to St Patrick. His day, 17 March, is forever linked in my family with my father, Patrick Mayhew, who was half-Irish. It was a red letter day in my family’s calendar. Wherever we were in the world, we would always ring up or get in touch with my father to wish him a happy St Patrick’s day. St Patrick was, in fact, a Briton. I knew that, but I did not know until I prepared for this debate that that he was captured by Irish pirates and taken forcefully as a slave to Ireland. Whatever his experience there, he cannot have hated it too much, because he then voluntarily returned to bring Christianity to Ireland and to drive out the snakes. That is an early example of cross-border cultural mixing that has been to our mutual benefit.

The latest census suggests that more than 400,000 Irish- born people live in the UK. Ireland is, of course, our closest neighbour by geography, by culture, by family connection and by friendship. That has led to a historical interlinking of our economies—an interlinking that can be developed further. As of 2023, some £78.8 billion of trade flowed between our nations. The United Kingdom is Ireland’s largest trading partner, and Ireland is the sixth-largest trading partner of the United Kingdom.

We cannot pretend, as the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim rightly pointed out, that there are not continuing economic and political challenges in the relationship between our countries. I therefore welcome the close political co-operation, east-west and, increasingly, north-south. Speaking from a personal perspective, I recognise some of his comments about the difficulties of dealing with the Irish state back in the 1980s. In those days, I well recall the then Attorney General expressing considerable frustration at extradition applications being refused because of typing errors and grammatical inconsistencies. That is just a little historical note that I wanted to add to the account given by the hon. and learned Member.

We had a UK-Ireland summit as recently as 6 March, and it was noticeable that the Taoiseach said:

“we make the greatest progress when our two governments work together, particularly to support peace, prosperity and reconciliation on this island. Rooted in our commitments as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, I am confident that today marks a new chapter in the Irish British relationship.”

That is what this debate, among many others, is doing. It powerfully supports a bringing together of our two nations, and a focus on and recognition of our shared history and future. May St Patrick inspire us all to further friendship and co-operation across the British Isles.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

2. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help promote businesses in Northern Ireland.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to help grow the Northern Ireland economy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Fleur Anderson)]

Northern Ireland is a great place to live, work and invest. That is something the Secretary of State and I have promoted in our over 120 visits and meetings. Growth is a key mission of this Government, which is why we are supporting UK businesses through securing further investment and through our industrial strategy. The Chancellor will set out the steps this Government are taking to support growth across the UK on 30 October.

[Fleur Anderson]

Many businesses have secured excellent deals in Northern Ireland, including EY, which is bringing over 1,000 jobs; Wrightbus, at its bus factory in Ballymena; and Hannon Pharma Link. We are working at pace on a veterinary agreement. We want to reduce checks and the need for checks, doing all that we can to protect the UK’s internal market. This Government have brought in economic stability in place of the economic chaos we saw up until now, and Northern Ireland businesses will benefit from that.

[Jerome Mayhew]

It is all very well talking about an industrial strategy, but economists agree that increasing national insurance contributions for employers reduces profits, reduces pay and leads to fewer jobs. Does the Minister agree that if the Government decide to raise taxes, perhaps to fund union pay rises, then employer national insurance contributions would be the last tax to choose if they want to support Northern Ireland’s economy?

[Fleur Anderson]

It is hard to take lectures from the Conservative party on investment and growth. We have had a change election. We will be investing in growth. The hon. Member has only a week to wait to listen to what will be happening in the Budget. In the meantime, we are going at pace. The international investment summit brought in considerable investment for companies based in Northern Ireland. We are moving on with our industrial strategy, Invest 2035. We are investing in skills and getting people into work, and transforming our health services. That is essential so that people will want to come to Northern Ireland because of good health services, and so that they will be well enough to work. All of that is a package for investment in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is indeed pre-empting the remaining parts of my speech, which I will get on to as quickly as I can. He is free to catch my eye at that point, as he raises an incredibly important point.

What we needed from the Government in the run-up to this process was empathy. That requires listening and real care in the face of the most terrible tragedies. Let us take the case of John Molloy. John was walking home in north Belfast in 1996 when he was stabbed to death in a brutal sectarian attack. He was just 18 years old. John’s mother Linda wanted me to put her response to the Bill on the record:

“Why is John’s sectarian murder in Belfast different from a racially motivated murder in London? If this legislation gets through whoever murdered John could simply get away with it. It is just wrong that perpetrators will be able to get on with their lives officially, given amnesty by the state, while we are left to cope with the devastation. We brought our children up to believe in law and order and it is so wrong that the rule of law can be overridden in this way. The hurt never goes away.”

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that justice is just a word if it does not come to fruition? The current system is not leading to successful claims for the overwhelming majority of those affected. Surely there has to come a time when we have to try a better way. More than 50 years on from the start of the troubles, surely that time is now.

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. We are not talking about whether we want to move forward or not; the important thing is that we move forward in the right way.

Investigations are absolutely central to families being able to move forward and to the ability to deliver justice. The hon. Gentleman will notice from the Bill, which I am sure he has read in great detail, that the word “investigations” is mostly replaced by “review”. The emphasis that has proven successful in the past—from the Stormont agreement right through to the ongoing Kenova investigations—has provided, in limited circumstances, the kind of reconciliation, truth and justice that victims have requested. That is where we believe the future should be.

Currently, there are 32 files with the prosecution service of Northern Ireland as a result of the Kenova investigations. Not one has been picked up, because the prosecution service does not have the resources. There has been progress, and I am sure that the justice that we are talking about could be dispensed if the prosecution service of Northern Ireland had the right resources.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

For far too long, for my life and beyond, Northern Ireland, the Republic and Great Britain have been scarred by the legacy of violence. History has been politicised and the truth has too often remained hidden.

The damage is not historical. It continues. For families desperate to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones, the current adversarial litigation system is an abject failure. We need only look at the success rates: despite decades of information gathering and hundreds of millions of pounds spent in legal aid, it has been overwhelmingly unsuccessful in bringing prosecutions and even less successful in securing convictions.

We have talked a lot this evening about justice—the hope of justice, access to justice, the rule of law—but justice is only a word unless it brings results. With the passage of time and the complexities of Northern Ireland, I am afraid that justice has become just that—a word. The only winners are the lawyers.

The system is failing communities, who are unable to have their experiences of the troubles properly heard and recorded. Feelings of isolation, disempowerment and conflict persist. And yes, the system is failing veterans, who, despite the near-universal failure of litigation, continue to live under its threatening shadow into their 70s and 80s. We have heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) that the process of litigation, not the result, has now become the punishment.

All those people have been and continue to be failed by the current system, so for my part I welcome the Government’s proposals to end adversarial legal proceedings as the route to truth finding. An independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery does have the potential to be more effective and will rightly focus on all deaths and serious injuries, not just those brought into the litigation process—too often as a mechanism for extending division rather than achieving resolution and reconciliation. We need to remember in this House that of the 3,500 people who have been killed in the troubles, 370 were killed by members of the security services. Overwhelmingly, it is the evidence of former terrorists—republican and Unionist—that the families and others so desperately need to hear.

For reconciliation to take place, the truth must be supplied by every actor in this tragedy. The UK Government will provide a statutory requirement for state bodies to provide full disclosure to the commission, and I welcome that, but that transparency and openness need to be the approach of all actors, not just of the United Kingdom Government.

Linking engagement and co-operation with the commission to the possibility of immunity from prosecution could create an important incentive to unlock some of the shameful untold stories of the troubles, each one of which has the potential to provide answers to a grieving family. However, I also recognise the suggestion, in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), that there may be an opportunity to improve the Bill by making full prosecution the alternative to not co-operating. We should properly explore that as we seek to improve the Bill.

The same approach must also be adopted by the Irish Government. Last year they made a commitment to establishing their own information recovery scheme, but what has happened to that? Families deserve to know the truth about what happened south of the border just as much as north of it. Imperfect as the Bill may be, I still welcome it. I hope that the initial positioning in response to its publication quickly gives way to collaborative working towards a shared vision that inspires it. My greatest concern relates to the consultation process prior to the Bill’s publication. I hope that the ministerial team will engage fully with Members in this House across the divide and take on board their feedback during the legislative process.

As we have heard time and again today, the status quo is broken. I commend the Government for grasping this nettle. I hope that we work collectively to improve this Bill in Committee.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

rose—

Northern Ireland Protocol

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I am afraid that I have to contradict the hon. Gentleman on pretty much every point he has just made. First of all, I do not think it is sneaking out of the House to stand here and make these points at oral questions, as we did last week. I outlined at oral questions the measures that we were taking, and obviously colleagues asked questions on them. We published the written ministerial statement, as well as, obviously, publishing guidance and other matters more publicly after that. So I do not think that really qualifies for that.

In terms of lawfulness, these are lawful actions, as I outlined last week and I have outlined already this afternoon in answer to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley. They are about implementing the protocol and they fit with our obligations under the protocol. We will continue to make sure that we deliver on that in a pragmatic and flexible way to work for the people of Northern Ireland. It is indeed international, but this is a lawful action.

I would just say that, bearing in mind that the Irish Government took similar action themselves just a few weeks ago and that these are temporary, pragmatic operational things to ensure that the protocol can work and to avoid further tensions and problems for people across communities in Northern Ireland, I would hope that people across the EU and our friends in the US will see that this is an important piece of work that we have done to ensure that we can deliver on the protocol, respecting the Good Friday agreement in all its strands—not just north-south but, importantly, east-west as well.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]]

One of the key aims of the Northern Irish protocol was to prevent a destabilisation of the peace process, and we all remember how Monsieur Barnier took every opportunity to remind us how important that was when negotiating the agreement, yet the shortages that we are seeing in shops now, and the disruption to trade being caused by the EU’s insistence on heavy-handed inspections, is doing just that. What does my right hon. Friend think would have been the impact on the stability of the peace process if he had not taken this action?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I know that he has a huge background of experience and knowledge of issues of Northern Ireland. What I would say to him is that I understand that the EU has recognised and, to be fair, Maroš Šefčovič himself has apologised and said it was a mistake, but the action that the EU took did happen, and it had an impact. It has had an impact in terms of tensions and feelings of identity in Northern Ireland. My view, having spoken to businesses, is that if we had not taken the action that we took last week, we would have had empty shelves in supermarkets in Northern Ireland imminently. I think that would have raised tensions further and it may well have undermined the protocol fatally, in a way that is not in the best interests of the EU, the UK or the people of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Protocol: UK Legal Obligations

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Our determination and desire is to be able to deliver that certainty through the free trade agreement negotiations and the Joint Committee work. What we will be outlining tomorrow in the Bill is how, if that does not succeed, we will be giving that certainty to Northern Ireland businesses about what the framework and the legal structures will be from January to ensure that we do deliver on unfettered access. Let me just say that we are continuing to deliver on the protocol. With the issues around live animals, with the agrifoods work that we have done, with the EU settled status scheme and with other such issues, we are delivering on what we have agreed. We will continue to do that, and we will do so in good faith.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The much hyped Financial Times story has caused understandable concern right across the island of Ireland and more widely, so can my right hon. Friend reassure the House that the measures being introduced tomorrow are solely a safety net to the work of the Joint Committee, do not in any way prevent the Government from complying with the Northern Ireland protocol in full, and do not compromise the Good Friday agreement?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are doing this in order to ensure that we can always deliver the wider objective of the protocol, which is to protect peace in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Belfast agreement, and to do so as part of the protocol, outlining, as we did in the Command Paper, how we would deal with those issues that are still outstanding—if they are outstanding—at the end of December.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

As my hon. Friend knows, the regulations to which he refers do not replace or remove powers from the Executive. I remind him that they were introduced and approved by this House via an amendment to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, following a three-year absence of devolution. We have delivered regulations that came into force on 31 March, as we were required to do. Parliament has now approved the regulations and they remain the law on access to abortion services. Abortion remains a devolved issue, and the Northern Ireland Assembly can legislate on that or amend the regulations, so long as it does so in a way that remains compliant with the CEDAW—convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—recommendations and convention rights.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

What progress his Department has made on the implementation of the “New Decade, New Approach” deal.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)]

The Government, despite the challenges of the pandemic, have continued to progress work where possible to implement our commitments. These include helping to end the nurses’ pay dispute, launching and progressing the recruitment process for a veterans’ commissioner, releasing £553 million of funding out of the £2 billion made available to progress implementation, and making changes to immigration rules. We will also be restarting the process with the Executive for organising a joint board that will provide quarterly review of UK Government funding provided under the deal.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Now that covid and our response to it is thankfully less all-consuming, does my hon. Friend agree that now is the time to see some real progress from the Northern Ireland Executive?

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely. I agree with my hon. Friend, but we should recognise the manner in which the Executive have worked collaboratively to tackle the immediate crisis, including the way in which the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister have demonstrated leadership and the ability to put their differences aside, working together to protect the public.

The Government and the Northern Ireland Executive have set out our complete commitment to ensuring that the “New Decade, New Approach” deal is implemented in full. As the Secretary of State said earlier, one aspect we would welcome rapid progress on is the independent fiscal council.