Windsor Framework

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Windsor framework.

When the Windsor framework was introduced, it was the original protocol by another name, because it made no substantive changes to the original text. It was portrayed, sold and packaged as a tremendous opportunity for Northern Ireland. Some time later, we even had the President of the United States, President Biden, talk extravagantly about $6 billion of awaiting investment in Northern Ireland. We had acolytes of the Government talk about Northern Ireland becoming the Singapore of the western hemisphere, and it seemed that no boast was too large to make.

The reality is very different, however, and matters rather came down to earth with a bump just a couple of weeks ago, when Invest Northern Ireland representatives appeared before a Stormont Committee. Remember that the Windsor framework was supposed to unleash an avalanche of foreign direct investment into Northern Ireland because—we were told—our access to the single market of the European Union was the panacea for all things economic. The witness from Invest NI had to confess that there would be no uptake in foreign direct investment, and the framework was not producing the results that were claimed.

There is a very simple reason for that: the counterbalance to accessing the European single market is the fettering of our links to our GB supply market. In order to have that access to the foreign single market of the EU, we had to subject ourselves to EU law. Its customs code says that, with GB not being in the EU but Northern Ireland being treated as an EU territory, GB has to be regarded as a foreign country, hence the erection of the obnoxious border in the Irish sea for the bringing of goods from GB to Northern Ireland. The counterbalance to that alleged wonderful access to the EU single market was the building of a border to fetter trade from GB, and that is why the framework has not produced that magical foreign investment. Anyone looking at investing thinks about not just where they will sell their goods, but where they will get their raw materials from. If the raw material supply line is fettered by an international customs border governed by foreign law—and that is what it is—they are going to think twice about that, and obviously they have thought twice. All the proposals and packaging largely turned out to be insubstantial spin.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The boast was that Northern Ireland would have the best of both worlds—the European market and the UK market. Would the hon. and learned Member accept that all the evidence says that, even apart from just the undemocratic nature of laws being imposed on us, businesses are facing huge tax burdens, where they have to pay taxes and then claim them back? They have been shut off from their markets and cannot get supplies, and there are still many sectors of the economy that cannot get supplies from GB.

[Jim Allister]

It has infected every sector, and none more so than the farming sector, which is topical today. Northern Ireland’s veterinary medicines are now under the regime of the EU, and we are facing a cliff edge in that regard—there could be a cut-off of supply from our primary market of veterinary medicines very shortly.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. and learned Member for securing the debate. He is right to mention farming. Does he agree that our farmers, who have been decimated by the inheritance tax proposals, will not be able to access state aid, while farmers on the mainland can apply for and get that aid? The Government must do the right thing: remove the protocol and return Northern Ireland to the UK in every way.

[Jim Allister]

I agree with that. Of course, the protocol contains an EU cap on the amount of funding that can be given to farming. All the things that the hon. Member says are correct.

All that flows out of one fundamental point: the protocol and Windsor framework mean that, in 300 areas of law, Northern Ireland is now subject to laws made not in this place or in Stormont, but in a foreign Parliament by foreign parliamentarians—the parliamentarians of the EU. That is such an assault on the enfranchisement of our constituents—it is, rather, their disenfranchisement —and on basic constitutional and democratic accountability. It is something, I would suggest, that no Member of this House would contemplate for one moment for their constituents, and yet those of us who represent Northern Ireland, as well as our constituents, are expected to accept that we should be impotent when it comes to making the laws that govern much of our economy.

[Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for securing the debate. Does he agree that the Windsor framework is ethically flawed in its treatment of businesses and the people of Northern Ireland? In opposing it, Members should take inspiration from Gladstone’s belief that it is never politically right to do that which is morally wrong.

[Jim Allister]

That is a model that I am more than familiar with. It has manys an application, and one such fitting application is here.

Let me return to the issue of the 300 laws. Those are not incidental laws, but laws that shape and frame much of our economy: how we manufacture, package, sell and trade our goods, and much besides. Of particular political significance is the fact that those economic laws are now identical to those that prevail in the Irish Republic. Under the framework, a situation has evolved whereby Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic are governed by identical economic laws in those 300 areas. Of course, that is about building the stepping stone to an all-Ireland economic area, which was always the intent of the protocol. That gives it an added offensive political dimension.

The very concept that 300 areas of EU law—not our law—should be imposed on us, as if we are a colony—because that is what it is like—is offensive in the extreme. Of course, it is said, “Ah, but wasn’t the Windsor framework about protecting the Belfast/Good Friday agreement?” The Windsor framework has driven a coach and horses through the Belfast agreement. The fundamental modus operandi of the Belfast agreement was that, because of Northern Ireland’s divided past, any big or constitutional issues would have to be decided on a cross-community vote—in other words, a majority of both nationalists and Unionists. That is in section 4(5) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. However, in respect of the Windsor framework, that was expunged.

In a couple of weeks, we will have an astounding situation in which the Northern Ireland Assembly, which elects MLAs—Members of our Legislative Assembly—will be asked to disavow their power to legislate for Northern Ireland in these 300 areas. They were never asked in the first place, but they are now going to be asked, for the next four years or more, to disavow their ability on behalf of their constituents to make laws in those 300 areas and surrender that sovereignty and right to a foreign Parliament and foreign politicians. The laws have not even been dreamt up yet, because in the next four years who knows what the EU will decide is good for itself—and, coincidentally, for us? Democratically elected Assembly Members are meant to vote to sign away their democratic rights, on behalf of their constituents, and endorse whatever comes down the track. Never mind what it is; we are just going to accept it like colonial patsies, which we now are under the protocol.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman knows where I stand on this issue. I share his concerns about the Windsor framework, the protocol and the impact they are having on businesses, consumers and the constitutional future of Northern Ireland within this great United Kingdom. Does he agree that those parties who hold up the Belfast agreement as the be-all and end-all are the very same people who are now content to allow a majority vote? That has not happened in 50 years, and it runs absolutely contrary to the Belfast agreement, which the protocol is supposed to uphold.

[Jim Allister]

Yes; for the first time in over 50 years, we are going to have a majoritarian vote on a key issue, which, of course, has immense constitutional significance. That is why the Supreme Court of this land had to rule that the effect of the protocol was to put into suspension article VI of the Acts of Union, which is supposed to guarantee us all within this kingdom the same unfettered trade rights. Obviously, if we build a border that partitions and fetters trade, it cannot be said that there are the same constitutional and trading rights. Yet on that fundamental issue, we are going to have a majoritarian vote.

The message to Unionism—it is a very chilling message—is that cross-community votes were only ever about protecting nationalism; they were never about protecting Unionism. Unionists are just meant to suck it up, because this is the way forward. That is unacceptable. On behalf of those who sent me here believing that I was being sent here as a legislator, and sent Members to the Northern Ireland Assembly believing they were being sent there as legislators, I abhor and protest against the fact that in the next few weeks, we will have that obnoxious, obscene vote to remove from the people of Northern Ireland and their representatives the right to have a say in over 300 areas of law that govern them. There has never been a greater act of disenfranchisement of voters anywhere within this United Kingdom. It is wholly incompatible with the basic tenets of democracy.

People say, “How then do we handle the border?” Yes, there is a challenge in an interfacing border between EU and non-EU members, but the way to handle it is not through this constitutional Union-dismantling monstrosity; it is to return to the basic elements that govern much of world trade. We should mutually respect the laws, requirements and trading demands of those with whom we are trading. We should mutually enforce, from one country to another, the standards and requirements of the country to which we are exporting. If we do that, we do not need the Irish sea border, or a border on the island of Ireland. It should be backed up with criminal sanction so that, if someone does trade in breach of the requirements of the recipient country, they face a penalty. That is how it should be done, but it was not done, simply because the EU saw an opportunity to make Northern Ireland the price of Brexit. We continue to pay that intolerable price.

In a couple of weeks, we will be debating my private Member’s Bill, which will address those very issues, and mutual enforcement will be at the heart of it, because that is the way for the Government. I know they inherited all this—maybe with some enthusiasm—but they can now fix it. If they do not, they are saying to my constituents, “You are some sort of second-class democrat. You are not entitled to elect those who make your laws. You must be a subservient rule-taker from politicians who make the laws for you in a foreign jurisdiction.” How insulting is that? Yet that is the essence of what the Windsor framework puts upon us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister]

The magical thinking originated within the European Commission. It was those in the European Commission who first postulated the idea of mutual enforcement, only to be shot down by an agenda from Dublin and the other European countries. The very genesis of it came because it was seen as a viable proposition—and why is it not a viable proposition to mutually enforce the requirements on trade going either way?

[Hilary Benn]

For my many and varied sins, I spent a number of years chairing the Brexit Select Committee. We looked at all of these things at great length, and I have to say to the hon. and learned Gentleman on the basis of that experience that nothing hoved into view that would address the central question: how to maintain an open border—one of the very few things that everybody agreed on during Brexit was that there could not be checks or infrastructure at the border, for reasons that all of us in the Chamber well understand—while ensuring, as a good neighbour, that the European Union can be confident that goods arriving in Northern Ireland, which could then move freely into the EU by crossing the border into the Republic, comply with the rules of its single market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

Northern Ireland is very much part of the United Kingdom. I was merely pointing out that the protocol and the Windsor framework were democratic decisions of this Parliament, of which Northern Ireland is a part. After much debate, consideration, argument and disputation, that is how this Parliament decided to move things forward. The Windsor framework, which I spoke in favour of and supported, was a considerable step forward on the arrangements originally negotiated in the Northern Ireland protocol, which were never going to work. For example, requiring an export health certificate for every one of the items on the back of the supermarket lorries that come across from Cairnryan to Larne and Belfast every single night was never a practical proposition. The Windsor framework has replaced potentially 1,000 or 2,000 certificates with one certificate. That is a step forward by anybody’s definition.

Turning to the question of the consent vote, that is part of the provision that has been made to allow the Assembly to take a decision. I have triggered the consent process, as Members will be aware. It is for the Assembly to take that decision. If it approves the continued operation of the Windsor framework, it will last for another eight years if the approval is on a cross-community basis, or—I speak from memory—for another four years if not. It is for the Members of the Assembly to make that decision, but the framework really does bring a lot of benefits.

At the beginning of his contribution, the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim talked about the fettering of Northern Ireland businesses’ access to GB, if I heard him correctly. There is no fettering of Northern Ireland businesses’ access to GB.

[Jim Allister]

I referred specifically to access from GB to Northern Ireland—the supply chain—because our manufacturing businesses depend on raw materials from GB. That has been fettered, and that is what caused the Supreme Court to say that article 6 is in suspension.

Police Funding

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

There is no doubt that policing is in pretty dire straits in Northern Ireland, but it would be a mistake simply to say that it is all the fault of Westminster. Policing has been devolved in Northern Ireland since 2010, and comparing the policing situation today with 2010, it is woefully below the level it was then, in terms of police on the beat and the provision of basic services. We lament the lack of funding, but we must face the fact that the Northern Ireland Executive have not prioritised police funding. As we have heard, when policing was devolved, the budget was £903 million. However, 12 years later it was £892 million—a massive real-terms reduction. That is because the priorities of the Northern Ireland Executive were not issues of policing but other things.

I think it is fair and important to recognise that the failings are not all on this side of the United Kingdom. Yes, there is a deficiency in funding. Yes, it is appalling that in the recent Budget allocation, there was nothing of the £142 million required for the data breach that the PSNI now has to face, and nothing for other special needs in that regard. But we need to keep the perspective right. There is a responsibility on the Northern Ireland Executive to put their priorities in order, and policing should be a priority.

I have a large, essentially rural constituency. In the towns of Ballymoney and Ballycastle and all the villages around it, on any given night we are lucky if there is one patrol car. We are lucky if, on any given day, there are two or perhaps three community officers, covering a vast area. There is a huge deficiency and need in that regard. Let me say this to the Government. They found for the Northern Ireland Office extra money that essentially—in large measure—will be going to the Finucane inquiry. Once again, we are going to pour tens of millions of pounds into an insatiable inquiry for a family which has never been capable of being satisfied and which previously rejected the very inquiry that it is now getting. It would be a far more prudent and appropriate use of funding to put the money where it is needed—and where it is needed is in the coffers of the PSNI.

When we had the Patten report way back in 1999, there was great hype, and hope and expectation that policing was going to be wonderfully transformed. I think most people in Northern Ireland today would gladly go back to the real, effective policing of the RUC, rather than having the depleted policing of the PSNI. We were promised a 7,500 complement of police officers; we are 1,200 and more below that today. Patten has not been a success. It has not been delivered as promised, and policing in Northern Ireland has effectively gone from bad to worse. We now have a situation in which a hapless Chief Constable has to, almost cap in hand, come to the Prime Minister and say, “Can you help us?” For that, of course, he is criticised by the local Minister who has failed the police in getting the funding that is needed—namely, the Justice Minister.

I am anxious to promote in this House the genuine needs of policing within the context of recognising that there also has to be responsibility with the Northern Ireland Executive. Perhaps the priorities of the Northern Ireland Executive are not uninfluenced by the fact that we have the bizarre situation in which the PSNI is accountable to a Northern Ireland Policing Board upon which sits a convicted terrorist from an organisation that murdered and butchered policemen for years. That convicted terrorist of course is Gerry Kelly, who came to this city and bombed the Old Bailey. He sits in lordship and control over the PSNI. That is not a healthy situation, and it is not a healthy control situation in terms of the PSNI, so when Patten and Westminster produced that, they did not do policing any favours.

It is important, now, to get adequate funding into policing and to ensure, if and when adequate funding is supplied, that the Stormont Executive spend it. We have had so many occasions when, under the Barnett consequentials, money has been given, for example for childcare and other things, and spent on something else. There needs to be the proper spend of the money for the purposes for which it is given.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson]

We are not the only Ministers who came into office three months ago to have faced all sorts of decisions that should have been taken by the previous Government. We have taken up those decisions on parcels and on every aspect that the right hon. Member mentions. He is right to raise them, because we do need to work on them to ensure that we protect the UK internal market and that we create the best possible regime for business.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

3. What assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the Windsor Framework (Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals) Regulations 2024 on people travelling with pets from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)]

The statutory instrument for the Northern Ireland pet travel scheme has now been laid. The scheme significantly reduces the requirements associated with the original Northern Ireland protocol and provides a stable and long-term arrangement for those travelling with their pets within the UK.

[Jim Allister]

When the grip of EU law controls even the movement of our pets within the United Kingdom, is it not clear that we have gone far too far in regarding Northern Ireland as EU territory? For that is the reason for this absurd regulation, which, at the behest of the EU, imposes pet passports if a person wants to bring their pet from GB to Northern Ireland. There is no point the Secretary of State saying that it could have been worse; they should not exist at all. When will this Government get the EU off our backs and liberate the people of Northern Ireland and our pets from EU diktat?

[Hilary Benn]

As I hope the hon. Gentleman is aware, Northern Ireland pet owners will not face any checks and will not be required to hold a pet travel document. In discussing this matter, there is an obligation on him and all of us to ensure that we present the facts, so that people are not unnecessarily troubled.

Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner

Jim Allister Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Robin Swann]

The hon. Member makes a valid point. I asked a question of the Northern Ireland Office on 12 December about the appointment, and the answer I got was:

“We will set out steps for the appointment of a new Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner in due course.”

We are now almost a month on from that.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Surely the greatest deficiency is the fact that there is no statutory basis for the Veterans Commissioner? If we are going to secure the long-term future of the essential provision that a Veterans Commissioner can offer, surely we need to have it on a statutory basis, as elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Is that not the most important step that the Government could take moving forward?

[Robin Swann]

I thank the hon. Member for his point, and I will come to it later when I quote him in regards to the concerns that were raised when Mr Kinahan resigned.

On Mr Kinahan’s appointment, the leader of the Ulster Unionist party at that stage, Dr Steve Aiken, said that it

“will be warmly welcomed by all veterans and the wider armed forces community across all of Northern Ireland”,

that Mr Kinahan would

“be a first-rate advocate for the many thousands here who have served”

and that

“by his appointment we have at long last joined the rest of the United Kingdom in providing that very necessary representation.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson]

Thank you, Mr Dowd. I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. In fact, my next sentence was going to be one that will please him greatly, I think. I was about to say: which is why we have moved very quickly to advertise the position of the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner. In fact it will be advertised this week, with all the details available. This debate is therefore extremely timely and can serve as a very long job advertisement for the position. I hope that many people who listen to this debate, or read it in Hansard, will consider applying for this position. It is such an important position and one on which we have moved extremely quickly as a Government, demonstrating our commitment to supporting veterans.

[Jim Allister]

Will the Minister give way?

[Fleur Anderson]

If I keep giving way, I will not have enough time to speak, so I think I will continue.

Mr Kinahan was appointed by the previous Government, which established the role of the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner. I join the Secretary of State in expressing my gratitude for Mr Kinahan’s dedicated work over the last four years on behalf of veterans and their families living in Northern Ireland. As has been said, it was one of the commitments made as part of the New Decade, New Approach political agreement in January 2020, which helped to restore devolved Government in Northern Ireland.

As set out in New Decade, New Approach, the commissioner’s role was

“to act as an independent point of contact to support and enhance outcomes for veterans in Northern Ireland.”

Danny Kinahan, himself a veteran and subsequently an elected representative in Northern Ireland, took up the role on 1 September 2020. Over the last four years the commissioner and his team have worked to deliver that important support for veterans in Northern Ireland. Their work conducting direct veteran engagements and veteran information roadshows across Northern Ireland has been particularly valuable, as has their establishment of a veterans mental health committee, involving a number of key mental health service providers for veterans.

The commissioner was also involved in encouraging collaborative working with the veterans sector, working closely with veterans commissioners in Scotland and Wales, with regimental associations and with the voluntary sector. He also sought to ensure that Northern Ireland veterans’ views were heard in my Department and across Whitehall with regard to the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 and the development of the Independent Commission on Information Recovery and Reconciliation.

In delivering its role, the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner’s Office works closely with a range of local statutory and non-statutory stakeholders. Previously that included the Veterans Support Office, which was formed in 2018 to develop capacity to deliver the armed forces covenant in Northern Ireland and played a role in co-ordinating and signposting to charity provision. It closed in June this year, as the way that support for veterans is provided in Northern Ireland continues to evolve.

Many of the functions of the Veterans Support Office had over time been replicated by other organisations or superseded by other initiatives. That includes the establishment of the Veterans Commissioner’s Office, which now plays a leading role in communicating with and championing the needs of veterans resident in Northern Ireland, as well as building connections with partners delivering support to veterans across Northern Ireland.

The Office for Veterans’ Affairs has additionally created a new role, based in Belfast, to provide dedicated strategic co-ordination of organisations, programmes and initiatives that support veterans’ wellbeing in Northern Ireland. That post will become operational imminently and is a post that is evolving to continue to support veterans.

This is a Government of service that will always stand up for those who have served our country. My hon. Friend and colleague the Minister for Veterans and People is leading work across Government and with civil society to ensure that our veterans and their families get access to the health, housing, employment and other support that they need, wherever they reside in the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland specifically, the specialist statutory welfare body for veterans, the Veterans Welfare Service, provides information and practical support to veterans and their families, including timely physiotherapy and psychological therapies to eligible veterans.

The £500,000 Defence Medical Welfare Service pilot additionally supports veterans’ health and wellbeing in Northern Ireland and provides insight that will improve our understanding of veterans’ health needs. Veterans in need of housing advice, meanwhile, can contact the Government’s single housing support pathway, Operation FORTITUDE, where a dedicated team of advisers works to assist veterans across the UK.

The armed forces covenant continues to be a key Government priority, with a commitment to fully implement the covenant in law. It ensures that the armed forces community is treated fairly across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, although its delivery is approached differently there due to Northern Ireland’s unique historical and political circumstances.

As the hon. Member for South Antrim mentioned, at the beginning of September the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner met the Secretary of State, who accepted his resignation. Mr Kinahan explained his reasoning, and it has been reiterated publicly. I join the Secretary of State in expressing my gratitude for Mr Kinahan’s dedicated work. I am delighted that we started work immediately on the appointment of the new Veterans Commissioner—I hope that will begin tomorrow, but maybe later this week.

The appointment of the new Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner will be made on merit by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, following open and transparent process, which includes public advertising and independent assessment. Again, I encourage all suitably experienced people to apply for this important role. In the meantime, the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner’s Office has engaged and will continue to engage with veterans, signposting them to support, including while the new Veterans Commissioner is appointed. Indeed, I believe the office was involved in a successful event last month at Parliament Buildings in Belfast, which recognised and celebrated Northern Ireland veterans’ service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which was sponsored by the hon. Gentleman’s party colleague, Lord Elliott.

In addition, the Government are committed to continuing to support veterans in Northern Ireland through the Veterans Welfare Service, which has field teams across Northern Ireland linked in with various partner organisations and statutory bodies, and with the different initiatives funded via the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust. That includes the Veterans’ Places, Pathways and People programme, known as the Veterans’ Pathway in Northern Ireland, which is led by the charity Brooke House and does excellent work on improving the co-ordination of mental health support to veterans among partner organisations locally. The charity Beyond the Battlefield was also awarded £100,000 in March 2024 to provide wraparound services for veterans in Northern Ireland who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

I have listened carefully to the points the hon. Gentleman made about the basis for the role, including the ability to communicate, with veterans, health support and the other issues. I am pleased that he has raised those, and I am sure they will be read by any applicants for the role and by the future Veterans Commissioner once they are appointed.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. The role of the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner is an important element of the support provided to veterans across a wide range of areas that I have already detailed, in recognition of their service to our country. Let me once again encourage everyone who is suitably experienced to apply for the post, and reiterate that this Government recognise the dedicated service of all our veterans and are committed to supporting the veteran community across the whole of the United Kingdom. This is a Government of service that will always stand up for those who have served our country, and we will continue to do so.

Question put and agreed to.

Northern Ireland City Deals

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

In fairness to myself, I have pointed out that these two schemes are not as far advanced as the Belfast and the Derry/Londonderry and Strabane city deals, because one of them only recently signed its heads of terms and the other has yet to do so. From memory, the time it took for the Belfast and the Derry and Strabane deals to get from heads of terms to full financial deal signing was between two and a half and three and a half years. So there is some way to go based on past experience, precisely because a great deal of work has to be done in partnership with the private sector, the Northern Ireland Executive, local businesses and the councils to put the shape of the deals in place. The right hon. Member makes a powerful argument for clarity as quickly as possible.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Could I suggest that the Causeway deal was particularly well thought out and balanced in its proposition? It is therefore very disappointing to see it paused, particularly for the small but vital village of Bushmills, which services the vast number of visitors who come to the Giant’s Causeway. For years, there has been a neglect of infrastructure there. Roads have been clogged with cars because there is not adequate parking in and about Bushmills. This project was going to address that, as well as community rejuvenation in the village. Therefore, there is an immense sense of disappointment in Bushmills in my constituency at the lost opportunity. Will the Secretary of State, bearing in mind the strategic significance of Bushmills to the advancement of the great Giant’s Causeway project, make a particular case for the reinstatement of the Causeway project?

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman speaks up very strongly on behalf of Bushmills and the Giant’s Causeway area. I know that all other Members representing constituencies affected by the decision the Treasury has had to take will be doing exactly the same. I think all the projects are important, but he makes the case very powerfully.

Patrick Finucane Murder

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am sorry to have disappointed the hon. Member. As I indicated, having met the one survivor of the Kingsmill massacre, I have some appreciation of just what an appalling and brutal event that was, at a time of many appalling and brutal murders. There has been an inquest, which concluded recently. As I recall, it held the Provisional IRA responsible for that murder. I am sure that the families want to proceed further, and one of the options open to them is to go to the independent commission, but at the risk of repeating myself, I need to point out that I came to my conclusion because the Finucane case is exceptional, for the reasons that I have tried to explain.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

May I begin by apologising to the Secretary of State and the House for being absent at the beginning of the statement? Secretary of State, has there ever been a family given more preferential handling by Government than the Finucane family? They have had a prime ministerial apology, multiple investigations, inquiries and now an uncapped public inquiry, after the family rejected previous Government offers of inquiries. Is not the tragic takeaway from the statement that the ICRIR is good enough for innocent victims of the IRA, the Ulster Volunteer Force and others, but not good enough for the Finucane family? Why is the Secretary of State perpetuating that odious hierarchy of victims?

[Hilary Benn]

I am not, is the answer. I know that the hon. Member was slightly late in coming to the Chamber, and from the beginning I set out my thought process. He will have an opportunity to read my statement subsequently. I clearly set out the reasons why I reached this decision. It is a fact that when the then Prime Minister David Cameron apologised from this Dispatch Box, it was unprecedented, because he referred to shocking collusion in this case. We Members of this House should take that extremely seriously, all of us who are committed to upholding our obligations. We were faced with two promises to establish public inquiries. I accept what the hon. Member says about that not happening after 2004 because of the then stance of the Finucane family, but that has now changed. There is also the Supreme Court decision of 2019; it said, I am afraid, that for all that had gone before, the state had not complied with its article 2 obligations. We will now do so.

Bill Presented

Renters’ Rights Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Angela Rayner, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Secretary Bridget Phillipson, Secretary Liz Kendall, Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary Ian Murray and Secretary Jo Stevens, presented a Bill to make provision changing the law about rented homes, including provision abolishing fixed-term assured tenancies and assured shorthold tenancies; imposing obligations on landlords and others in relation to rented homes and temporary and supported accommodation; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 8) with explanatory notes (Bill 8-EN).

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Allister Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

10. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on funding for the redevelopment of Casement Park.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

11. How much funding he plans to make available for the redevelopment of Casement Park.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)]

The Government are committed to ensuring that Euro 2028 benefits the whole of the United Kingdom. We are working as quickly as possible with all partners to assess the options on the Casement Park project.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I think we all wish Armagh well in the all-Ireland final. The Executive are committed to the Casement Park project—it has been a commitment for over a decade now—but it has not progressed. Windsor Park got an upgrade, Ravenhill got an upgrade and it is important that Casement Park is built. That is why I said on my recent visit that one way or another that project needs to be completed.

[Jim Allister]

Will the Secretary of State explain to the 356,000 citizens of Northern Ireland who await out-patient appointments and to the 94,000 who await in-patient admissions why, in the Government’s view, it seems to be a priority to pour hundreds of millions of pounds into a GAA sports stadium instead of fixing our health service? If the Government commit money and the Euros do not come to Belfast, will the Government not be in a position in which the rugby stadium and the football stadium did not get a penny of Treasury or Northern Ireland Office money, but the GAA did? How could that be fair and how could that be proportionate?

[Hilary Benn]

I hope very much that sport will be a force for unity in Northern Ireland, rather than a source of division. When it comes to the health service, the hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful point. The state of the NHS in Northern Ireland, with the longest waiting lists in the United Kingdom, is a function, if I may say so, of decisions that the Executive have failed to take over many years. The people of Northern Ireland want to have a better health service, and that needs the plan to which the new Health Minister is committed.