Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

For the final question, I call Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Kenova report was clear in proving that there was no evidence of state collusion or machinations. Yet the republican drum still bangs to cover the sound of the voices of the innocents calling for justice and to be heard. How will the Secretary of State respond to the lack of protection for the service personnel and the perpetual and deliberate focus on them, and will he look at the 2,057 murders carried out by republicans and the 1,027 loyalist murders that have not received any justice at all? Will there be yet another whitewash over the blood of the innocents that has been shed and the impact that that still has on all those families throughout the Province?

[Hilary Benn]

I have the greatest respect for the hon. Gentleman. I think that he, I and, I hope, the whole House share the desire to enable answers for all those families who are living with the pain of not knowing what happened to their loved ones. The Kenova report has made an important contribution to seeking to uncover the truth. In drafting the legislation, we have drawn on a number of the lessons of Kenova, including that of the victims and survivors advisory panel, because many people said that that was one of the great things about the way Kenova went about its job. It is in the draft Bill that the House will consider again shortly.

Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Kenova

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Final question—Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Mine is always the final, final question, Mr Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State very much for his answers. I also thank all of the security forces, the Army and the RUC for all they did to save lives. I think this House, the nation and Northern Ireland owe them a great debt for all they have done, and we should put that on the record.

When thinking of Kenova, my mind goes back to 1984 and the case of Jimmy Young, who lived in Portaferry in my constituency of Strangford. His case was part of the file sent to the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland that included a report on Stakeknife’s involvement, but no prosecution was ever initiated. What steps will be taken to ensure that the family members who are still alive and mourning Jimmy’s killing have access to as much information as legally possible and get some form of justice for his murder? I always ask for justice, and I am asking for justice for Jimmy Young and this family.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman—

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point, which we have discussed in the House before. As he has acknowledged, there is currently a public inquiry, set up by the last Government, into the terrible events that occurred at Omagh. I think the right and proper thing to do is to let that inquiry proceed with its work and, I hope, provide the answers that families are looking for.

Northern Ireland is now a largely peaceful place, but many people—including those I have had the privilege of meeting and who have shared with me their grief, their pain, their anger and their loss—still live with the effects of those decades of violence. Far too many have still, all these years later, been unable to find an answer to the simplest of questions: what happened—how did my loved one die?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Further to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), the Republic of Ireland Government and the Garda Síochána have to respond on the things on which they fell short. For instance, when my cousin was killed and others were killed, the killers crossed the border to sanctuary and safety. There was collusion between the Garda Síochána and the people responsible for those murders. Those are some of the things we need within this process. Can the Secretary of State assure all of us, on behalf of our constituents, that the justice we all seek will happen through this Bill, because I am not quite sure of that at the moment?

[Hilary Benn]

I say to the hon. Member, for whom I have enormous respect, that I hope very much that that is the case, because one of the consequences of the agreement reached between the British and Irish Governments, which was published on 19 September, is that the Irish Government will move once our legislation has been put in place. They will move from their current position, which is that they will not co-operate with institutions that we know have failed—I shall come on to that point in a moment—to the fullest possible co-operation with the Legacy Commission and, by doing so, will open up the possibility of people seeing information they have not seen for too long.

The architects of the Good Friday agreement knew that the suffering of victims and survivors needed to be addressed, but they were not able to do so. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that this unfinished business falls to us—to all of us—because time is running out. I want to say directly to all the families—some are here in the Gallery today, and others are watching our proceedings—that we have heard their call, as I hope has the whole House, for us to do more to help them get the answers they seek.

What is this Bill aiming to do and why is it needed? It seeks to put in place a means of dealing with legacy that can actually command broad public support in Northern Ireland, in particular for families who have been trying to find answers for so long. It is needed because the previous Government’s legislation—the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023—whatever its intentions, fundamentally failed. It failed because it has been found in many respects to be incompatible with our international obligations, so creating a legal quagmire of uncertainty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)]

I rise to oppose the Bill in the strongest possible terms. The Bill has been weighed in the balance of justice and found gravely wanting. It fails the test of fairness, it fails the test of common sense and it fails the test of our duty to protect innocent victims and our veterans.

No one should underestimate the pain, the grief and the enduring trauma that the evil of terrorism has left in its wake. Some 3,500 people were murdered and countless others were maimed, physically and psychologically, condemned to lifelong suffering. It is the duty of everyone in this House to address that—not casually, not evasively, but seriously, honestly and above all with moral clarity.

[Jim Shannon]

On accountability, I think we all want justice for those victims who have never had justice. I think of the four Ulster Defence Regiment men of Ballydugan, for instance: there was no justice for them and nobody was ever made accountable. My cousin Kenneth Smyth was murdered by the IRA and they fled across the border. No one was ever made accountable. Does the hon. Member feel that the justice that my family and all the other families want cannot be delivered through the Bill?

[Alex Easton]

The hon. Member is perfectly right; the Bill will not give justice to innocent victims. Moral clarity is grievously lacking in the Bill. Far from delivering justice, the legislation seeks in effect to rewrite history. We are shamefully witnessing those who stood between the innocent and the most evil terrorism western Europe has ever known being hounded to their graves. There are no letters of comfort for them. There is no opaque, invisible process quietly smoothing their path. Instead, rather than naming and confronting terrorism, the Bill constructs a grotesque false equivalence between those who wore the uniform of the Crown and those who sought to bomb and murder them into submission.

Those who upheld the rule of law are being treated as morally indistinguishable from those who waged war against it. This is an affront to justice, to truth and to the memory of the victims. Those who stood between us and terror deserve better than to be hounded in the autumn of their lives by legislation that blurs right and wrong, truth and falsehood. This Bill fails that moral test. It fails our veterans, it fails the innocent and it fails the cause of genuine reconciliation. Justice demands that history never forgets those who chose the path of murderous terrorism and those who stood in their path and defeated them. This House has a duty not to pass legislation simply to make us feel better about the past, or for reasons of political expediency, but to pass legislation that is fair, honest and just.

I am also deeply concerned about the legacy procedures operating outside the framework even of the ICRIR, such as public inquiries into nationalist and republican cases such as Pat Finucane, when victims of the IRA get no such inquiries. Operation Denton, which operates without any statutory framework or safeguards at all, has reportedly been travelling to Dublin and disclosing UK intelligence material to campaign groups, as reported in the media last month.

Specifically on the Bill, I too have serious concerns about clause 5. The requirement to have policing experience in Northern Ireland could mean experience of being part of an external investigation team such as Kenova, rather than having served in the RUC or the PSNI. It is a back-door way of ushering out former members of the RUC and PSNI officers, again to placate those who would rewrite history. The Bill also provides for the chief executive to be part of the oversight board. How can somebody charged with discharging operational functions simultaneously have oversight of the discharge of those functions?

Finally, is the proposal to have an advisory group to which the Secretary of State shall be required to have due regard not simply a way of again loading up such an advisory group with nationalist legacy activist groups? Can the Secretary of State give an assurance that, for example, such advisory groups will be required to give an undertaking and commitment to the definition of an innocent victim? Or are we going to be left with a panel, some of whose participants believe that, for example, the Shankill bomber is as much a victim as those who were murdered? That is just not right. Can the Secretary of State assure the House that no terrorists will sit on the legacy board? That assurance is not in the Bill, and he needs to clarify that. I want it in the Bill.

Will the Irish Government give up their secrets? I very much doubt it. Let us draw a clear moral line between those who upheld the law and those who violated it. Let us protect veterans from endless vexatious complaints. Let us be honest with real victims about what can genuinely be achieved. Let us preserve the historical record so that further generations know the truth about what happened. This is not just another piece of legislation. In our desire to make progress, we must not betray the very people who—

“Soldier F” Trial Verdict

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

It would indeed be possible for them to refer the case to the commission.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I will first declare an interest: I served in the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Ulster Royal Artillery for some 14 and a half years.

This ruling was expected, as there was no additional evidence and it was twice held to be not fit for prosecution, as others have mentioned. It is hard to understand how they could pursue something without having the criminal investigation and the evidence sorted in advance. It is clear that the Secretary of State must address the way forward and provide certainty for those service personnel who know that they served honourably in impossible conditions, and yet who live with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, waiting to have their service used as a tool by republicans to make it seem like they were fighting a dirty war, when quite clearly they were not.

Will the Secretary of State send the message today that he will not sign off on the narrative that our troops—the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Ulster Defence Regiment—were ever anything other than honourable men and women putting their lives on the line for us, and that they will be protected as honourably as they protected us? How does the Secretary of State intend to protect them better than we are doing right now?

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the protections that we have put into legislation following the discussions that we have had with veterans, which I referred to earlier. I join him in again paying tribute to the extraordinarily brave service of all those who served during the time of Operation Banner in trying to protect the people of Northern Ireland from the terrorists. I will make a point that I know the whole House will agree with: while some people argue that there was no alternative to that terrorism, there was, and we saw it in the signing of the Good Friday agreement and what happened thereafter. There was always an alternative. That is why we should always support those who did their duty honourably.

Northern Ireland Troubles

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I suppose I should take that praise from the right hon. Gentleman at face value. The fact is that sections 46 and 47 were found to be incompatible, but I have listened, and I hope Members of the House will find me willing to listen. I must, however, correct him, because when it comes to the immunity provisions, they were found to be incompatible, and he is correct in what he describes, but they were also struck down under article 2 of the Windsor framework. That is why they are not operational.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is no secret that I have major concerns over the legacy Bill, not least that innocent victims were precluded from taking their path to justice. What seems to be before us now is carte blanche for political inquiries and yet no hope for the Kingsmill families. It instead highlights the role of the Irish Government in British matters after their continued refusal to engage and their collusion to protect IRA murderers across the border.

In the penultimate paragraph of his statement, the Secretary of State said that

“the many families who lost loved ones…will be the judge of whether these new arrangements can give them the answers that they have sought for so long.”

Quite clearly, that will not be the case for many families, and the Secretary of State will know that a member of my family was murdered on 10 December 1971. It shows that the Government have no heart for the victims but have an ear instead for the victim maker. Does the Secretary of State not understand why these feelings exist? When will he put right thinking and good people of the Province above being seen to be politically correct by the enemies of peace and justice in Northern Ireland? My family seek justice, and I do not see it on the other side. For all the other families that I represent and that we all represent, we seek that justice, but not within this.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken before most powerfully and movingly about the impact that the death of family members has had upon him. He exemplifies, if I may say so, what so many people in Northern Ireland say when they meet us and talk to us: some will open up and some will weep, and some will not be able to open their mouths to describe what happened because the pain runs so deep after all these years. We are trying to create a mechanism and a means of enabling every single family who wants to come forward and say, “Can you please look at this case and see if we can find more information?” to do that.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Kingsmill massacre. As I have already indicated to the House, that is one of the cases that the commission is currently looking into. There was the inquest verdict, and we know what it found. I will simply say to the House that probably the most difficult conversation I have had since I took up this post was to listen to the sole survivor of the Kingsmill massacre, Alan Black, describe to me exactly what happened on that dark and dreadful night.

Privilege

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That

(1) the transcript of unreported oral evidence taken from Mr Baxter by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in private session on 11 November 2009 be referred to the Committee of Privileges;

(2) the Committee consider the petition from the Secretary to the Omagh Bombing inquiry in relation to that evidence and take any advice it considers necessary;

(3) the Committee’s powers, including the power to report and publish evidence if it considers it appropriate to do so, shall apply in respect of that evidence;

(4) the Committee report to the House on the actions it has taken and any other matters it considers relevant by 30 October 2025; and

(5) if the Committee considers the evidence should remain unreported, the Committee’s report should include a recommendation on the desirability or otherwise of the release of the evidence to the Omagh Bombing Inquiry.

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing this debate today. I raise the matter as a former Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, a current member of that Committee and the current Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which by dint of shadowing the Cabinet Office overlooks the Inquiries Act 2005. I have worked closely with the current Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), on the motion. We simply hope to take the procedural step needed to enable the important work of the Omagh bombing inquiry to be effective, while in tandem respecting the rights of the House.

On Wednesday last week, my hon. Friend for Gower—for she is a friend in respect of this work, as well as in many other respects—presented a petition from the secretary to the inquiry asking for access to unpublished Committee evidence. We must not forget what lies behind this motion, so let me quote from the 2008 report of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee into the Omagh bombing:

“On Saturday 15 August 1998, a 500 lb car bomb exploded in Market Street, Omagh, County Tyrone, killing 29 people and two unborn children. The bombing caused more death than any other single atrocity committed during, or since, the Troubles in Northern Ireland. More than 250 people were treated in hospital and hundreds more were also injured. The Real IRA claimed responsibility for the attack three days later. No one has been convicted of causing the bombing.”

Like colleagues across the House, I think it is important that we remember and honour those innocent people who were killed and injured that day. Questions still remain and the inquiry seeks to answer them—let us hope that it does so.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I was born in Omagh a long, long time ago—70 years ago, to be precise. I do not remember very much about it, but Omagh has always been dear to my heart. I remember well the event as it took place, the people that day and the tears we all shed for the people of Omagh, and we seek justice. Families have suffered for too long and I support their quest for justice. Does the hon. Member agree that justice should be at the forefront of the minds of all right hon. and hon. Members during this process?

[Simon Hoare]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. If this place is not a champion of justice and its pursuit as a high court of Parliament, what is it?

Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

On a point of order, Mr Mundell. Before the debate, I spoke to you, the Speaker’s Office and the shadow Minister. Many of us here would love to participate in the other debate in the main Chamber, but we cannot because we cannot be in two debates at one time—some people have tried that; I have tried in the past, and it does not work. If possible, we would like for MPs from Northern Ireland to be able to make at least an intervention, and maybe ask a question in the other debate. I seek some guidance from you, Mr Mundell—I hate to put you on the spot, and I apologise for doing so—because there are not just MPs from Northern Ireland here, but others who served, who probably wish to do the same.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

Thank you for that point of order, and for highlighting the conflict between this debate and the matter to be considered in the House later. I have considerable discretion in who is called and when they are called, and I will seek to exercise that in the most effective way possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I commend the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for setting the scene on behalf of the Petitions Committee.

We have all spoken about this subject repeatedly, but let me be very clear that I will not tire of speaking up for our veterans about these entirely vexatious prosecutions. I declare an interest as somebody who served in the Ulster Defence Regiment for three years as a part-time soldier in an anti-terrorism role, and served for 11 and a half years as a member of the Royal Artillery—that was obviously a cold war role. The fact was that to be a soldier in Northern Ireland, whether in the Ulster Defence Regiment or any other regiment, was to be under threat.

I want to take up the comment of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk about the yellow card. As 18, 19 or 20-year-olds, we read out our yellow card every night before we left. Not one of the soldiers I served alongside, or any I knew, ever disregarded that yellow card. The role that a soldier had to play was quite clear.

We all know why these cases exist. To say that they are seeking justice does not paint the whole picture. The cases are pressed by republicans in an attempt to whitewash the history into a Hollywood version that paints them as freedom fighters oppressed by an evil regime. Well, they were not. The blood of those who were murdered at chip shops, burned alive with a napalm-like substance when out for a meal in a restaurant or mowed down with machine guns when attending their church—the blood of these innocent victims cries out against all attempts to change that appearance from pure evil to justifiable. These atrocities and crimes can never, ever be justified. There is no Hollywood lens that could make the Omagh bombing—there will be a debate about that in the main Chamber shortly—seem like it was in pursuit of a noble cause. It was not, and it never could have been.

The reason why these soldiers were stationed in Northern Ireland was to deal with the very real and lethal threat from paramilitaries of all beliefs—loyalist and republican alike. It was under that threat that the soldiers operated. I was just saying this to one of the girls in the office last week. In March 1971, three off-duty Scottish soldiers were lured from a bar by an IRA operative and murdered along the road on the way to a party. They were not on duty; they were off duty, but the IRA saw them as targets.

When our British Army personnel were on duty, they were checking cars at road checkpoints to find razors hidden in car seats with the express purpose of injuring them. They were ambushed on the roads, shot at and killed or maimed. The circumstances in which they operated were not those of war as it had been known—it was guerrilla warfare, and these men were on constant high alert. Indeed, their mental health continues to pay the price today for that high state of alert.

The reason why I highlight that is twofold. First, the high state of alert in a situation that is highly charged and in which men know that their life is on the line at any second means that a split-second decision that they took 40 or 50 years ago may be difficult for them to remember and justify now. To expect these men to come to court to give an account on the detail of cases is simply untenable, especially as they were previously investigated and told that there was no case to answer, so you can understand, Ms Lewell, why we ask the question, “Why do it again?” Secondly, there is the harm from men trying to put themselves back in these positions. In terms of their mental stability, it is incredibly difficult and, indeed, can be damaging. To ask them to go back there is simply traumatising those who did nothing but follow an order.

Were we to be discussing cases in which soldiers or personnel went off on their own cognisance and carried out an attack, by all means hold them accountable and let them mount their defence, but that is not what we are questioning here. Today, we are asking 80-year-old men how they carried out the order 50 years ago, what they saw when they carried it out and why they did that. This is simply not fair or just.

The Army reviewed decisions taken at the time and brought people to justice for miscarriages of justice. The Government cannot come into a civil court 50 years later and retraumatise these men for doing what their officers required of them when there is no case to answer. That is why I believe these vexatious claims must stop. There can be no true justice from them when these men were acting under orders, and we cannot send this message to serving personnel today.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will my hon. Friend take an intervention?

[Jim Shannon]

A pithy one, Sammy, if you know what pithy is.

[Sammy Wilson]

Will my hon. Friend accept that people being dragged to court, sometimes for the second or third time, is not about justice or accountability, but about harassment and an attempt to find ways of rewriting history, and that is why this is so wrong?

[Jim Shannon]

Yes, that was pithy—well done. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is the rewriting of history and an injustice done to soldiers who served. There are many in this room who served; indeed, the Minister for Veterans and People is an honourable and gallant Member.

I will conclude with these words, because I am conscious that others want to speak and I am certainly not going to take any more than my five minutes. These men served in circumstances that I can well remember, because I served alongside them. Many in this Chamber may not be able to imagine what that all meant. They laid it on the line to protect us, and we have, I believe, a duty to protect them from the reimaging that Sinn Féin-IRA seek to carry out to justify their evil events. We can never believe that this was a fight for freedom. This was a fight against a faceless, brutal, murderous enemy that haunts service personnel to this day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The spending review gives the Northern Ireland Executive more funds to disperse as they see fit. It comes alongside the publication of the industrial strategy, the funds that the Government are making available and the £30 million that will come to Northern Ireland through UK Research and Innovation. There is funding available and there is great wealth, talent and potential in Northern Ireland to make the best use of it.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of Barnett funding on health in Northern Ireland, given that the Northern Ireland Department of Health’s financial bid falls below requested and required levels each year? It is important that we have funding for health, so will the Secretary of State outline what that will be?

[Hilary Benn]

The Government make funding available to the Northern Ireland Executive through the block grant. As the hon. Gentleman will know, it is for the Northern Ireland Executive to decide how they distribute the money between all the needs in Northern Ireland, including health, where of course there are significant pressures. The public services transformation funding that the last Government made available is now beginning to be used to reform some of the ways in which the health service works.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about tackling attitudes. I have met and I am supporting many groups, and I will highlight two that I have visited. The excellent Foyle Family Justice Centre in Derry/Londonderry supports victims, and the St Joseph’s Boys’ school in Creggan is doing fantastic work, with the support of White Ribbon NI, through the shaping mindsets programme, which tackles toxic masculinity head-on in the school.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister of State for all she does on her visits to encourage people across Northern Ireland, especially women, ladies and young girls. What we really need in Northern Ireland is legislative change, longer sentences and more people convicted. What discussions has she had with the Minister responsible for police and justice in Northern Ireland to ensure that, legislatively, we are moving fast to try to stop violence against women and ladies in Northern Ireland?

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the hon. Member for raising this issue, and he is absolutely right that what we do needs to be rooted in what happens on the ground. I met the executive unit working with the police to tackle perpetrators, and they are seeing evidence of that. The legislation for our jurisdictions can be joined up—that is absolutely right—but what has come across to me on many visits is the need to tackle what happens online. The Online Safety Act 2023 is now being enacted through Ofcom, which undertook a consultation in Belfast recently on its draft guidance. It proposes practical steps for online safety, and steps to tackle misogyny, pile-ons, domestic abuse and other harms. He is absolutely right about what we can do, through our efforts on the ground, if we all work together.

Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of the Windsor Framework on parcel deliveries across the Irish Sea.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. Tomorrow, 1 May, the noose of the Irish sea border will tighten even further in respect of business in Northern Ireland. We already have the red lane Irish sea border, subject to the full complement of EU requirements, through which all raw materials for our businesses have to pass. We also have what was called the green lane, which has been renamed but otherwise little about it has changed, for the passage of other goods; we have a business-to-consumer border for parcels; and now—in some ways the most threatening because of the scale of the businesses that will be affected—we have the business-to-business parcel border. Of course, that is a border partitioning the supposed United Kingdom and its supposed internal market.

The essence of an internal market is that goods move unfettered and unchecked between and within all parts of it. We now have something else, courtesy of the absurd protocol—or, as we now call it, the Windsor framework. In view of the fact that that decreed that we in Northern Ireland are subject to the EU’s customs code, which in turn decrees that Great Britain is a third or foreign country, we now have the absurdity of various dimensions of border for the passage of goods from GB to Northern Ireland.

For 200 years, the Northern Ireland economy has been intensely integrated with the GB economy, particularly in manufacturing. It was always the northern part of Ireland that had the big manufacturing sectors. Therefore, the integration, in particular with regard to the supply of raw materials, has been pivotal and GB has been the primary source of all that.

Now, parcels will be subject to rigorous EU requirements, including the requirement for a commodity code—

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

In a moment. Information must be provided about the country of origin each item, the value of each item and the total value of all the items in the parcel, and any goods that are at risk of passing into the EU’s single market across the border. One of the weaknesses of the protocol is the presumption that everything is at risk of passing, and therefore any raw material—if it is going into manufacturing, who knows where it will end up?—has to go through all that rigour.

That is a preposterous imposition, not just in bureaucracy, but in cost and making Northern Ireland non-competitive. It means that a business manufacturing something in Northern Ireland that it wants to sell back on the GB market or wherever is subject to restraints, which will increase costs, making it less and less competitive. That is one of the greatest iniquities of the sea border and of the business-to-business parcels border.

We have had the protocol in place for four years. Is there any evidence that business parcels are imposing any harm on the EU single market? Have the Government, the EU or anyone else carried out an audit of the alleged harm that business parcels passing from GB to Northern Ireland could do? For four years, they have been flowing unfettered because of the grace periods, so where is the harm caused to the single market that must now be protected from?

[Jim Allister]

Of course, the natural, inevitable consequence of that is that GB suppliers will simply say, “It’s not worth the candle. We’re not going to make the effort. Why should we put ourselves through all these hoops in order to supply to Northern Ireland? It’s not a huge market in the first place. We’ll simply stop supplying.” That has already happened. I constantly receive complaints from consumers, but increasingly I am getting them from businesses that say, “We know that our suppliers will simply stop supplying.” That is going to be another hammer blow to our economy.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for bringing forward the debate. He is right to underline the issues and the concerns of both his constituents and mine. The internal market movement information obligation, which begins tomorrow, means that importers must be members of the internal market scheme as authorised parties, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) referred to. My constituents tell me that they are most concerned and confused, and that they do not quite understand the system. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is totally unrealistic for the Government to expect small businesses and individuals—my constituents in Strangford—to understand the obligations and abide by them due to ridiculous EU interference? The Government have an easier way of sorting this out: they must take steps to legally remove the obligation from their citizens in Northern Ireland. Do that and the problems are solved.

[Jim Allister]

Indeed. This is a real issue. In my constituency of North Antrim, I have many satellite small engineering firms. Many of them are subcontractors to Wrightbus, for example. They get their raw materials from GB. To get a simple parcel of bolts, nuts, washers or whatever, because they are manufacturers, they will now have to go through the processes of the red lane business-to-business border. That is in circumstances in which there is no evidence—if there were, we would have heard of it—that the EU’s vast single market is being the least bit impacted by business-to-business parcels. The people who will now be affected are those businesses —the people who employ my constituents.

The other consequence of the machinations of this border is that when GB suppliers stop supplying, firms will have to get their raw materials from somewhere, and some of them will have to come from the Republic of Ireland. Of course, that is the overall, underlying intent of the Windsor framework: to reorientate the economy of Northern Ireland away from its GB roots and connections, and to force an increase in all-Ireland trade. Here we are, arriving at a situation where we have a perfectly unfettered, all-Ireland single market, but in the nation of which we are a part, the United Kingdom, our single market is fettered and partitioned. That was the intent of the protocol. The protocol was always about making Northern Ireland the price of Brexit, and so it is turning out to be.