Debate on the Address

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and to hear him speak so passionately on behalf of his constituents. Many comparisons have been made with 1992 when a Tory majority Government were elected despite the odds and the predictions. Of course, the hon. Gentleman was the 1992 election personified—on that night, his election was the indication that the Conservatives would be returned.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) on proposing and seconding the Gracious Speech so appropriately and well.

[Alex Salmond]

I am trying to recall Basildon man and the 1992 election. What on earth happened to that 1992 Tory Government? How did they get on?

[Mr Dodds]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I join others in congratulating and welcoming him on his return to the House. I remember him here before he went back to Scotland to serve as First Minister. I will leave it to others to judge the record of the 1992 Government. In this Queen’s Speech debate, we will look to the future.

[Sir William Cash]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, we campaigned for a Maastricht referendum. Now we have a referendum, so there you are.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken many words of wisdom over the years with which I agree. He is certainly proof that if we work at and fight for an issue that we believe in, we will get there in the end, especially if the cause is right. As he knows, I have been a long-term advocate of giving the people of the United Kingdom their say, in a referendum, on whether we should be in or out of the European Union. I was delighted to see that in the Gracious Speech.

Before I go into further detail on the speech, may I, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, join others in commending our armed forces on the work they continue to do across so many theatres, and in so many other ways, to protect and defend the people of this country? Some 20% of United Kingdom reservists are Northern Ireland people, even though we make up only 3% of the population. That is testament to how committed the people of Northern Ireland are to the armed forces, which we feel strongly about.

[Sammy Wilson]

As so many of the armed forces reservists come from Northern Ireland and serve gallantly across the world, does my right hon. Friend accept that one of this Government’s priorities ought to be to ensure that the terms of the military covenant are fully available to soldiers from Northern Ireland who need such services after they leave the forces?

[Mr Dodds]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, which is one of those that arise out of the Belfast agreement. As he knows, equality provisions under section 75 work against giving our armed forces veterans the same status as those in the rest of the United Kingdom. That issue needs to be addressed, and it was covered in our manifesto and our Northern Ireland plan. No doubt we will have negotiations and discussions with the Government about the issue. I am sure that the Defence Secretary will take it on board and that the Government will want to see progress on it.

Before I get into any more detail on the Gracious Speech, may I also thank all right hon. and hon. Members and members of the staff of the House who have very kindly passed on their best wishes to our party leader, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson, who has suffered problems with his health this week and has been hospitalised as a result? I know that Peter, Iris and his family are deeply encouraged and comforted by the expressions of good wishes from both sides of the House. I am glad to report that Peter is doing well. He has worked extremely hard, probably to the detriment of his health, to try to make progress in Northern Ireland. His record of deal making, negotiation and fighting and standing up for Northern Ireland is one of which we should all be proud and that should continue. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope that he will soon be back to his position as First Minister in Northern Ireland, where he is much needed.

I congratulate the Government on the victory they have achieved—it would be churlish not to—as well as all those who have been elected to this House. At the election of the Speaker, I made the point that everybody elected to this House—as regards the constituents they represent and the parties that are here—is equal. We must consider very carefully any suggestion that Members should not be treated equally in this House.

Coming as I do from a small party from Northern Ireland, I think that it is important that all parties should be respected, that their voices should be heard and that there should be equality. This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom and a House of Commons to which everybody has been elected on an equal franchise. Having said that, I recognise that there is an issue for many people with English voters and that must be addressed in the context of the devolution of greater powers to countries. I do not say that there is an easy answer; everybody recognises that the issue has been debated for many decades. The questions have been posed, but the answers have not so readily come forth. On this issue, on greater devolution and on the devolution of powers to the cities and regions of the United Kingdom more generally, we need to take time, to take things carefully and to move forward in a consensual way. That is why I have advocated in the past the idea of a constitutional convention. We should not tamper with our constitutional arrangements ad hoc or quickly or for party political advantage, with possible unintended consequences; we must look at these things very carefully indeed, and I think we will want to consider a constitutional convention in due course as these matters come before the House.

We give a warm welcome to those new Members from Northern Ireland who have been elected to this House. I want to give a welcome to the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott). He is not a member of my party; he is a member of the Ulster Unionist party, but he was elected because there was a pact between the DUP and the Ulster Unionists, so that for the first time since 2001, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, the most westerly constituency of the United Kingdom, a constituency where I was brought up and went to school, is once again represented in the House of Commons; and so that the people of that great constituency have again a voice in this Parliament, and will have someone to represent them, instead of a Sinn Féin Member who refused to take their seat in this House of Commons. It is a good day for all the people of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, because they will have a representative who will represent them all—and I know he will. I wish him well, and I hope that he will be long spared to continue to represent that constituency.

I also welcome, of course, the new hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan). Again, he is not a member of our party, and I am very sorry at the loss of our previous Member, William McCrea, but I do wish the hon. Gentleman well and I hope we can work together in the best interests of Northern Ireland.

Most of all, of course, I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), a member of our party who has retaken that seat once again for Unionism. We warmly look forward to his continuing to represent that seat for many years to come.

This has been a good election in Northern Ireland for the Unionist cause. We may look at other parts of the United Kingdom and other countries. We did not put up any candidates in Scotland. [Hon. Members: “This time.”] We might do a better job! But I am glad to say that in Northern Ireland, Unionist representation in this House has gone up from 10 to 12 seats out of 18. That is a good advance in terms of Northern Ireland, and we look forward to ensuring that the voice of Unionists in Northern Ireland is heard loudly and clearly in the coming years in Parliament.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

One issue that was mentioned in the most Gracious Speech was that of psychoactive drugs—legal highs—on which the people of my constituency, my party and, I believe, many parties in this Chamber wish to see legislation introduced. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister, in his address to the House, did not give us a time scale for that. On behalf of my constituents in Newtonards, especially the family of young Adam Owens, who died six weeks ago as a result of taking legal highs, I say that we need to see this legislation coming through quickly. Do my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) think that should happen right away?

[Mr Dodds]

I agree with what my hon. Friend has said and he knows that that was in our manifesto and that we are pursuing it very strongly in the Northern Ireland Assembly as well.

A few weeks ago, the idea of a majority Government of any hue was regarded as ludicrous and out of the question. Pollsters and the political class have been rightly criticised. Speculation about the role of some of the smaller parties was rife at that time; people were predicting that they would have enormous influence. Now the same pundits who got it so wrong are predicting that some of the smaller parties will have absolutely no power at all. I read newspaper headlines just after the election saying, “That’s it—no role, no influence.”

Just as the pundits were wrong previously, they are wrong now, because in a Parliament where the Government have a majority of only 12, it will be increasingly important that the views of other parties are taken into account. Certainly we will adopt a constructive approach to legislation and measures that come before the House. We set out before the election some of the principles that would guide us in the House. We are Northern Ireland MPs, so we will always stand up for the best interests of Northern Ireland. We have proved that in running the Executive alongside others. We have proved it in the House in terms of delivering for Northern Ireland, and we will continue to do that strongly, and be a robust voice for all the people of Northern Ireland in this Parliament.

We are also Unionists, so we will always stand up for the Union, strengthening the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, ensuring that the symbols of British identity are strengthened, not weakened, in Northern Ireland. But we are also committed to making the United Kingdom stronger and better, not just in narrow Northern Ireland terms, but across the piece—throughout the United Kingdom. That is why we have emphasised the need to ensure that we have strong defences—the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) about the armed forces covenant was very important—in terms of our commitment to NATO, our commitment to ensuring that 2% of GDP is spent on defence. That is an important way of ensuring that the United Kingdom is able to play its full and proper role on the world stage. We look forward to the outworking of the full strategic defence and security review.

We of course welcome very strongly the commitment to the EU referendum. I remember that one of the first things I did in a previous Parliament was to bring in a private Member’s Bill to seek a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. At that time, the Prime Minister had previously given a cast-iron guarantee that there would be such a referendum, which he did not pursue. I remember the vote on the night when 81 Conservatives rebelled in relation to an EU referendum, and we were castigated—we joined with those Conservative rebels—and were told that it would not happen.

I am glad that now everybody in this House—apart from the SNP, of course—agrees that there needs to be a referendum on our relationship with the European Union. We will certainly support that legislation. We need to deal with the main issues that concern voters: the amount of money that goes to Europe, and the fact that the EU has an adverse effect in terms of immigration and border controls and in terms of the sovereignty of this House—our ability, as peoples of the United Kingdom, to make laws governing ourselves.

In terms of building a stronger United Kingdom, a stronger Union, we note the plans to devolve more powers to the towns and counties, the elected mayors, the English votes for English laws, and the plans to introduce the Scotland Bill, the Wales Bill and the Northern Ireland Bill. We will look at all of those in great detail.

I want to finish by pointing to the crisis that now envelops the Northern Ireland Assembly because of the failure to agree the welfare reform legislation. We have engineered a situation in which we have the best possible welfare reform compared with any other part of the United Kingdom—we have got rid of the bedroom tax—and yet it has been vetoed by Sinn Féin because they will not contemplate any change at all to welfare. As a result, there is a £600 million deficit in the Northern Ireland budget. That will lead to the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly by 31 July unless the Government step in and enact welfare reform. It is clear that Sinn Féin are not up to doing the job. If they will not act, then this sovereign Parliament must act.