Northern Ireland

Debate between Richard Thomson and Jim Shannon

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I have almost lost count of the number of times I have taken to my feet in this Chamber to say that Northern Ireland is governed best when it is governed locally. At last, we can now say that will be the case. No doubt, in terms of the agreement—the settlement that has been reached—there will be imperfections, compromises and asymmetries, and elements that are not for the self-appointed purists. However, there is certainly enough there for the pragmatists to allow for the progress that needs to be made.

Over the course of my time speaking for the Scottish National party on Northern Irish issues, I have had the great pleasure of serving as a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Understandably, much bandwidth in that organisation has been taken up with Brexit and its aftermath, the resulting fallout—and indeed many of the occasional fallings out that have resulted. However, when my committee met in Edinburgh last week, there was a definite change in the tone of conversations outside the formal business. I hope I am not putting words in any Members’ mouths by saying that there was a pleasure, a realism, certainly an optimism, and definitely a realism about recent developments, but the key thing was that nobody was any longer asking about when might Stormont return; rather, it was what would now be done by Stormont to improve the lot of people in Northern Ireland now that it had returned.

Within the agreement, one of the areas that leaps out—I hope that, in time, Ministers will expand on their vision for it—is the East-West Council to deal with matters of business, education and culture across that east-west axis. Even from the perspective of a hard-bitten Scottish nationalist much like myself, that opens up a great deal of useful space potentially to share and develop all that we have in common, all that we continue to have in common, and all that we will have in common and which will endure regardless of wherever our respective constitutional journeys happen to conclude in future.

[Jim Shannon]

Part of the engagement that the hon. Gentleman and I have had together was on his visit to my constituency of Strangford, where he had the opportunity to look at joint matters that we could agree on, such as fishing issues including visas for fishermen, and cultural issues. We took him to meet many community groups and other organisations as well. Does he agree that one of the important things for him and I was that, although we have different opinions on the constitution, we can agree on many things?

[Richard Thomson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Yes, when we put the constitution to one side, there are indeed many issues that can be agreed on or worked on together. That is why I find that the space that that council might offer quite compelling. It is certainly something of great interest. Now that politics in Northern Ireland has indeed moved on, it is perhaps time for me to hop once again on the Loganair flight from Aberdeen and perhaps renew some acquaintances.

In the many words we heard throughout the Brexit debate on where Northern Ireland found itself snagged, we often heard a rather boilerplate expression about a “precious Union”. That struck my ears. Those words were easy—perhaps too easy at times—for many in this place to pay lip service to without actually following through on them in practice. Sometimes it is easy to say things, but it is much harder to reflect. It seemed to us that the desire for a particular form of Brexit—favoured only by a small minority hiding behind a small majority in one part of the Union—was given primacy and priority, and was allowed to prevail over the clear wishes of other constituent parts of the Union. For many, however they voted in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, that reopened that debate and encouraged them to reappraise the position that they might have taken at that time.

I can certainly understand why the Humble Address before us is worded in this manner. The key word that the Minister has, in effect, conceded was implied but left unspoken was consent, where it applies to the executive power being vested in His Majesty. That is interesting to me for a number of reasons. Union by consent is how many of us in Scotland understand our position in the Union to work. But unlike Northern Ireland, we have nothing similar in statute to the wording of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, explaining what happens if a majority of those voting in Scotland were to express a wish to cease to be part of the UK. I would contend that in all parts of the Union there should be a way to demonstrate how consent has been withdrawn by the people, if it is being withdrawn. Following the events of the last few days, just like this Parliament, maintaining that consent will be judged by how the institution of the Union treats its minorities and is seen to act with integrity in all that it does.

In conclusion, we on the SNP Benches wish the people of Northern Ireland and their institutions well. We look forward to seeing their politicians and those institutions playing a full role in those bodies, be they north, south, east or west, and to seeing the Good Friday agreement move forward in all its strands, as we always hoped it would, to allow a peaceful, prosperous Northern Ireland to continue to come to terms with its past and be at ease in building its shared future, whatever its people decide that future ought to look like.

Insolvency Law and Director Disqualifications

Debate between Richard Thomson and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) on securing the debate. Given its title, it could have gone in many directions, but I think we are coalescing around a theme.

Directors clearly have important duties to their companies and their shareholders, whether in good times or bad. They have legal duties, including the duty to promote the success of the company for the benefit of the shareholders. However, when a company is in financial difficulty and there is a risk of insolvency, another set of responsibilities kick in. There is a duty to creditors to minimise losses.

As each speaker has highlighted, the regime appears to be letting far too many people down, and it is often those who can afford to lose out the least who end up losing out the most. Our view is quite simple. The UK Government must ensure robust supervision. Proper deterrents should be in place to ensure that those responsible in cases of negligence, or where economic crime has been committed, can be held to account.

The organisation openDemocracy estimates that fraud costs the UK about £290 billion a year in total and, in recent years, high-profile corporate scandals such as those at British Home Stores and Carillion raised serious questions about the level and quality of corporate governance in the UK and about the ability of those charged with supervising that governance to spot the obvious danger signs. In particular—I think it bears repetition—the collapse of Carillion in 2018 led to the loss of thousands of jobs and delay to many hundreds of infrastructure projects, while the directors walked away with their pay and bonuses intact. Those who had worked for them were left to suffer without.

[Jim Shannon]

Not only that, but a number of small companies suffered. People with their own businesses had to sell their properties and businesses, because they honoured the debt while others did not.

[Richard Thomson]

The hon. Member makes an extremely powerful point, which gets to the heart of the issue: those responsible for the waves of financial chaos that result from a corporate failure are not the ones who pay the price. Often, those who can afford to lose the least end up losing the most, whether that is their homes or their livelihoods. In 2020, two years on from the collapse, the assistant general secretary of the trade union Unite said that the UK’s accounting and audit system was clearly “not fit for purpose” and accused the Government of failing, even then, to demand reforms, because of their “many friends” among the major accountancy firms.

While the recent launch of the Financial Reporting Council consultation on its proposed changes to the UK corporate governance code was welcome, serious questions need to be asked about why that has taken so long so far. Frankly, the Government must get a move on with the reforms to ensure that they lead to a prompt, substantive and enforceable change of the landscape, so that the culture of corporate backscratching —if I may put it that way—that led to the Carillion collapse is left as a dim, distant and not-too-pleasant memory.

Robust deterrents are also required to ensure that where criminality is involved, those responsible—whether they are company owners or directors—and enablers are caught and receive proportionate sanctions for their actions. Culpable directors, senior managers and other enablers of economic crime need to face proportionate sanction, and the rules on anti-money laundering supervision need to be applied consistently.

Belfast/Good Friday Agreement: 25th Anniversary

Debate between Richard Thomson and Jim Shannon

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

This is the second debate in which I have participated in Westminster this week on the theme of the 25th anniversary of events. A debate was held a couple of days ago in Westminster Hall on the 25th anniversary of Welsh devolution, and it has been something of start for me to realise that I no longer measure my involvement in party politics in years or decades, but do so in increments of quarter centuries and even more.

However, it has been an incredible privilege to listen to the contributions we have heard so far today and I very much look forward to those to come. It was also a great privilege to attend the last session of the British- Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Belfast just a few weeks ago. It was a special session convened to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.

As part of that session, which was held in the magnificent debating Chamber at Stormont, it was fantastic to hear from some of the figures who played a key role in bringing about the agreement. We heard from the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern; Sir John Holmes, who served as the principal private secretary to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair; Baron Murphy of Torfaen, who was a Minister of State when the Good Friday agreement was signed and went on to serve as Secretary of State.

We were also party to a fantastic panel discussion involving members of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition—Kate Fearon, Bronagh Hinds, Dr Avila Kilmurray and Jane Morrice, who were all ably chaired by the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). Hearing their insights about the work that was done individually and collectively in communities to bring people to a space where, irrespective of the tradition people had come from, they could sign up to the principles of this and move forward to put Northern Ireland on a better path was truly inspirational. It was fascinating to hear that and to hear about the work that was done to make sure that the Good Friday agreement could not only come about, but take root and take effect. I found that a very valuable transfusion of knowledge from the generation of politicians and officials who had been there on the ground at the time to the cohort of politicians who have been charged with taking an interest, moving things on and creating the political environment in which we hope relations can continue to move forward in a positive direction in our own time.

We know what the key parts of the agreement were and all that flowed from them. We saw the establishment of new institutions, such as the Northern Irish Assembly, the Northern Ireland Executive and the North South Ministerial Council. It led the way to the decommissioning under the supervision of General de Chastelain. Much to the angst, anxiety and pain of many, it saw prisoner release as part of that process. It also saw the British Government committing to incorporating the European convention on human rights into the law of Northern Ireland and established the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. I have no doubt that, all through that, a number of untidy compromises needed to be made and there were a lot of concessions that must have tasted quite bitter at the time. It required tremendous movement on all sides, from historical, and perhaps even established and comfortable, positions. I certainly do not underestimate the personal toll that the leadership that was required to effect those positional changes must have taken on the participants.

It is also very difficult to overestimate the wider importance of the Good Friday agreement and the role that it played not only in the peace process in Northern Ireland, but in inspiring others in contested polities and areas around the world in providing an example of how progress can be made. The DNA underpinning the agreement is that of a recognition of the need for equality and depolarisation, mutual respect, and respect for the civil rights and religious liberties of everyone in the community.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is right to recognise the contribution that politicians from all sides made in Northern Ireland, but some of the good qualities that were shown then were also exercised in South Africa, with the beginnings of a peace that brought together divided communities that were so far apart. That was also an example for South Africa as it moved forward, as it has been for other countries, some of which have been more successful than others. South Africa is an example of where Northern Ireland’s specific knowledge was used to its benefit.

[Richard Thomson]

I thank the hon. Member for sharing that insight. South Africa is indeed one of the examples that we could have chosen, but I am sure that Northern Ireland serves as an inspiration elsewhere and to many others in terms of how contested political status can be worked through. Perhaps most important of all, it reinforced the principle of consent—that the UK had no selfish or strategic interest in Northern Ireland and that the people of Northern Ireland had the absolute right to choose their own constitutional future, which in turn was recognised by the Irish Government removing their territorial claim on Northern Ireland from the Republic’s constitution. It represented a stepping back from some of the comforting certainties and absolutes that had dominated the discussion on the future of Northern Ireland to open up a space where, yes, identity still mattered—how could it not?—but where that political space could be shared more easily and where people’s birthright to identify and to be accepted as British or Irish, or even both, and to hold citizenship for both states could be a reality. As the late great John Hume said, it also allowed Northern Ireland the chance to take the gun out of Irish politics.

In this 25th anniversary year, it is inevitable that there will be a focus on the strand 1 institutions. Certainly, I have expressed on more than one occasion my own disappointment that the North South Ministerial Council remains in abeyance, that Stormont is not sitting at a time when political direction from that Government and from politicians directly elected by the people of Northern Ireland is needed, arguably, more than it has ever been, given some of the challenges that are faced by the people of Northern Ireland on day-to-day issues of public sector delivery. But there are still many positives to take from the place that we are at.

Although I have lived through the history of the Good Friday agreement in my lifetime, it is inevitably from the prism of a viewpoint from Scotland, rather than from the perspective of somebody who has lived in Northern Ireland. Although I am wary of making too many comparisons and observations, on my visits to Northern Ireland since taking up the spokespersonship, I have been struck by the differences between what we used to see in grainy television footage from years gone by and the reality of modern Northern Ireland on the ground, the prosperity and vibrancy across Northern Ireland.

That prosperity is undeniable, both on the ground and in the statistics. Again, how could it not be? The reason for this is well captured in a report by the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, which noted that the Good Friday agreement had brought about

“a growing impact on stability and certainty, both in Ireland and in Britain, and a positive impact on economic growth and investment.”

OCO Global noted in a recent report:

“Exports have more than doubled since 1998, with GDP per capita growth exceeding most other parts of the UK.”

So there is little doubt that the peace dividend has brought a prosperity dividend. As we have heard from earlier contributions and interventions, it is perhaps easy, particularly for those who have not lived through the past quarter century and have no direct memory of the troubles, to take some of the advances of that period for granted.

For all the prosperity, we still see signs of a divided society today—a society that is more divided that we would wish it to be, whatever strides forward have been taken. We can see it from the prosperity of central Belfast: the peace walls that still snake their way out through the communities around the centre. We can see that physical segregation. We can see the segregation that continues in schools and in housing. For all that Northern Ireland has firmly embraced peace, we have had a salutary reminder this week, with the raising of the level of the terrorist threat, that there are elements in Northern Irish society that remain and prosper in the shadows of criminality, who would not hesitate to return to violence and intimidation to advance their agendas, given the opportunity.

The future is very much better now than it was 25 years ago. There was optimism then. Perhaps in the 25 years, the optimism has not lived up to the levels of optimism we had, but there can be absolutely no doubt that Northern Ireland is a society transformed from then. The future is still something to be written. Agreements evolve and develop and circumstances change. There is no bigger circumstance than Brexit, which has caused significant turbulence in British-Irish relationships, particularly in Northern Ireland. It damaged trust, and much needs to be done to restore that trust. That requires mature leadership, and the effective operation of the strand 1 institutions can very much play a part in that.

It was inevitable that the circumstance of Brexit would force a reappraisal among people of these islands, particularly in Scotland and Northern Ireland, about the political relationships that they would wish to have and the future to which they aspire. As that happens, it is very important to go back to the key element of the Good Friday agreement and to respect the principle of consent—just as those who brought the Good Friday agreement into existence a quarter of a century ago recognised that it had to be at the heart of progress in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Richard Thomson and Jim Shannon

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

I was very fortunate to have the hon. Gentleman in my constituency, where I gave him the opportunity, which I know he enjoyed it, to meet some of the Unionist community groups, the fishermen and the elected representatives. Every one of those people, as he will remember well, conveyed to him the unfairness of the Northern Ireland protocol and the impact it was having on fishing and on the community. He will know that the local people he met were very fearful of a future where the Northern Ireland protocol was retained. Does he understand those issues, and will he express that in the Chamber as well?

[Richard Thomson]

I recall that visit with great fondness, particularly the discussions we were able to have in Portavogie, and I am extraordinarily grateful to him and to everybody I met when I was last in Northern Ireland for the chance to discuss these matters. As I have said, I certainly hope I can empathise with and understand some of the issues raised there; if he will allow me to make some progress, he might see where there are perhaps areas of agreement and also, inevitably, some areas of divergence.