Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Swann Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

The Government’s sole purpose initially, in their first few months in office, was to clear up the mess that the hon. Gentleman’s party left in this country, including the £22 billion black hole. We will get on with delivering our missions, including clean power by 2030. That is what we are focused on, because that is what is good for jobs, good for bills and good for the environment.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

5. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of support available to Scottish plant and seed nurseries to sell products to Northern Ireland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Kirsty McNeill)]

Under the Windsor framework arrangements, the Northern Ireland plant health label allows growers and traders to move plants and seeds for planting from Great Britain to Northern Ireland without a phytosanitary certificate, and Scottish businesses have benefited from that. For example, more than 1,500 tonnes of previously prohibited seed potatoes, mostly from Scottish traders, were moved to Northern Ireland from Great Britain last year.

[Robin Swann]

As the Minister will know, according to McIntyre Fruit in Scotland, which also sells plants, it is easier to supply Japan than to send plants to Coleman’s garden centre in my constituency, and the same company is now seeing orders cancelled in Northern Ireland. At the weekend, Ewing’s Seafoods, Northern Ireland’s oldest fishmonger, had a 40-foot container filled with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh fish returned from Belfast to Scotland owing to administrative paperwork errors on seven boxes. Will the Minister, or the Secretary of State, meet me and representatives of those companies to discuss what can be done to ease the bureaucratic burden on both Northern Ireland and Scottish business?

[Kirsty McNeill]

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman, but let me reassure him: the horticultural working group, co-chaired by senior officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Cabinet Office, was set up specifically to tackle issues involving the movement of seeds to consumers in Northern Ireland as a first priority. The hon. Gentleman has also mentioned other topics, and I should be happy to meet him to discuss them, too. The working group meets regularly to address such issues, and includes representatives of the Ulster Farmers Union, the National Farmers Union and the Horticultural Trades Association, as well as business leaders and representatives of a small number of other horticultural businesses.

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[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Derby. She is right: whether it is the workforce I met at Alstom or the workers at Hitachi in County Durham, we will support our rail industry, providing certainty that delivers jobs, investment and security. I met those workforces. I know how worried they were a year ago, as she rightly says, when the previous Government were in charge. I am really proud that Derby will be the home of Great British Railways, because we are bringing railways back into public ownership to provide better services for passengers, cutting delays and cancellations and boosting growth across the country.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I and my party join the Prime Minister in his condolences for the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis.

The Prime Minister has often referred to his time working in Northern Ireland, and I have spoken to one of his bosses, who speaks of his diligence. In that vein, could he speak to his Northern Ireland team about their understanding of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement? In an interview, the Secretary of State seemed to think that it had been negotiated by Ian Paisley, rather than David Trimble and my party. His Northern Ireland Minister said at the start of this week that the future of Northern Ireland as part of the Union is dependent on opinion polls and she was not sure whether she was a Unionist. Will the Prime Minister confirm to me his understanding of the principle of consent and confirm to this House that he is a Unionist?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Member for that question. I did work in Northern Ireland for five years and therefore appreciate at first hand how important these issues are. It was a very formative period for me in terms of my career and my thinking.

The Good Friday agreement is one of the proudest achievements of the last Labour Government. I pay tribute to everybody who helped to bring that about, because, as the hon. Member and other Members will know, it was such an important moment in the history of the conflict. I absolutely stand four-square behind its principles, some of which I was doing my part to help implement when I was working in Northern Ireland, and they will always drive me on the issues that he raises with me.