Debate on the Address

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Geraint Davies

Thursday 19th December 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

May I first congratulate the Government on winning the election? For many people across the United Kingdom, the kind of Queen’s Speech we could have had today could have been vastly different: probably a programme for bankruptcy rather than a programme for a brighter future for the United Kingdom. It is significant that, right across the United Kingdom, people who would normally have voted for other parties decided that they were not taken in by the Leader of the Opposition wrapping himself in his big red coat and promising all kinds of Christmas presents. They knew that, if they voted for that, they would be paying for Christmas for years.

It is important that we have a Government who have promised to deliver sensible arrangements for services across the United Kingdom and sensible economic growth, while at the same time recognising that one of the major things that people in this country wanted was delivery on the promise that the referendum to leave the European Union would be honoured. I will come back to that issue in a moment or two, because I do not believe that the approach the Government are taking fully fulfils that commitment. There are things that we as a party want to see the Government changing in the next year. But let me just say that we welcome many of the commitments that have been made.

I know from the campaign that I had around the doors in East Antrim that one of the major things that came up time and again was the state of our health service. Given the growing demands on the health service, the greater possibilities for treatments that did not exist in the past, and the higher standards that people expect, there are increasing demands on the health service’s resources. We have a commitment from the Government to put more money into the health service. I know that there have been complaints. There was no mention of Wales in the Queen’s Speech. Of course Northern Ireland, like Wales and Scotland, will benefit from these decisions because there will be Barnett consequentials for the devolved Administrations to spend.

I also welcome the promise of infrastructure development, and I look forward to the Prime Minister delivering on the comment he made to my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), when he talked about physically linking Northern Ireland to the GB mainland with a bridge. He said, “Watch this space”, and we will be watching this space. We expect the space between Scotland and Northern Ireland to be filled at some stage with a physical link. Physical links and major infrastructure projects like this all over the world are judged not only on their economic benefits but on their political benefits, including how they integrate countries. Indeed, if one looks at the arguments for HS2 integrating the north of England with the south of England, we see that it is as much a political project as it is an economic one.

[Geraint Davies]

My right hon. Friend has mentioned Wales and infrastructure. Wales has 5% of the population, 11% of the rail track and 1.5% of the rail investment. We do not benefit from HS2, and we would look to have a consequential from that. Does he agree that this is not a fair system, and that Wales needs more in that sense?

[Sammy Wilson]

This should apply to all national infrastructure projects. I am pleased to see, for example, that even with an infrastructure project such as the third runway at Heathrow, there is a commitment to ensuring that some of the benefits are spilled out across the rest of the United Kingdom through various Heathrow hub projects, which I hope Northern Ireland will benefit from. There are ways of dispersing the expenditure on those major projects, even if they do not physically run through some parts of the United Kingdom.

The commitment to the application of the armed forces covenant is especially important in Northern Ireland, given the number of people who served through the troubles. Tens of thousands are still living with the consequences, and they do not have access to services on the same basis as in other parts of the United Kingdom. We look forward to the commitment on that and on the promise that legacy issues will be dealt with, so that soldiers are not dragged through the courts for things that happened 40 years ago, while, incidentally, terrorists walk free as a result of arrangements made by the Labour party during the Belfast agreement negotiations.

We are happy to support the benefits that high streets will see from changes to business rates. I have seen the devastation done by high rates to businesses across town centres in my constituency. Business rates relief is, of course, only one part of the solution to the changing retail environment right across the United Kingdom. Promoting business through tax incentives for research and development, for training and for opening up new markets will be especially important as we look to the wider global benefits that we can take when we leave the EU and can do our own trade deals.

Those are the things to which we can give our support. Throughout many of today’s speeches, including the Prime Minister’s, people have talked about the Government party being a one nation party. However, if we are to talk about a one nation party, it must not be one nation just in terms of bringing forward policies that affect all the social layers in the economy and in the country; it must also extend to all parts of the United Kingdom. The Conservative party wants to be the party of the Union and I noted that the Prime Minister said that he would not allow anyone to rip up the UK—one of the most successful political unions. Yet one of the first things mentioned in the Queen’s Speech is the pushing through of the withdrawal agreement Bill, the content of which will, in effect, leave Northern Ireland behind the EU’s customs frontier. It will leave us outside UK customs arrangements and inside the EU customs arrangements. In effect, when it comes to trade and the economy, the European boundary will be extended around the outside of Northern Ireland, which will have economic consequences for businesses in Northern Ireland: increased costs, delays in goods going through customs, or extra bureaucracy. Of course, it will also affect trade from Northern Ireland into Great Britain, which is our biggest market. Those are only the immediate economic consequences; there will also be long-term political consequences.