Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointments and Regional Rates) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-24
Topic: Civil Rights
David Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my comrade, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith), for being here I totally agree with the Secretary of State’s opening words about what happened yesterday in Northern Ireland. This is clearly not where we need to be, and that is the main reason why we need to get resolution, and to get the Executive back up and running again. I also thank him for the kind words he said about me and the role that I have tried to play in this House. I congratulate him on the work that he has done and shared with me over difficult times to try to find a way forward I never wanted this debate to take place or to participate in it. The reality is that this is combined political failure on the part of all politicians right across these islands. The failure to constantly shape the crucial progress of confidence and trust has led to the sad situation facing us today. Not many years ago, the world looked on with a mixture of amazement and admiration when people and politicians put to one side centuries of animosity and hatred to build a new future for the people they served. Today we risk losing that vision As this Bill comes before the House, I am mindful of the issues that have caused the current impasse. Northern Ireland has seen drastic changes over the past few decades and difficult challenges have been overcome. The current challenges should not, by any means, be insurmountable—these are clearly less serious matters than those that faced us in 1998 or 2007—but the repercussions of failure are equally serious and dangerous. With good will on all sides, agreement could be reached, but people will have to compromise There are a number of areas that I wish to highlight. The first, which is one of the sticking points that has been raised, is equalities. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) mentioned the intransigence of Sinn Féin, and none of us is surprised that it is acting in an intransigent manner. What has surprised me about the position in which we find ourselves is the strength of feelings about the break-up of the Executive right across the nationalist community—it is not just one political party that has real concerns One of these serious concerns is about the failure to move on equality legislation. The Democratic Unionist party is proudly a party of Unionism, yet it seeks to limit the equality rights of people in Northern Ireland—access to abortion, and the rights of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Those rights are seen in every other part of the United Kingdom, so why does it oppose their extension throughout our United Kingdom? Why should two people who love each other not be able to show that in a formal marriage ceremony in Northern Ireland as they can in Great Britain? Why should a woman in Northern Ireland not have the right to choose what she does with her own body? Surely those ideas of equality and fairness are as core to those people’s identities as they are to the identity of myself and every other person living on these islands Another sticking point—again, we are hoping to see progress on this—is the Irish language. This is another example of how rights that are enjoyed by people across Great Britain are not available in Northern Ireland. In Wales and Scotland, legislation provides protections for the respective indigenous languages. Even in Cornwall there is a council-backed Cornish language strategy. Why do some in the Unionist community want to deprive many in Northern Ireland of the same advantages?