Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-06-22
Topic: Mixed Topics
Gavin James Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): It is a pleasure to follow the excellent contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart). I guess I also need to reflect on the points made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). He made two points, and I substantially agree with the first, which was about the range of voices from Northern Ireland in this debate and the positive aspect that that brings to our deliberations in this House. I say that acutely knowing that I am following a colleague of mine and that people will be thinking, "For goodness’ sake, we’ve just had six minutes of that, and now we’re going to get another 15 or 20 from the big lad." I promise I will try to give an alternative reflection The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland is right, and I too believe that the 2017 to 2019 Parliament was greatly inhibited by the curtailed voices. There was no range of voices from Northern Ireland save for that of Sylvia Hermon, the former hon. Member for North Down. That is not to say that I agree with everything that is said or with other contributions, but I think this House benefits from a range of reflections. I also make the point, since there are now a range of voices from Northern Ireland in Parliament, that it is still important that the other parties engage with us. It would be a shame for anyone to think that they now have a buddy or a mate in Parliament, so there is no need to broaden their own horizons; that would similarly be a foolhardy mistake. I look forward to continued engagement with the right hon. Gentleman. The fact that there is widespread critical agreement on the progress of the Bill through Second Reading highlights the point that it is probably not that significant an advancement. Its provisions take us so far and make some changes, but they are not significant in and of themselves. It is appropriate, however, that there are advancements to New Decade, New Approach, and in a legislative sense it is appropriate that those aspects are before us today It is right that we reflect that this is non-emergency legislation. That is nice for me as a Member of Parliament who has been here for six years and seen hugely significant issues that affect the people of Northern Ireland rushed through this Chamber in a three or four-hour process of Second Reading, Committee and Third Reading. None of that is appropriate. It is important to recognise how this is progressing and is intended to progress over the months to come We benefited not only from the contribution that the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) made earlier, but from his time as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I remember the engagement that we had at Stormont House on the discussions about New Decade, New Approach, and the personal determination that he had at the time to make sure that politics worked; I sometimes feel that that is lacking now. I hear time and again from community voices, sectoral support, business and public servants in Northern Ireland, all of which still have good contact with the right hon. Member and still hugely value the contribution that he made to our society in Northern Ireland. That energy and drive was predicated on Northern Ireland people working for Northern Ireland people on supporting devolution in Northern Ireland, on making it work no matter how difficult or intractable the problems appeared, on highlighting, recognising and dealing with the continual difficulties in our society, and on supporting us collectively across the political spectrum to deal with those issues in Northern Ireland That is why I think that the commitment made last week was so retrograde. We know that there are challenges—they have been reflected in this debate—but do not turn around and give the impression that "If you just can’t do it, we’ll do it for you." I said to the Minister of State two weeks ago, "Do not make the commitment that you will legislate on any aspect of NDNA without political consent, because the political party that you are going to do it for still needs to work with other political parties in Northern Ireland." The only way that devolution will be successful in our Province—the only way that we will continue on the pathway from troubles to peace—is if we work with one another, trust one another and build a relationship based on shared values and a shared outlook on how we grow as a society. If the British Government, the Irish Government or the American Government step in at every turn and say, "Come on, now, I’ll hold your hand and take you down this certain path, because that’s where you want to go," it will not work The short-term gain of what was agreed last week is futile and fundamentally injurious to devolution in Northern Ireland. I say at this stage—it is not part of the Bill, but it is intrinsic to all that has gone before—that the Government need to recognise that continuing along the path that they have outlined would be hugely detrimental to progress in Northern Ireland. I say that with no joy—none whatever The protocol was mentioned. It is a hugely symbolic and genuinely difficult issue affecting all strands and strata of our society. We hear voices at one side saying, "It’s all a disaster and it’s all been imposed upon us," and we hear others saying, "Well, you brought it upon yourselves." None of that actually matters at the end of the day for the ordinary consumer, the ordinary businessman or the ordinary member of our community who is striving for the best but sees the barriers ahead of them I heard the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood)—I am glad that he is back in the Chamber as he gets a mention—say that he was surprised that the protocol featured in the statements made today; "Why not the priority of the health service?" We first need to recognise the difficulties. We need to highlight the problems and work to resolve them. But make no mistake about it: there was a suggestion that a focus on veterinary agreement would be significant in relation to the protocol; it is but one aspect We recognise the challenges in the health service. How do we deal with the challenges in the health service if we do not deal with the grace period on medicines that is going to expire? Was it not the European Union, three months ago, that sought to trigger article 16 to prevent the export of vaccines to Northern Ireland? It was. We saw cancer drugs get approval by our UK medical agency in the last month, but the European medical agency had not yet quite made the approval, so those cancer drugs were not being made available in Northern Ireland, a part of this country—a constitutionally integral part of this country, enshrined under the Good Friday agreement that we all seek to protect Let us not suggest that veterinary issues alone will solve the protocol. They will deal with the significant impediment of barriers for food and animal products, but they will not deal with the totality of it.