Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
8 July 2026
Community Cohesion
Community cohesion is deeply threatened by the violence and menace that took place on the streets last month, which included deliberate orchestration and paramilitary flags and trappings that now fly as bold as brass from lampposts in my constituency and in many others. We can no longer pretend that…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
17 June 2026
Engagements
I, too, wish to pay tribute to Jo Cox and her family, and to the commitment in her name that we tackle division and extremism. We saw extremism play out on the streets of Belfast last week—a pogrom where families were burned out based on the colour of their skin; health workers were stopped and aske…
Commons
Proceedings
10 June 2026
Belfast: Violent Disorder
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on the violent disorder that took place last night in Belfast.
Commons
Debate
20 May 2026
Defence Readiness
Will the shadow Minister acknowledge that no party and no victims’ group in Northern Ireland supports the Conservative party’s approach to the past, and that even the Dillon judgment last week did not in any way rule it legal? Would he not agree that soldiers following the rule of law is a matter of…
Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
25 March 2026
Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation
One of the lingering legacies of violence in Northern Ireland is our outrageous and distressing levels of violence against women and girls, in the echo of menace and threat that still exists in Northern Ireland. The murders this month of Ellie Flanagan and Amy Doherty bring to 33 the number of women…
Commons
Westminster Hall
19 March 2026
Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past
I thank the hon. Member for all her efforts on behalf of victims of the troubles and others. This is a chance to put in place accountability mechanisms that we should have put in place decades ago, particularly for those who do not have a judicial pathway. Families in Derry know what happened in the…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
18 March 2026
Engagements
We have seen this play out before: a US rush to military escalation with no plan for what comes next. We have seen schoolgirls bombed in Iran, whole families killed in Lebanon, chaos in a region already scarred by repression and genocide, and economic shocks that hurt the most vulnerable at home. In…
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
10 March 2026
2 contributions
Northern Ireland Hospitality Sector: VAT
10. What recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of reducing VAT for the hospitality sector in Northern Ireland.
As well as the business pressures, a majority of households in Northern Ireland and many businesses use heating oil as their main heating source, so they are particularly exposed to shocks such as that which we are experiencing due to the wrong-headed conflict in the middle east, and they are not pr…
Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
11 February 2026
Economic Impact of Government Policies
The local growth fund was a UK Government policy that had been working to support some people outside of the labour market into decent work, helping to address Northern Ireland’s low productivity rates. The UK Government have changed that policy and the capital revenue split in a way that works for …
Commons
Debate
4 February 2026
2 contributions
Lord Mandelson
rose—
The House is getting a lesson that many families in Northern Ireland, such as those of Sean Brown and the victims of Stakeknife, have learned over decades that national security is routinely deployed to cover the blushes of the UK Government. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is now arriving at t…
Commons
Debate
21 January 2026
2 contributions
Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation
I think that many of those supporting the Omagh families would like to see a parallel and comprehensive inquiry. Does the hon. Member agree that the logical thing to do would have been to co-design that, and for both Governments to bring forward inquiries in parallel, rather than his Government acti…
The Social Democratic and Labour party welcomes this remedial order, which goes some way to restoring the rule of law to legacy processes and in turn to the present day. The introduction by the previous Government of an amnesty and the closure of processes was the very definition of the phrase, “Jus…
Commons
Westminster Hall
13 January 2026
9 contributions
Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I confess that I have not been in Westminster Hall for a while; I was watching the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) to see exactly when I should stand up. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing the de…
The hon. Member is absolutely right. Those subsequent changes, particularly at St Andrews, have distorted the institutions away from a place of consensus and towards veto, brinkmanship and power struggle. There is a lot in the agreement that the SDLP would like to revisit—not least strand 2, which h…
+7 more contributions in this session
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
7 January 2026
Engagements
Q7. Even its strongest advocates acknowledge that Northern Ireland is trapped in dysfunction—not because reform is not possible, but because the DUP and Sinn Féin have not allowed it. We have become a political “Hotel California”, where the past is always around but the future never arrives. There i…
Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
7 January 2026
2 contributions
Northern Ireland Executive
8. What recent engagement he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive.
The Minister will be aware that for a number of months, I have been raising concerns about the local growth fund and its impact in Northern Ireland. Just before Christmas, organisations got the devastating news of a large cut to the local growth fund, which will devastate a number of support jobs an…
Commons
Debate
3 December 2025
Pension Schemes Bill
Like others, I was delighted to see in the Budget the pre-1997 indexing. The Minister will know that that softens but does not correct a wrong, and it leaves tens of thousands of former employees of Harland & Wolff and Visteon, including my constituents, without indexation. New clauses 28 and 29…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
3 December 2025
Engagements
Conversations about a new Ireland are deepening, with people from all sorts of backgrounds having serious, hopeful discussions about building something new. Yesterday in Westminster, along with the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), who has a different view to me, we hosted two of the islan…
Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
19 November 2025
Community Groups: Northern Ireland and Great Britain
Collaboration between groups across the Irish sea is very welcome. Those relationships will always be cherished. Unfortunately, Brexit really impacted the ability of those groups to serve and support people, and that was a consequence of the failure to plan for the constitutional change of Brexit. R…
Commons
Debate
18 November 2025
3 contributions
Northern Ireland Troubles Bill
Many in this House believe in the rule of law and in the equality of every person in front of the law. Between 30,000 and 40,000 people were properly convicted of paramilitary offences, and 300,000 soldiers served under Operation Banner. Can the shadow Secretary of State outline how many of those ha…
The answer is 20.
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
15 October 2025
Intertrade UK
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the major deterrents to investment and growth in Northern Ireland is the absence, 20 months after the restoration of Stormont, of a published investment strategy from the Executive with any sort of a road map for investors or businesses on the infrastruc…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 October 2025
Northern Ireland Troubles
I thank the Secretary of State and his team for their work on this package, including the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), who was so well regarded by everybody who came across her in Northern Ireland. I also thank the officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin for their work, …
Commons
Ministerial Statement
14 October 2025
Middle East
I do not think anybody could fail to be moved by yesterday’s scenes of hostages finally being reunited with their families and of Gazans being able to contemplate days and nights without hunger and bombardment. I would love to be able to celebrate and believe, as they are doing and as they should be…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 September 2025
Middle East
Last month, along with eight party leaders across Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, I wrote to the Prime Minister about the catastrophic situation in Gaza and the deficits in the UK response to the unbearable suffering we are seeing—biblical levels of injustice, pain and hunger. Does the Foreign…
Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
2 July 2025
EU Trade Agreement: Economic Impact
The EU-UK deal was warmly and broadly welcomed across Northern Ireland to begin to unpick and undo some of the damage and friction created by Brexit, which was championed by some of those on the Opposition Benches. However, an FSB report out this week highlighted continuing problems, particularly fo…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
11 June 2025
Spending Review 2025
The SDLP’s priority continues to be funding Northern Ireland on the basis of need, and I urge the Government to take focused action, so that we can have sustainable public services and, hopefully, stable politics that will start to deliver for health and education and deal with the squeeze in housin…
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
4 June 2025
Engagements
Anyone who saw the six-year-old girl fleeing the flaming shelter where her family were killed by an Israeli air strike will carry those horrific images with them forever. These are very dark days. Gaza is a stain on the soul of humanity, and it is a further shame that there is more moral clarity com…