Commons
Westminster Hall
14 July 2025
2 contributions
Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution
I thank the Petitions Committee for allowing this debate, as well as the 176,000 petitioners.
The right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) finished with a poem. Thinking about today’s debate and how to set the scene for other hon. Members in this place, I thought I would start with…
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because there can be no equivalence between someone who went out with murder and mayhem in mind and those who put on a uniform to stand in front of society, showing that they were there to defend law and order and protect, not take, innocent life.
T…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
10 July 2025
Resident Doctors: Industrial Action
I agree with the Secretary of State when he tells the BMA resident doctors that they will never have another Secretary of State as sympathetic to their legitimate complaints— I recognise that, having worked with five of his predecessors. My experience tells me that what happens here with the BMA oft…
Commons
Proceedings
10 July 2025
Business of the House
Later today, a bust of the late and right honourable David Trimble will be unveiled in the other place. David was the former MP for Upper Bann, a peer and the leader of the Ulster Unionist party. He led us through the Belfast agreement negotiations, for which he rightly received the Nobel peace priz…
Commons
Proceedings
10 July 2025
2 contributions
UK-France Nuclear Partnership
rose—
The Minister referenced the political steering group that will be set up between the two nations. Are there any concerns—either within Government or within the Ministry of Defence—about sharing intelligence with a separate political steering group that will sit outside of, or adjacent to, NATO?
Commons
Oral Questions
10 July 2025
Relations with the European Union
While we await the detail of the SPS deal, Northern Ireland is still seeing new and additional bureaucracy to implement the Windsor framework. Does the Minister agree that it would make more sense to extend the grace periods and put a freeze on that bureaucracy rather than introduce more, as indicat…
Commons
Debate
9 July 2025
3 contributions
Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill
I fully agree with the hon. Member on co-production and co-designing any changes that come forward. Does she agree that it is crucial that young people are also included, given the conditions that they can face, and especially given the challenge in moving from children’s disability living allowance…
The severe conditions criteria and the need for an NHS diagnosis exclude young people as well, because their diagnosis and condition may not automatically transfer from their medical records as a child to their adult records. They would need another NHS diagnosis to move from the children’s DLA to P…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
8 July 2025
Road and Rail Projects
The Northern Ireland Minister for Infrastructure informed me this morning that her Department is working with the Department for Transport and the European Investment Bank on the recommendations in the all-island strategic rail review. One of those recommendations is the opening of the Antrim to Lis…
Commons
Debate
8 July 2025
Government Resilience Action Plan
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has announced the opening of a dedicated resilience academy in North Yorkshire, which will train 4,000 private and public sector people per year. Can he give me an update on when that academy will be in place, and a surety that it will cover the entirety of t…
Commons
Debate
2 July 2025
2 contributions
Defence
I seek clarification and support from shadow Front Benchers on this. Do they recognise that there may be a bit of disagreement in the Government between Ministers in the Ministry of Defence and those in the Northern Ireland Office on how to proceed?
I thank the Minister for bringing forward this order. I have just a few questions for him in regard to contributions made by other hon. Members.
Many Members have talked about the value of our cadet services in promoting young people, the value that they provide and the additional skills training t…
Commons
Oral Questions
Northern Ireland
2 July 2025
EU Trade Agreement: Economic Impact
With regards to agricultural machinery, I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware of a Northern Ireland farmer who took agricultural machinery from Northern Ireland to participate in a Scottish agricultural show. On bringing it back, it was rejected in Northern Ireland and sent back to Scotland…
Commons
Committee Stage
2 July 2025
Rare Cancers Bill
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West on bringing forward this private Member’s Bill, which will have life-changing effects for many individuals across the entirety of the United Kingdom. I applaud him for it, bec…
Commons
Debate
1 July 2025
4 contributions
Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill
I rise to support the reasoned amendment and to vote against the Bill, which will produce an abandoned generation: young people with disabilities and life-limiting conditions who are currently on children’s disability living allowance and who would normally transfer to PIP at the age of 16. The Bill…
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I have met these young people, too. I met people from an organisation called BraveheartsNI, which represents a cohort of young people with congenital heart defects who are at that transitional stage. They told me about the real concerns—they are not jus…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
25 June 2025
Nuclear-certified Aircraft Procurement
As a member of the RAF contingent of the armed forces parliamentary scheme under Wing Commander Basco Smith, may I take this opportunity to say that the application window is open for next season? If any Member has not applied to it, they should consider doing so. Recently, we visited Marham, the cu…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
24 June 2025
China Audit
The audit received responses from the devolved Governments. Last month, the Northern Ireland Finance Minister met the Chinese consul general in Belfast. The meeting was described as a formal diplomatic engagement with views exchanged on deepening co-operation. Significantly, there were no press inte…
Commons
Proceedings
24 June 2025
National Security Strategy
Cyber-security is core and central to our security at home, but a significant weakness is the security of the cabling in the North Atlantic and along the west coast of Ireland. For too long, the Irish Government have freeloaded and taken for granted the United Kingdom providing defence and security.…
Commons
Debate
23 June 2025
2 contributions
Access to GPs
This is a debate about GP access across the United Kingdom, but one issue in Northern Ireland is GPs’ ability to access indemnity insurance, whereas in England and Wales there is a Government-provided scheme. Does the hon. Member agree that if the Government worked with the Department of Health in N…
As the hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) mentioned, there are contracts that have been handed back to the Department. We have people coming forward who want to be GPs, but it is getting harder to find those partners who want to run and manage practices. Does the Minister agree that in any tra…
Commons
Proceedings
23 June 2025
2 contributions
Points of Order
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On Friday, many colleagues in this House spoke of compassion, sympathy and understanding. Unfortunately, the same compassion, sympathy and understanding were not extended to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee). His father-in-law, my constitue…
indicated assent.
Commons
Debate
23 June 2025
UK Military Base Protection
The statement speaks of enhanced security measures across the whole of defence, so will the Minister review the recent decision to downgrade some of the security measures at Northern Ireland bases, including removal from the permanent base? On the strategic defence review, to allow our RAF personnel…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
23 June 2025
Middle East
This House has agreed that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon, but former Russian premier Dmitry Medvedev has said that a number of countries will now be considering supplying nuclear warheads to Iran. What is the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of that statement, and what are the Government doing…
Commons
Debate
13 June 2025
2 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I rise to speak in support of amendment (a) to amendment 77, which is in my name. I should also refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests about my involvement with the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
New clause 13, we are told, is a replacement for clause 34; I hope that Mem…
I think the hon. Gentleman said in an earlier intervention that those medicines would then be used off licence, to the risk of the prescribing doctor and the person using them. That is where the risk falls back on the individual rather than being covered by anything in the Bill. That is where my reg…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
11 June 2025
Spending Review 2025
An NHS fit for the future—I congratulate the Chancellor and the Health Secretary on the investment in the health service in England. Given the money that has been allocated to Northern Ireland, will the Chancellor encourage the Executive to provide the same investment in the health service in Northe…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
10 June 2025
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories
A two-state solution requires all sides to see it as achievable, desirable and sustainable, so what practical steps have the Government taken with international partners to rebuild and support the Palestinian Authority, and how will they ensure that Hamas have no role in Palestinian governance, as t…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
9 June 2025
Winter Fuel Payment
The Northern Ireland Executive is to receive a consequential budget adjustment. May I ask the Minister when it will receive that adjustment, so that we can ensure that our Northern Ireland pensioners get a winter fuel payment in the coming winter?
Commons
Oral Questions
Housing, Communities and Local Government
9 June 2025
Leasehold Reform
Developers are now creating facility and management companies, with new homeowners and tenants finding themselves as shareholders without their consent. Will the Minister look at that issue across the country to protect those homeowners?
Commons
Statutory Instrument
9 June 2025
2 contributions
Draft Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 (Extension of Duration of Non-jury Trial Provisions) Order 2025
It is a pleasure to serve on this Committee under your stewardship, Mr Twigg. I have listened to the contributions of people who hold various positions in Northern Ireland, as someone who actually lives there and represents a political party there, the Ulster Unionist party. Our response to this con…
What are the Minister’s and the Government’s thoughts on whether a specific office of a sentencing council would be a positive thing to have in Northern Ireland, given that there already is a Sentencing Council in England and Wales? On the bid that the Justice Minister made, does the Minister know w…