Northern Ireland Budget Bill

There is no question of admitting any kind of fallacy. What I was saying with the quote the hon. ...

rose—

rose—

I will give to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and then to my hon. Friend th...

I am glad the Minister accepts that there is no magic wand, but does he also accept that, given t...

The right hon. Gentleman makes some legitimate points. The particular point about mandatory coali...

My hon. Friend will probably know that the Select Committee was in Northern Ireland last week. I ...

My hon. Friend is spot on in what he says. If the situation in Northern Ireland presented itself ...

There are many aspects of Bengoa that could be implemented, but there is seemingly a reluctance t...

The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022, which we put through, gives civil servan...

Will the Minister give way?

I will, but I will then be determined to make progress.

I thank the Minister for giving way. He will appreciate that in other circumstances the Executive...

I expect the hon. Gentleman knows that clauses 8 and 9 put in place a vote on account for next ye...

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way once more but then will give a Bill overview in the hope of making progress.

I thank the Minister for giving way and respectfully say to him that I have a suggestion for savi...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, but I hope he will not mind my saying that tod...

Like many Members of this House, I will be immediately affected, through immediate family, by the...

I am grateful that the hon. Lady finished with an encouragement to resolve the issues in the prot...

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

4.59 pm

I thank the Minister for setting out the measures in the Bill. It is needed to allow public servi...

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk of the inability to set out multi-year plans. We were being t...

I am grateful for that intervention from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I am grateful ...

I call the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

5.10 pm

It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). ...

At the beginning of 2020, in “New Decade, New Approach”, the UK Government committed to addressin...

I very much agree, and I wrote to the PSNI only today, following our visit, asking it to put in w...

I call the SNP spokesperson.

5.24 pm

I will not detain the House very long, because there are many voices from Northern Ireland—those ...

First, I too join the Minister in expressing sympathy on behalf of my party to Alex Easton, one o...

Alex Easton lives in my North Down constituency and, to echo what the right hon. Gentleman has sa...

I am sure that feeling will be widespread across the constituency, as Alex—a former member of my ...

I understand why the right hon. Gentleman is trying to say what I said, but I am afraid he is mis...

For any problem to be resolved, as the hon. Gentleman knows full well, we need a Budget that Depa...

Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is a former Finance Minister, but we should not go into his r...

I do not want to get into history, but I would point out that in the first year I was Finance Min...

The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned this a couple of times and I mean to come to it as I close...

The point I was making—the Minister knows this, because we have raised it here on a number of occ...

Surely it is even more serious than that. The reality is that the Northern Ireland Executive and ...

Until that situation is revolved, we are going to be faced with the kind of situation we are disc...

The point about the democratic deficit is important, as everybody would understand. Does the righ...

I am amazed at the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. As far as I know, he is a member of the Conserv...

I promise not to make as many final points as were made in the previous speech. Listening to some...

We would not be where we are today if the DUP had not come out of the Assembly. Europe and everyt...

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we would not be where we are today were it not for the ac...

The hon. Gentleman continually raises this issue—sometimes taking a whining approach as well—but ...

And for the university.

I am thinking only of my own experience. Actually, the road was cut because the Irish Government ...

It is interesting that people in Derry are entitled to some Government funding—thank you very muc...

The hon. Member consistently attacks the Democratic Unionist party, but might I remind him about ...

That is astonishing, given the fact that we had the Sunningdale agreement, where we had people wo...

Now you’re being childish.

No, I am not being childish. The DUP’s argument is that this is a constitutional rupture and the ...

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is customary to say that it is a great pleasure to follow t...

The hon. Member makes his point with great force on behalf of his many constituents. Since last w...

I thank the Minister. I appreciated the correspondence, which he copied to colleagues as well, an...

If the hon. Member would like to set out in a short email or letter to the Committee the scope of...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

It is what is known as the Barnett squeeze: it started...

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) on this ma...

To add to that, I outlined the difficulties of the squeeze over the next three financial years, w...

I thank my hon. Friend for putting that on the record. It is clear that this Budget and the squee...

The Bill is essentially about giving legal effect to the Budget policy statements and the allocat...

It is a matter of deep regret that this Budget must be brought through this House and not the Nor...

There is a programme on Radio 4 that I listen to from time to time called “Just a Minute”. To be ...

Like other Members, I regret that we are considering this Bill in this place in this way. I regre...

We come to the last Back-Bench contribution, from Mr Shannon.

7.14 pm

The good book says that the last shall be first and the first shall be last, so I am happy to spe...

I send prayers and condolences on my behalf and that of the Labour party to Alex Easton MLA, his ...

With the leave of the House, I am glad to respond to the debate.

First and foremost, I join...

I do not dispute the Minister’s figures—my point was not about those figures and I was not challe...

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Member for clarifying that point. I will write to him o...

I am extremely frustrated, as the Minister knows, because this has been going on since the New De...

The Secretary of State is reflecting on that very thing right now. I believe he is meeting the pa...

I associate myself with the remarks about Dáithí’s law and trying to ensure that that proceeds. T...

As the hon. Member well knows and does not like, we were forced under law to bring forward aborti...