I am most grateful to the Minister. I am not constrained by anything Dame Arlene might have said at the time about “fair and balanced”. The Minister knows my views on this. We have to be careful. I am attracted to the use of the word “heritage”. That is because the—let us say—profile of the respective identities is different. The Irish have coalesced around language to an extent to which the Ulster Scots and Ulster British have not. When you are looking at equality of treatment—I see the point the Minister is making; and I said earlier that we should not be constrained in our deliberations because this is being debated here and not at Stormont, as we would all prefer—there is a difference between the profiles. Heritage matters greatly and is expressed in different ways. I fear that we are boxing people in with the definitions in the legislation.
Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL]
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Empey
(Ulster Unionist Party)
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 22 June 2022.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee proceeding on Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill [HL].
About this proceeding contribution
Reference
823 c87GC Session
2022-23Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand CommitteeSubjects
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Timestamp
2022-07-18 10:16:25 +0100
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