Timothy Gaston
North Antrim · Traditional Unionist Voice · Northern Ireland
“I begin my remarks by putting on record, once again, my thanks to the victims and survivors who have campaigned for many years to bring us to this point today, where the Bill will pass its Final Stage.”
“There is an onus on the Assembly in the next mandate to ensure that the work continues, with a second phase of redress that will consider individualised acknowledgement of the harm and trauma that the birth mothers and adult adoptees experienced.”
“I trust that those who have worked diligently in the background on the terms of reference will reflect the requests of the Committee and those who have given evidence to ensure that they are victim-centred and that truth and justice will be pursued.”
“Throughout the process, the Committee has taken steps to ensure that victims and survivors of religious institutions, state homes and private homes see themselves reflected in the Bill.”
“At a recent meeting of the Committee for the Executive Office, the Migrants' Rights Network complained that, in the second half of 2025, the UK Government increased raids focused on illegal working. When raids increased by 76%, arrests increased by 169%.”
“The revelations that have come to light since dirty Donaldson's conviction and the red flags that his colleagues ignored raise profound and troubling questions for the DUP, but for Sinn Féin generally and Deirdre Hargey in particular to come to the Chamber and pontificate about safeguarding is utter hypocrisy.”
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“They did so in spite of evidence from Professor Fitzgerald of the University of Stirling, who told MLAs:”
“Alcohol abuse also contributes to the pressures on the Ambulance Service, yet, in 2021, when the Assembly was voting to liberalise the licensing laws, where was every Member of the House, with the exception of Jim Allister and Jim Wells? They were voting to approve such a move. Members did so in spite of evidence from the Public Health Agency that was presented to the Committee considering the Bill. Mr Meehan of the PHA told MLAs:”
“He waited 13 hours before approaching the desk to enquire about his situation, only to be informed that there was just one full-time doctor available that evening for emergencies. Keith was eventually seen 26 hours after arriving at the hospital. He could not speak more highly of the stroke clinic for its efficiency, but his experience in A&E left him deeply concerned about the state of the health service. <BR /> <BR />One of the major issues causing the pressures on A&E that night in Craigavon was the number of people who were there as a result of alcohol abuse, many of whom were in A&E every weekend, according to hospital staff and the police officers who were present that day. Let us not kid ourselves that the issues with alcohol arise only when people arrive in A&E.”
“We have the second-highest incidence of stroke in the UK and the second-highest mortality rate. Most pertinent to the debate was the fact that, according to the latest stroke stats, it took 13 hours and 15 minutes for a stroke patient to arrive at a stroke unit following the start of their symptoms. That is an increase from the same period in the previous year, when it took 10 hours and three minutes. Only 61% of stroke patients are scanned within one hour of arriving at hospital. In most part, that is due to a backlog of people at our A&Es. With a stroke, every minute is vital. <BR /> <BR />I take the opportunity to relate to the House something of a personal experience. Shortly before Christmas, my party chairman, Cusher councillor Keith Ratcliffe, had a suspected mini-stroke. It was later confirmed to be a transient aphasia.”
“As we have heard several times this afternoon, this is not a new problem. It should therefore not be blamed entirely on the current Health Minister. As far back as 2016, my predecessor in the House, Jim Allister, tabled questions that revealed that, in just one month, January 2016, there were no fewer than 20 occasions when an ambulance's downtime at Craigavon Area Hospital exceeded two hours. This afternoon, I will touch on why speed from our Ambulance Service and from hospitals generally is so essential. <BR /> <BR />That fact was particularly brought home to me by a briefing from the Stroke Association that, I suspect, all Members received ahead of the debate. Stroke continues to be one of the biggest killers in Northern Ireland and is a leading cause of adult disability.”
“Minister, at the weekend, one of our papers carried a report with the headline, "Belfast woman cleared of battering elderly mum in row over table salt". Does the Minister agree that that headline was an insult to women who suffer at the hands of violent men squandering as women?”
“Yes, Principal Deputy Speaker. If you just bide your time, I will get to the question. <BR /> <BR />What in the statement will address that situation? Will you commit today, Minister, to look at this case, which happens to be in your constituency, to see what can be done so that this young child can start a special educational school in September?”
“The parents are applying for school places but cannot apply to special schools —.”
“I thank the Minister for his lengthy statement to the House. Minister, last year, I had correspondence with the Health Minister about the case of a young child who is not due to receive his NHS diagnosis of autism until this July and who should be starting primary school in September. He was placed on the urgent list by his GP in December 2023. Eventually, the family got a diagnosis, but only after going private. However, they are no further forward with getting a statement for his education.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you confirm that this is indeed a political Chamber? Members seem to be getting very offended by everything that is being said, maybe if they do not like the Member. My goodness, I had to apologise to get speaking tonight. I am glad that I was given that opportunity, apart from being interrupted by the interventions from the Alliance Party. Remind the Alliance Party that this is a political Chamber.”
“However, because the vote will go against unionism, the Alliance Party en bloc are saying nothing about it.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. The 'Safeguarding the Union' document, which was sold to unionism in Northern Ireland to bring back the institutions, was what was being tested in the courts. It turns out that the safeguards in 'Safeguarding the Union' are not worth the paper that they are written on. When we talk about rights, I am talking about the Belfast Agreement. I am talking about the Government taking action to remove cross-community consent to ensure that the vote tonight was gerrymandered to get what they wanted. That is exactly what has happened. When unionism has been in the minority in the House, our rights have been diminished. Our rights have been trampled on, and if the vote was going to go the other way, the republican Alliance Party — Sinn Féin's little helpers — would be the first to stand up and call that out.”
“The position of unionism has been weakened by a return to the House to operate the very mechanisms that are ushering us out of the UK. I ask the Member and her party to reflect on that position. I want to go forward with a strong and united voice in opposition to the protocol, but we need to grow a backbone and use the leverage that is at our disposal. Our rights have been trampled: unionism is in the minority and is being disregarded by the other side of the House, so we need to question the very existence of the institutions that we are sitting in tonight.”
“She obviously disagrees with that as she is chuntering from a sedentary position. Listen, I am sure that we will have many a dispute in the months and years to come, whether you like it or not. <BR /> <BR />Going back to what I was saying, the House operates on a sham basis. We have seen that tonight. Minority protections clearly only apply to non-unionists. Why, therefore, do unionists continue to prop up this sham? <BR /> <BR />I will pick up on a couple of points that were made earlier. The deputy First Minister, in her capacity as an MLA, mentioned sending a strong message to Westminster. We could have sent a strong message to Westminster by returning to the House only to vote against the motion before us tonight.”
“Offence is a choice. We talk about courtesy. I let the Member in, and I thought that I was being courteous.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It appears that we have touched a raw nerve with nationalist and republican Alliance. There is a bone of contention there. Yes, Alliance might not be designated as such, but that is the perception in unionist circles; I certainly believe that. I restate my comment about Alliance being Sinn Féin's little helpers. On that basis, you will troop through the Lobby with its Members later, I am sure. <BR /> <BR />I will return to what I was saying.”
“The assurances that unionists were given, whether they were in the Belfast Agreement or the Windsor framework, were clearly not worth the paper on which they were written.”
“Whatever you think of my party leader and me, it is indisputable that we have been proven to be correct about the impact and reality of the sea border and the Windsor framework. No one can claim that the Acts of Union have not been trashed: just yesterday, a judgement reiterated the fact that they have been. No one in the Chamber would repeat today or at any other time the outlandish claims made by Sir Jeffrey Donaldson that resulted in the restoration of the institutions. <BR /> <BR />We all know what the result of the vote will be, because of the nationalist and republican Alliance. For the benefit of Hansard, I confirm that that is "Alliance" with a capital A. The question is this: what will you do about it?”
“Let me quote what Justice McAlinden said yesterday about the so-called constitutional legislation that was referred to in 'Safeguarding the Union':”
“That was because, as I have said, the EU and the Republic of Ireland sought to use Brexit as an opportunity for a land grab. <BR /> <BR />Given that this debate could have happened as late as 17 December, it is striking to me that there was obviously a desire to get it over with before the EU general product safety regulation comes into force on Friday and possibly before the new NISRA trade data comes out tomorrow. <BR /> <BR />I will conclude by appealing to unionists in the House. I will begin by referring to the High Court action that was brought by Jamie Bryson yesterday. I note that, yesterday, the Secretary of State sent in a team of nine lawyers and that they threatened to seek costs. The judge in the case rightly dismissed that out of hand. It was all part of a desperate attempt to scare off any challenge.”
“It will not take them long to work out that the idea of dual market access is a nonsense and that the protocol has created massive obstacles to bringing in raw materials from GB. I remind the House that the one area of the Northern Ireland economy where there has been an increase and growth — Mrs Dodds has already pointed it out — is the services sector, which does not fall under the protocol. <BR /> <BR />On Friday, my party leader brought a Bill before the Commons that spelled out a solution to the problem: mutual enforcement, whereby each sovereign power undertakes to respect and enforce the standards of the other. I credit Jim Allister with the Bill, but I cannot credit him with the idea. The proposal for mutual enforcement as a solution came from inside the EU. On Friday, Jim made public a statement from the three gentlemen involved.”
“Today, we are being asked to vote to accept colony status: to become a territory that is governed by someone else's laws from a foreign jurisdiction. How democratic. How republican is that? <BR /> <BR />I want to move on to consider the economic case. Before the protocol, Northern Ireland's economy was intertwined with that of the rest of the UK. Since then, we have seen a severing of links and businesses swamped with red tape. Invest NI has had to admit that it cannot point to a single job that has been created in Northern Ireland because of the protocol. Why? It is because businesses work on the basis of facts, not spin, regardless of what the SDLP tells us here tonight.”
“In 2020, the value of goods entering the EU single market via Northern Ireland was a mere 0·003% of EU GDP. The border posts are being built at Larne not because of a threat to the EU single market but because the EU decided that Northern Ireland would be the price that the UK paid for Brexit. One has only to look at recent court judgements where it has been decided that, to all intents and purposes, Northern Ireland is to be treated as EU territory. Indeed, let me quote Mr Justice Colton, who ruled:”
“All that is because of the border with an EU member state.”
“No ballot paper in any part of the UK asked people whether they wanted GB to leave the EU and leave Northern Ireland behind. Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance are telling their constituents that they are not up to the job and are happy to surrender control in 300 areas of law to a Parliament to which no one from Northern Ireland is elected. Seventy pages contain not the text of the law but mere titles. How can any democrat claim that that is correct? <BR /> <BR />Importantly, the laws are not incidental. EU regulation 952/2013 puts us under the EU's customs code. That means that the rest of our country — the United Kingdom — is, in terms, a third country or, to use a term with which people will be familiar, a foreign country. In terms of customs, we are now known as a foreign country. How absurd.”
“if there were so much as a CCTV camera where the international border is. Perhaps the SDLP will clarify what its leader meant. What is the next level up from civil disobedience? I contend that we got to where we are today only because of what Seán O'Casey would describe as "The Shadow of a Gunman". <BR /> <BR />I will move on to what we are being asked to vote on today. I noted last week that the SDLP had travelled to Brussels to press for representation. Of course, such a route would also disregard the Belfast Agreement. The Belfast Agreement told unionists in its opening paragraph that our position in the UK was accepted and respected. Implicit in that was the recognition of the right to take part in national debates, such as those on whether the UK should leave the EU.”
“That seems to be something that the SDLP cannot get to grips with. That is our problem with the protocol and the Windsor framework. Today, however, Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party are happy to play their part in betraying Lord Trimble's legacy. <BR /> <BR />Today is a seminal day in particular for Alliance, which has come off the fence and decided to aid nationalism in doing what 30 years of terror failed to do in Northern Ireland: move the border to the Irish Sea. It is no wonder that many refer to Alliance as "Sinn Féin's little helpers". The leader of the self-styled Social Democratic and Labour Party told us how far people were prepared to go on the issue. She said that there would be:”
“That is not the position only of the anti-Belfast Agreement zealots: the Member of Parliament for South Antrim, Robin Swann, reminded the Commons on Friday of what the chief unionist architect of the Belfast Agreement, Lord Trimble, had to say about the protocol. We heard it earlier from Mr Buckley, but, for Hansard's benefit, I will read it out once again. The late Lord Trimble said:”
“I thank the Member for her intervention, but I struggle to understand what the input was. There has certainly been no change in TUV policy, but you have made your point. It will be in Hansard, so congratulations. <BR /> <BR />The supposed protections in the Belfast Agreement applied only for as long as they suited nationalism. Once unionism was in the minority in this place, the protections no longer applied. Why is that? It is because the protections that were sold to unionists to justify throwing the prison doors open and agreeing to share power with those who had sworn to destroy the state were a sham.”
“I find myself part of a minority arguing for the fundamentals of the Belfast Agreement and arguing that protections for minorities should continue to apply. However, in another sense, I find myself validated, because I and my party have always argued that the supposed guarantees of the Belfast Agreement were always a sham. The supposed —.”
“<BR /> <BR />On that very basis, the suggestion that there is a justification to remove cross-community consent fails, other than for the purpose of denying unionists the protection afforded to nationalists for over 50 years: the banning of majority voting at Stormont on matters of controversy. This is the most controversial proposition to come before Stormont in its 103-year history. Put simply, the vote has been gerrymandered by the Government with the assistance of political parties, namely Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party, that have spent the last quarter of a century telling us how wrong, how unjust, it would be to have a vote on a simple majority basis. <BR /> <BR />Today, I find myself in what, some here might argue, is an odd position.”
“<BR /> <BR />Indeed and as if there was not enough, we must remember that the basis on which the Government sought to justify the non-application of cross-community consent was the definition of devolved matters, which kept from Stormont really controversial questions about the constitutional foundation for the relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the UK. Far from lessening the need for cross-community consent, widening the scope of decision-making into this much more controversial subject matter plainly increases the need for cross-community consent rather than lessening it.”
“That argument, however, is plainly absurd, because the Belfast Agreement makes provision for cross-community consent not to a subset of Stormont decisions but to all key Stormont decisions. It requires arrangements to ensure that key decisions are taken on a cross-community basis, not arrangements to ensure that key decisions of a particular kind are taken on such a basis. It covers all key decisions, and this is plainly the most far-reaching decision to be put before us. Moreover and in confirmation of that, had their initial argument been correct, it would have been completely unnecessary for them to then intervene to change the law to disapply cross-community consent to this decision. However, regrettable legislation was passed to disapply section 42 of the 1998 Act.”
“We have consultations about minor changes to domestic law, but today we are voting to surrender lawmaking powers to a foreign power, giving it a blank cheque to legislate over the heads of the people of Northern Ireland on a plethora of issues that no one in the House or in the EU has even thought of yet. That is an obscenity. <BR /> <BR />We meet today to debate the most important motion in the history of Northern Ireland, and, shockingly, it is also the first time in half a century that the House will make a significant decision on a simple majority basis. The UK Government sought to justify removing cross-community consent in relation to this vote by arguing that it did not apply because the decision pertains to non-devolved matters.”
“and give you a point for once again promoting your European fantasy document and having it as your prop in the Chamber. <BR /> <BR />Today, the Alliance Party is happy to propose a motion that should have seen a long, robust consultation with the public, but that has not taken place. Because it does not affect nationalism, the Alliance Party is happy to go along and do what it is told. When it comes to unionist rights in the Chamber, you do not see the Alliance Party speaking out, but certainly, when it comes to nationalism, it is there front and centre, leading the charge. <BR /> <BR />Due process has gone out the window.”
“I will pass on your comments to Jim that you miss him dearly”
“I thank the Member for her repeated intervention to make her point. I do not know whether they have a game in the Alliance Party to see who can make that point tonight the most. There you go, Mrs Long: there is a point for you. <BR /> <BR />The Member for South Belfast wanted an intervention; the Floor is open to you if you want.”
“Members, that unilateral declaration of October 2019 promised a public consultation before the vote. It is there in black and white in the words of the declaration. There has been no consultation, so why is the vote taking place tonight? I have no doubt that, if there was an issue that trampled on the rights of any community other than the unionist community, the Alliance Party would be up in arms about it, but today —”
“Members, that email rather eloquently expresses sentiments that colleagues would do well to reflect on tonight. Before I move on to make some points on the substance of what we have before us, I note that article 18(2) of the protocol says that the consent vote was to:”
“I am reading out the email; I will give way at the end of it. It continues:”
“Before I make my remarks, I will read an email that I received last night, which articulates sentiments that are seldom heard in the Chamber and even more seldom heard on the airwaves. It came from a number of young, articulate unionists who are concerned about how the protocol is negatively impacting on them:”
“I thank the Member for giving way. The Member for North Antrim was beating his chest and saying that trade with the South is up, but does he not recognise that that is because of displacement as a result of the protocol from his party, the SDLP and the Alliance Party? There has been a displacement of trade because of the protocol.”
“You said that there had been none. In response to three questions for written answer last month, you told me that you were discharging a number of planning conditions relating to the Belfast transport hub that had originally been put in place to protect the unionist businesses on Sandy Row. What sort of messaging does it send to others when rules and regulations are an afterthought in your Department?”
“In light of the business that we are considering later, I accept your ruling, Mr Speaker, on the matter that you brought to our attention at the start of business. I apologise for my part in yesterday's proceedings.”
“I take the Minister to her short-term measures. Bearing in mind that councils strike the rates in February, will the proposal in today's statement have any impact on the rates for 2025-26, or is it for 2026-27? On that basis, given that councils deliberate over a number of months on what rate to strike, it is important that you give them timely advice to let them know how much more money they can expect to get from the proposed changes.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During Question Time, I asked the First Minister what the legal status of the English language was in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, instead of an answer, I got a load of patronising guff that did not address the question. What remedies exist for a lowly Back-Bencher such as me to get straight answers to simple questions?”
“It is clear from the answers so far that DFI does not acknowledge that it has played any part in adding to the current congestion in Belfast. Minister, how many planning condition breaches has your Department been guilty of in relation to the closure and demolition of the Boyne Bridge? What is your assessment of the impact of your cavalier approach to businesses in and around Sandy Row?”
“Health Minister, is it the case that you provide public funding to that body and permit it to do and say whatever it wants, even though that may go against health advice?”
“First Minister, it is claimed that the changes on Irish will do nothing to impact on the status of English in Northern Ireland. On Wednesday, at the Executive Office Committee, I pressed your officials on the legal status of the English language in Northern Ireland: they could not answer me. Is it not the truth, First Minister, that, once your office has completed the process of setting up the bodies associated with Irish, the only language with official status in Northern Ireland will be Irish?”
“Thank you very much. Minister, I welcome your statement. The plan to deliver 100,000 new homes by 2040 is ambitious. There are plenty of buzzwords and phrases in your announcement. I am concerned about this: you are setting out to build 7,000 new homes a year, but are you confident that Northern Ireland Water will receive the necessary funding to ensure that you can deliver on that housing supply strategy? Have you any interim targets for builds in your strategy to ensure that we are on course to deliver 100,000 homes in 15 years?”