Sammy Wilson
MP for East Antrim · Democratic Unionist Party · United Kingdom
“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Foreign Secretary has said that his concern is for the behaviour of some settlers on the west bank, and I think we all share that, but does he accept that the fear of losing votes to the Green party and the independent Members on the Bench behind me is also…”
“It is a sad state of affairs when ordinary people feel compelled to take direct action against illegal immigration into our country as a result of successive Governments failing to stop the invasion of our country by illegal immigrants, aided by criminal gangs.”
“The Chancellor has rightly identified trade frictions as a major impediment to economic growth. As a result of the Windsor framework, the internal market in the UK has been severely disrupted by EU-imposed restrictions on trade, which mean customs unions, mountains of paperwork and physical barriers. What steps does the right hon.”
“We would not need these regulations were it not for EU regulations having to apply to a certain part of the United Kingdom because it is regarded as part of the EU, regardless of the democratic vote of the British people to leave the EU. This is not about protecting biodiversity.”
“Because they are now subject to all these additional regulations. If they do not abide by those regulations—we have already seen this—those goods can be seized, destroyed, re-exported or detained by DAERA in Northern Ireland. That is not something which is just a maybe; it happens currently.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. The Minister outlined why these regulations were necessary and gave what, to most on the Committee, would be an acceptable argument: they are to protect biodiversity in Northern Ireland and to ensure that diseased plants are not accessing the Northern Ireland market.”
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“The EU has been complaining about there being no physical border posts, and what have we done ahead of reaching any agreement? We have agreed that, since Stormont will not do it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will take responsibility for building those border posts, which are quite extensive. When I look at the size of the post in my constituency, I wonder whether everything will go through the green lane, because we have a massive 10-acre site, which DEFRA intends to develop with a huge building that would do Dover proud, for dealing with east-west trade. Those kinds of signal do not help us to reach a solution and agreement with the EU. We wish the Government well.”
“I can see the value of devolution, but it can work only if it is based on the principle of consent from both sides of the community—especially in a divided society such as Northern Ireland. I take issue with the shadow Secretary of State’s questioning whether there is any need for the protocol Bill. I believe that in these negotiations, the EU has to understand that there is an alternative. Not to proceed with the protocol Bill would be wrong, because there must be a fall-back position if the negotiations do not succeed. It seems that all the wrong choices have been made. For a couple of years now, the EU has wanted access to important commercial data, and before we have even made an agreement with the EU, we have surrendered and said that we will make that data available.”
“That issue has to be addressed. The only way to address the issue is to ensure that when laws are made for Northern Ireland, they are made either in this place, if they are on retained issues, or in Stormont, if they are on devolved issues. That is the ultimate test. Once that happens, we will not need to worry about trade barriers and everything else, because we will have a seamless market within the United Kingdom. I hope we get that outcome, because I support devolution. In fact, I was a member of the Executive at a time when they worked at their best; I am not taking any credit for that. I can think of legislation that I took through the Assembly that has been copied in other legislatures across the United Kingdom. The Executive were innovative, and able to respond to local issues.”
“We have not turned the deal down because we have not seen it in its entirety; we have simply given guidelines on what we expect to see in it. I say this to all the parties here who send representatives to the Northern Ireland Assembly: what kind of public representative wants to be, and would support being, part of an Assembly that has no say over a whole raft of the laws that impact on businesses and consumers in their constituency? What kind of representative would accept sitting and working in an Assembly, and perhaps acting as Minister, if it meant implementing laws that they did not initiate and cannot amend, but have to implement, even if those are detrimental to their constituents? That is the democratic deficit, and it affects not just Unionists, but every party and every public representative that sits in the Assembly.”
“Until we see them in writing, we are certainly not going to take the word of those who brief us. Even if their intentions are honest, everyone will have their own interpretation of those things. We need to see the changes to measure them. A central question needs to be addressed; if it is not, there cannot and will not be a positive response from my party. What do we do about the 300 areas of law—not 300 laws, but 300 areas of law—to which Northern Ireland is currently subject that are being determined in Brussels? Do they come back to the devolved Assembly? There are three parties represented in the Chamber today, and some of them have already said that we should go with the deal, even though they have not seen it.”
“That is not to mention the unknown future: there is a whole raft of EU law that we cannot even see—it is over the horizon at moment—that will cause us to diverge further from GB. That will make us a colony of Brussels—that is how it has been described—and will damage our economic, political and constitutional relationships with the UK. The Secretary of State cannot expect that of us. That brings me to the point that I want to make: how do we get out of this situation? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley has mentioned, we welcome any changes that have been made. We have not seen the detail of them—nobody has—so it is really hard to assess exactly the extent of the changes on trade, checks, VAT and state aid, and what exactly they mean.”
“The hon. Member is right, and that illustrates just how much trade with GB is fettered in order to get unfettered access for a small amount of produce in the Irish Republic. Nearly 50% of the border checks for the EU were done for goods coming through Northern Ireland, even though we account for 0.4% of trade with the EU. That is the price being paid. Leaving aside the political and constitutional issues, there are huge economic issues from that unfairness. The Secretary of State cannot and should not be surprised or disappointed that, as a Unionist party, we refuse to take our part in an Executive who would require by law—the courts have ruled on this—that our Ministers administer and impose that kind of arrangement on the people of Northern Ireland.”
“Can the hon. Member explain why, in the three years when Sinn Féin excluded itself from the Executive and we had no Executive, the Alliance party not only did not propose, but refused to support any move that would have excluded Sinn Féin?”
“18. What diplomatic steps he is taking to encourage the Iranian Government to comply with its (a) human rights and (b) other obligations under international law.”
“Since September, the Iranian regime has murdered 700 of its own citizens, gunning them down in the streets, arrested and imprisoned 30,000—many of them were tortured in prison—executed two, with another 57 due to be executed, and carried out acts of terror, including in this country, through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Is it not time that the Government made it clear to the Iranian regime that, first, we will not negotiate any deals with them—nuclear or otherwise—to lift sanctions; secondly, we will refer members of the regime to the International Court of Justice; and, thirdly, we will proscribe the IRGC?”
“Thirdly, it is clear from the figures that have already been quoted—I will not go through them all again—that many of the animals are being hunted close to extinction.”
“I welcome the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley on getting it to this stage. I hope the Government will support it to ensure its full passage through both the House of Commons and the upper Chamber. I want to start by saying some things about the necessity of the Bill. First, public opinion is clearly in favour of it. Some 86% of those surveyed believe there should be an immediate import ban, and that cannot be ignored. Secondly, in the countries where these animals are often hunted, there is now a growing consensus among politicians, the population, academic researchers and environmentalists that the trade is not good for their country and not good for the animals, especially those under threat—it does not even contribute economically in the way that many of those who support this trade and activities claim that it does.”
“The figure that has been given is $14 per hectare, as opposed to 20 cents per hectare for when tourism was centred on hunting wild animals. The case is unassailable.”
“The idea that hunting animals somehow helps with conservation is just not proven by the facts—yet despite that, and despite the clear threat, we find that, given the number of trophies coming into the United Kingdom, the trade has not declined but increased substantially: from 17 per year in 1981 to 300 in the year before the pandemic. There does not even appear to be any restraint on those who carry out these activities, despite the fact that fewer animals are available. Fourthly, I do not think that there is even an economic case. It is significant that countries such as Tanzania, which are banning the practice, are getting far more money per hectare from nature tourism than they would have from the hunting of animals.”
“The hon. Member is right. There is no evidence that such activity has led to the conservation and protection of animals. In fact, as a result of trophy hunting, elephant numbers are now in a critical situation. Lions are often hunted after they have been bred in captivity, so there are no longer even enough out in the wild, and the numbers are down to about 200,000. Leopards have fallen from 700,000 in the 1960s—in 1961, I think—to 50,000 today, so there is no evidence there of conservation. It is the same with hippos—the hippopotamus population is down by 20%.”
“I have no doubt that the UK population shares its opposition to hunting trophies with the populations of many other countries. I give my full endorsement to the Bill, and congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley on pushing it to this point. I would like to hear from the Minister about how the loophole that will exist until the protocol is dealt with can be handled.”
“Yes, I do. There is an international battle to be had here. If we really believe that hunting is endangering animals, then we should encourage nations across the world to act—and not only nations in Africa; do not forget that there are 30 countries across the world where endangered animals are hunted almost to extinction. We need to persuade those countries that there is an alternative to this trade. We also need to persuade countries that allow trophies in, and therefore encourage the trade, of the view encapsulated in the Bill, so that there is a whole approach to the issue. I would be more than happy if, instead of Northern Ireland having to comply with EU law, the EU decided it would comply with UK law. That would be a gain for us.”
“I am glad the Minister accepts that there is no magic wand, but does he also accept that, given the nature of the Executive, which is a mandatory coalition, we have had a Sinn Féin Finance Minister, and no Sinn Féin Finance Minister has, I think, ever succeeded in presenting a Budget that other parties could support? That is one reason why we face the deficit that we have at the moment. Indeed, the restoration of the Executive would make things difficult, given that some Ministers do not even attempt to reflect the spending wishes of the other parties in the Executive.”
“First, I too join the Minister in expressing sympathy on behalf of my party to Alex Easton, one of the MLAs for North Down, whose parents died tragically in a house fire today. Our thoughts and prayers are with him. He has lost both elderly parents today.”
“There is this idea from the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that these things would be resolved if only the Assembly were functioning—but the Assembly was functioning, and this was not resolved.”
“It is quite right that the Minister has taken a decision. I do not criticise him for leaving it so late, because he could not have done it before. Indeed, this Budget crisis originated not in October last year, but at the very start of that year—ironically, when the Assembly was fully functioning, and we had a Finance Minister in place, an operating Executive and Ministers who could make decisions about priorities—when, for the second time, Sinn Féin failed to present a Budget that could have the support of any party in the Assembly. There have been only two Sinn Féin Finance Ministers, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir and Conor Murphy, and neither has ever been able to bring forward a successful Budget.”
“Furthermore, even though I, my party and our representatives, as Unionists, believe that the protocol is damaging to Northern Ireland’s position in the United Kingdom and to our economy, had we been sitting in the Assembly today, we and our Ministers would have been required to implement the very thing that we say is damaging us, making us exceptional, removing us from the rest of the United Kingdom, causing huge economic burdens—I will mention some in a moment—and being a drain on the Northern Ireland Budget. Yes, we would like to see this legislation debated and these decisions made in the Assembly, but until the basis of the Assembly is restored—that is, until there is cross-community consent for decisions that have to be made—that will, sadly, not be possible and this House will be required to intervene.”
“Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who chairs the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, that we should all be back and we cannot have any more Northern Ireland exceptionalism, but Northern Ireland has been made exceptional by decisions that he has supported—namely, that Northern Ireland no longer remains fully part of the United Kingdom as a result of the protocol.”
“I am sure that feeling will be widespread across the constituency, as Alex—a former member of my party—is well known and loved there. I share the Minister’s view on at least one point he made at the start of the debate—namely, I would have preferred it if this Budget had been discussed in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and if decisions about priorities and spending had been made there. Unfortunately, that has not been possible because the Northern Ireland Assembly cannot function, because the very basis of the Northern Ireland Assembly has been destroyed. The Assembly has to work on the basis of consensus, but that consensus has been destroyed by the protocol. We hear ad nauseum from the hon.”
“For any problem to be resolved, as the hon. Gentleman knows full well, we need a Budget that Departments work from. The Northern Ireland Assembly has collapsed twice in the last four years. On both occasions, it collapsed without a Budget; that is a fact. It collapsed without a Budget because the Finance Minister could not present a Budget that people and other parties could sign up to. On both occasions, the Ministers responsible were Sinn Féin Ministers. All I am saying to the Chairman of the Select Committee is that we could not have had a functioning Assembly. Leaving aside the principle of consent, we could not have had a functioning Assembly because the Assembly did not have the authorisation to spend money on Departments because of the failure of Ministers.”
“Despite what the Minister has said, civil servants now have the power to have greater flexibility in how money is spent. I know it is difficult for them and that some of those decisions are political, but there have already been political decisions made about the priorities that the previous Executive and the Assembly wanted. Surely those things should be guides to civil servants in making decisions about how money could be more effectively spent. As I have said, they make some controversial decisions in relation to the protocol, so there is no reason why we should not have tweaking of the Budget. The last point I wish to—”
“All those things are in competition, and we cannot simply say, “Here is one part of the Budget that we will keep pouring money into.” Of course, as I mentioned, some money could be released for the trader support service and the other expenditure around the protocol—nearly half a billion pounds every year. As the Government now accept, the reason why that money is spent is that the protocol is such a big disadvantage and a burden on business that they need to help those businesses overcome the bureaucracy, and the barriers and impediments to trade between GB—our biggest market—and Northern Ireland. The other point I wish to make on the Budget this afternoon is that when it comes to looking at priorities, even in the absence of devolution Ministers could do more to look at where we need to spend the money and direct civil servants.”
“On health, leaving aside the money that is spent directly from Westminster—annually managed expenditure —we are now spending nearly 45% of the total Budget that the Executive has to spend on health, yet outcomes are falling and waiting lists are increasing. I get letters from constituents and angry letters from doctors all the time, saying, “We need to spend more on health. We are under- resourced; we are underfunded.” I do not know how much of the Budget we can continue to take out and give to one particular sector—there are other areas, as Members have mentioned, including policing, infrastructure, education, universities, training, agriculture and industrial promotion.”
“Some of the decisions that the Assembly has made have not been helpful in that regard. The Integrated Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, which was passed just before the Assembly collapsed, gives preference to one particular sector of the education system. I think that Act is going to make it much more difficult to rationalise education and, therefore, to ensure that money is better spent. While I do not want to go into the detail of the Act today, that is what the other sectors of education believe as well—that it is going to make that whole process of efficiency and spending in education more difficult than it is at present. Again, that is an example of where just having a devolved Administration, which should know local needs, does not always ensure that the most efficient decisions will be made.”
“However, education has been specifically targeted by Ministers to face a reduction, even though education spending in Northern Ireland is at the lowest level per head in all parts of the United Kingdom. The difference between Northern Ireland and Scotland, for example, is £1,200 per pupil. I know that these things are not always solved by money: although Scotland has the highest level of expenditure per head when it comes to education spending on pupils, its outcomes are actually falling, so let us not imagine that there is a direct correlation all the time between spending money and getting outcomes. I am sure the Minister will make the point that that is why it is important for Government Departments to make decisions about performance, efficiencies, productivity and so on.”
“The Bill allows Departments to spend until the end of this financial year, and then into the middle—I think it is June—of the next financial year. That is not unusual. Indeed, if the Assembly had been functioning, that power would have to have been given to give the Departments the ability to spend that money on account until the Budget was finally agreed—it usually was agreed, but it was not agreed in some cases—in the Assembly in June of this year. There are aspects of the Budget that are particularly difficult: one, which has already been mentioned in interventions, is the expenditure on education. Once education and health are taken out of the Northern Ireland Budget, we do not have a great deal left, because they account for over 60% of spending between them.”
“Ministers at Westminster have now taken over the power to deliver at least a £47 million investment in border posts within our own country. There are questions—not for today, but at some other stage—about who authorised civil servants to start the work on those before Ministers in Westminster took responsibility, even though it was controversial. The Minister has talked about the difficulty of civil servants taking decisions, but it seems that when they want to, they can even make controversial decisions—decisions that split the United Kingdom and put border posts between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Nothing can be more controversial than that, yet civil servants seem to have been able to take those decisions.”
“To level up, and to accept that there is a responsibility to transfer resources to those areas that, for whatever reason, face disadvantages. I would point out to the Minister that the increase in the money we have had to receive is partly due to the protocol, which his Government signed up to. There is nearly £500 million a year in the trader support scheme, as well as the resources behind the extra sanitary and phytosanitary checks—the people who have had to be employed, the computers that have had to be installed and the buildings that we now find are going to be built, but not as a result of a decision made by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive, because of course there could not be agreement on that.”
“Moving on to my second point, the Minister has made great play today of the fact that Northern Ireland gets treated more generously than the rest of the United Kingdom. I accept that, but so do Scotland and Wales. One of the important things about being part of the Union is that there are fiscal transfers from those parts of the country that have geographical, economic and infrastructure advantages that other parts do not have. I do not believe that it shows a begging-bowl mentality when people in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland—or indeed the north of England—say, “Look, there are parts of the country that are richer, but one of the benefits of being part of the Union is that those parts help the areas that are in difficulty.” Indeed, the Government’s own philosophy at the moment is what?”
“I do not want to get into history, but I would point out that in the first year I was Finance Minister, we had a 5% cut in the Budget in the middle of the financial year as a result of decisions made here, and we agreed a Budget. Furthermore, we agreed a Budget not just for one year but for three years, so it is possible for the Assembly to make decisions. All I am saying is that, in its current form and with the current party holding the Department of Finance, that has not been possible. The point I am trying to make is that rather than lay the blame at the feet of the DUP for not operating an Executive—in which its views were excluded anyway—we should lay the blame for this situation at the feet of those who could not make an operable Budget even when the Executive was functioning.”
“The point I was making—the Minister knows this, because we have raised it here on a number of occasions—is that the responsibility did lie with the Northern Ireland Executive. The Foreign Office did not like the decisions that Democratic Unionist party Ministers in the Executive made on the protocol infrastructure and only recently have taken over the responsibility to implement that. Even before that happened, civil servants—I do not know whether they did this at the prompting of officials or Ministers in the Foreign Office—were already making decisions about clearing sites in my constituency to build border posts. The last point I would—”
“Until that situation is revolved, we are going to be faced with the kind of situation we are discussing today. What amazes me is that other parties in the Assembly, which equally will have no say on those laws, meekly accept those powers being taken from them and not being available to them. I have heard many debates in this Chamber about the Government snatching power from devolved Administrations on various Bills, yet we find that some parties in Northern Ireland are happily accepting that they should not have the ability to make decisions on matters that will greatly influence the lives of ordinary people.”
“If we consider the existing pressures—teachers, wage increases for public servants, the cost of energy and so on—some of them are universal and apply across the board in the United Kingdom, but given the size of the public sector in Northern Ireland even a Barnett consequential does not fully compensate for the increase in costs that the Northern Ireland Administration faces. Those are the kind of issues on which I hope we can have continued discussion with the Minister in future.”
“It is important that Ministers consider some of the points that have been made by the education sector, especially in Northern Ireland. Youngsters have fallen behind as a result of covid, and have been locked out of schools. Many of them—and I know this from my own constituency—are youngsters who are most disadvantaged in education anyway, and there should be a discussion with the education sector about what can be done to introduce additional help, especially for youngsters who have fallen behind as a result of the covid closure of schools. There will be further discussions after the Bill progresses, and I hope that many of the priorities articulated in the Chamber today will be considered. I understand that there are certain sides on a cake, but I do not believe that the cake is big enough.”
“I am amazed at the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. As far as I know, he is a member of the Conservative and Unionist party, and as a Unionist, he should be interested in that sweet spot. Simply to hand over power and then find some complicated mechanism to ensure that maybe someone’s voice is heard and considered, while laws from outside are still imposed in our country and a foreign court adjudicates on whether they have been applied properly, does not hit the sweet spot with me, and it should not hit the sweet spot with him; otherwise he should take “Unionist” out of the title of his party membership. Let me make one last point, about the size of the Budget. Unless there is a radical movement in the EU’s position, the situation could continue for some time.”
“The hon. Gentleman continually raises this issue—sometimes taking a whining approach as well—but under the Executive I remember money going to the airport at Londonderry, Altnagelvin hospital getting the cancer centre and money being allocated for the road from Londonderry—”
“I am thinking only of my own experience. Actually, the road was cut because the Irish Government said they were not going to make their contribution to it.”
“The announcement today is a tragedy for those who have jobs in this company and those who were looking forward to having jobs there in future. It is also a hammer blow to the Government’s levelling up policy. The support for this company seems to have been driven more by the desire, in the words of the former Prime Minister, to be “at the helm of the global green industry” than a robust economic case. Is the Minister concerned that the company mentioned ballooning energy costs? BMW is moving its production of the Mini to China because it can get cheap energy there. How many more jobs will be sacrificed on the altar of a high energy cost net zero policy?”
“The Minister is right that the whole point of Brexit was to take control of our own laws. She is also right that there needs to be a single set of laws across the United Kingdom. But the Bill makes it clear that we will not have a single set of laws across the United Kingdom, because a wide range of laws in Northern Ireland are exempt from the provisions of the Bill. Furthermore, in future when EU law changes and applies in Northern Ireland, the gap between the laws in the rest of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland will get ever wider. Does she accept that unless the protocol is dealt with, there is a real danger that Northern Ireland will be treated differently and be constitutionally separated from the United Kingdom?”
“An essential ingredient to levelling up is the ability to trade within a country to get the best prices and products. In Northern Ireland, that cannot happen because of the imposition of EU law, which has obstructed trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Will the Minister accept that only by removing the Northern Ireland protocol and abiding by the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill can this iniquity be removed?”
“I welcome this package, and I especially welcome the inclusion of charitable organisations, but the fact remains that even if energy prices stabilise, given Government policies on net zero and the decarbonisation of electricity, there will be continued upward pressure on businesses’ energy bills for the foreseeable future, and I do not believe that the package will help many of the small businesses that are hanging on by their fingertips at present because of the massive energy price increases. First, will these measures apply to Northern Ireland automatically or, because of the separate regime, will they have to be tailored to the Northern Ireland market? Secondly, when it comes to energy-intensive industries that do a lot of trade, will the package include businesses such as food processing, which is very important in Northern Ireland?”
“At the same time, what steps is the Home Secretary taking to ensure that safe and legal routes are strengthened for those who genuinely need to seek refuge in this country, and that more resources are put into them, so that there is no need for people to give in to the exploitation of these people smugglers?”
“Our thoughts and prayers have to go to those whose families have been destroyed by the tragedy that occurred in the channel. But our anger, and the anger of the House, ought to be directed at those who callously exploit people who are desperate, or simply people who are misled, for profit. The Democratic Unionist party and the whole House should be supporting the Government in their efforts, first, to prevent the people who are selling places on these boats from getting customers in the first place. Those people should know that, when they come here, there will be no advantage to them and that they will have to leave again.”
“At a recent event in Monkstown Boxing Club in my constituency, which was arranged to show support for Ukrainians located in the greater Belfast area, there was huge support and thanks for the work our Government have done to help Ukrainians to defend themselves against Russians. The question is this: we are supplying equipment, but there is talk now that we are only supplying very limited ammunition for that equipment. Is the Secretary of State convinced, first, that we are supplying what is needed and, secondly, that we have the capacity to supply what is needed in the future?”
“I welcome this common-sense and economically sound decision. It is one that will create jobs, will ensure that we do not have to import necessary coal, and, as the inspector has said, will have significant national and regional economic advantages for our economy. Does the Minister agree that, where we have indigenous resources, which this economy needs, it is economically better and more honest to use those rather than import from countries with lower environmental standards and also that might not be relied on? Does he not find it ironic that some of those who are complaining today are the first to complain about not doing enough for poor regions of this country and would be the first in line to complain if steel jobs were lost?”