Sammy Wilson
MP for East Antrim · Democratic Unionist Party · United Kingdom
“If we are going to have economic growth, we must address the issue of the overall burden of taxation, but that has been studiously avoided in this Budget. I am thinking of the farming industry in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The advantage of this House is that the Chancellor has brought forward a Budget, albeit one that is inadequate. In Northern Ireland, we are seven months into the financial year and the Sinn Féin Finance Minister has still not brought forward a budget for Departments in Northern Ireland, leaving people in the dark as to what money is avail…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We may be improving in relation to other countries in the G7, but the fact of the matter is that we still have a level of debt that, as the Chancellor has said, is absorbing more and more of our tax revenue to pay—and that is to pay only the interest. We are borrowing more and we are adding to the debt.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The last big issue is the welfare bill, which has been well aired in the debate today, and how it is increasing day on day. As the Chancellor said, the increase in the welfare bill and the way we do welfare is condemning a whole generation to no work—to not working, being on benefits and being reliant on benefits—and it is taxpayers who a…”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the fact that some pensioners at least will not be dragged into paying tax. I also welcome the support for people with their energy bills—although, as for other Members representing rural areas, 60% of people in Northern Ireland will not be impacted by it.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course, any of the big diesel and petrol users would have benefited from greater support from the Government. On the big challenges that the Government are facing, and which they admit they are facing, there has been very little in this Budget.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“These are all issues that should be taken up during the planning process, and I am not sure that happens. When I have objected to wind farm applications in Northern Ireland, the answer has been, “This is a way of producing clean energy.” I do not even accept that argument. It is not clean, in the way in which the landscape has to be disrupted. Most of the steel for wind turbines is produced outside the country, from sources that produce it in less clean ways than we do. Anyone who has taken any interest in the matter will be appalled at the environmental and human degradation caused by extracting the rare earth metals required for these wind turbines.”
House of Commons21 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minister has told us that the Cabinet Secretary gave him bad advice, Peter Mandelson lied to him and the Foreign Office did not tell him anything. He is really in danger of being known as the mushroom Prime Minister: he is kept in the dark and fed—I do not know if I am allowed to say it, Mr Speaker.”
House of Commons20 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not say it. Is it not the case that the Prime Minister wished to remain in the dark? He knew in September that there was a security vetting, yet he never asked about it until April. Surely that is an indication that he was quite happy to be kept in the dark, because he had made his mind up anyway.”
House of Commons20 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Despite the current legislation, in Northern Ireland, not only individuals but Sinn Féin Government Ministers engage in acts and make speeches on an almost monthly basis that not only glorify but encourage terrorism, praise those who took place in bomb attacks on police stations and individuals, and, indeed, name play parks after those individuals. Does the Minister accept that the current legislation does not rule out the possibility of people engaging in acts of glorifying terrorism, which not only impacts the people of the past but poisons the minds of young people in the present?”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member makes an important point. Given the role of criminal organisations in fly-tipping, the costs can be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds to landowners, who are the innocent victims of this crime. If the Government are serious about dealing with fly-tipping, they have to ensure that the sanctions are a deterrent.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the right hon. Lady accept that in many instances, action is not taken because of the fear of violence? Much of this tipping is done by criminal gangs, who will stop at nothing because it is a very profitable industry. Organisations such as the Environment Agency, and even sometimes local councils and the police, do not take the action that is required, leading to the accumulation of huge amounts of waste.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What does the hon. Lady say to the people who become the target of those continual protests? The protesters recognise that there is a vulnerable area, a vulnerable community, part of a city or a piece of the country’s infrastructure, such that, when they protest there on a regular basis, they cause maximum disruption to the lives of the people who live there. What does she say to those people? Should they not have protection?”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This should worry everyone in the House: surveys have shown that one in five people in GB believe that political violence is justified in certain circumstances. How has that situation arisen? It has arisen because we allow the glorification of terrorism. “The cause is just. The people who do it are heroes. They make great sacrifices. They have no alternative”—those are the kinds of arguments I hear in Northern Ireland all the time, but I also hear them now from some of those who promote terrorism in GB.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The whole point of glorifying terrorism is to ensure that, even when terrorists are under pressure militarily, their evil message—the poison that they wish to inject into society—can still be perpetuated and spread, whether through physical violence or by using people and getting people to support them. I say to the House that that is not just an issue for Northern Ireland, which experienced years of terrorism and still has the legacy of that terrorism. This issue increasingly affects Great Britain. We see it on the streets, almost on a monthly basis. We see marches glorifying terrorism and intimidating certain sections of the population. Many people in GB, especially in the Jewish community, now feel that they cannot even walk the streets.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the discussion that we had about the Southport inquiry yesterday, we know that there needs to be greater control of the sale of knives to people who would use them for evil purposes. Lords amendment 357 was moved in the other place by the former leader of my party, Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee, who of course has a great deal of experience of the Northern Ireland context. Those of us who live in Northern Ireland see on a monthly basis how terrorism is glorified—not by dark individuals lurking in the background, but even by Government Ministers and indeed the First Minister in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I support the amendments on fly-tipping, although some of them do not go far enough. The extent of that crime varies, from the small scale, with people throwing waste on to others’ land, to the scale seen at Hoads wood, about which the APPG for woods and trees heard evidence. The fly-tipping there was so extensive that parts of the wood were cut down. Dumping was undertaken over a six-month period, and the clear-up bill is estimated to be about £15 million. Fly-tipping is so extensive, and, as has been pointed out, the victims are forced to pay for it. The Lords amendments will at least help to impose some penalties on those who engage in that activity. I support Lords amendment 35 on the sale of knives in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I urge the House to support the amendment, not just because of the continual hurt experienced by people in Northern Ireland on an almost monthly basis, where commemorations of murderers are held and public figures go and give support to them, but in the interests of society right across the United Kingdom, where we can see that terrorists and terrorist-supporting organisations are using public platforms to glorify terrorism. That has an impact on the victims, but it also has an impact on young people who are vulnerable, easily manipulated and can be persuaded that somehow or other terrorism is something that is normal.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Instead, it says that the offence would occur only if a statement is made in respect of organisations that are currently deemed to be dangerous organisations and are proscribed. Secondly, the amendment says that the offence would occur if the comment “glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts or offences”. So the Minister’s argument against the amendment is not correct. The amendment does not open the floodgates to preventing discussion about issues that might be controversial and that people may take objection to. It is very specific.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The people who did it had no alternative.” Apart from the impact on the victims, it also sends a message to those who are listening that maybe this was not a bad thing anyway. If the situation arises in the future, will those young people be easily recruited to commit the same acts? In the Minister’s response to me, she argued—I hope that I have got this right—that the amendment will prevent legitimate debate on historical events, but reading the amendment shows that nothing can be further from the truth. The amendment says that the offence would occur if the comments relate “to one or more organisations which are at the time of the statement proscribed”. Therefore it does not prevent people from saying that something happened in the past or that an event is historical and a debate can be around it.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We’ve got to have freedom of speech.” That is fine, but when that freedom of speech is abused and the law prevents us from stopping that, we should be concerned. I met with Jewish students recently. Some 49% of Jewish students have heard either directly or in their presence the glorification of Hamas terrorism and what was done on 11 October. We have to bear in mind that this is prevalent in our society. It is prevalent in Northern Ireland. This is not just about promoting the terrorist message. It is also about the impact it has on the victims of terrorism and the anger it causes when people in public positions are allowed to stand up and praise the actions of those who killed their loved ones and maimed members of their family, arguing, “I’m proud of the people who did it. I honour the people who did it.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. and learned Member is absolutely right. The whole point of the amendment is to ensure that there is not the ability to keep on promoting the terrorist message. We do not just need a physical defeat of terrorism but an ideological one. They make their arguments to ensure that if they have to pause their campaign or do not achieve all their objectives, the poison is injected into the next generation, who will have justification for carrying on what they want them to do, to achieve their goal. Increasingly, the narrative of politics in GB is being infiltrated by sectarian arguments and sectarian division. All of us should be worried that the law is inadequate to deal with those who have evil intent. I know that some will argue, “But people have to be allowed to say what they want. We live in a democracy.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the threat that the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies in Lebanon present to world peace—in the middle east and beyond—does the Prime Minister not accept that action against the regime was inevitable, in order to cut back its military ability and its ability to blackmail the rest of the world by illegally stopping an important waterway? That has economic consequences for our country, but does he accept that, given the additional tax revenue for the Government from increased fuel prices, there is room to give extra support and that, in the longer run, we can extract our own oil and other resources, get the tax from that and have a secure supply that cannot be interrupted?”
House of Commons13 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Secretary of State’s assurances today, but given how deeply this attitude is embedded in the public sector, what steps does she intend to take to make sure that this does not happen again and that those who are responsible for these decisions are held to account?”
House of Commons13 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I heard the news this morning and the catalogue of failures and missed opportunities were read out—including the focus and attention there was on this murder, yet he was allowed to get away—my heart went out to the families of those three wee girls whose murder could have been avoided, yet the opportunity was missed. Time and again in this House, over the time I have been here, I have heard of individual child abuse cases, rape gangs and mass murder, and on each occasion there was failure by public bodies and individuals in public bodies to prevent what happened. Unfortunately—it has been highlighted here again today—there seems to be this attitude that if there is colour or ethnicity involved, the fear of racism is an additional factor.”
House of Commons13 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister not agree that if the nation is listening to this debate, it will be totally confused, or else think that this must be one of the most incompetent Governments ever?”
House of Commons13 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I doubt whether many people across the nation are watching the Parliament channel at the moment to see this statement. The Minister started off saying that this space is critical to our national security, allows us to project the full array of military capabilities in one of the most important regions for international stability in global trade, is vital for countering terrorism and threats from state adversaries, and protects Britons at home and abroad. Anyone watching this debate might then ask why the devil, if we owned it, we were giving it back to the Mauritian Government to then lease it for £35 billion from a Government who are more interested in some of the states that are hostile to our interests in the area.”
House of Commons13 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A recent Policy Exchange document entitled, “Closing the Back Door” highlighted that, as a result of the Irish Government freeloading on the UK and NATO, they were increasingly reliant on the UK for security, particularly regarding air defence and maritime security, resulting in an inability to protect their own airspace and territorial waters, including crucial transatlantic cables. That has created a back-door vulnerability for the UK and NATO. What discussions has the Minister had with the Irish Government to up their game and provide for some security measures? Does he have any concerns that a future Irish Government that included Sinn Féin could lead to any co-operation breaking down?”
House of Commons13 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As a result of the Government’s mismanagement of the economy, the spring statement forecast that economic growth and wage growth would go down and that we would have increased inflation, all of which will hit Northern Ireland more severely than other parts of the United Kingdom. Yet the Government refuse to do anything about the massive costs of the Windsor framework and have imposed, from 1 July, carbon taxes on sea transport from GB to Northern Ireland, which will hit our economy even harder. Why are the Government ignoring the real issues that face the Northern Ireland economy, through both their actions and their inactivity?”
House of Commons25 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government may not want to be drawn into a war with Iran, but Iran has declared war on us by attacking our bases, trying to kill our civilians, attacking our economy, and even engaging in acts of terror in our country. We have found this weekend that we rely on the US to protect our bases, and require its defensive capability to do so. Does that not lead the Secretary of State to the conclusion that, rather than begrudgingly providing limited access to our bases, we should be giving full support to the Americans and the Israeli Government in destroying this regime, to stop it fomenting war in the middle east and blackmailing us economically?”
House of Commons23 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should not be surprised by the attacks that happened in Golders Green last night because after all, we have been promoting this antisemitism in various ways across the United Kingdom—whether it is the sectarianism of politics that we have seen from some parties directed towards the Jewish community, whether it is a Labour council in Kent promoting an art show that shows Jews eating babies with blood dripping from their teeth, whether it is a chief constable trying to ban Jewish fans based on lies, or whether it is the leader of the Green party encouraging councils to boycott trade with Israel, even though that would be illegal. Does that not set the atmosphere that Jewish people are a target because Jewish people in some way are doing things that are evil and wrong?”
House of Commons23 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister accept that if these changes go through and people save less for their future, we will have pensioner poverty? That is the impact of these measures.”
House of Commons23 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister has insisted that he does not want to get drawn into a wider war, but with the targeting of our civilians and bases and our economy being strangled, how much wider could the war get? Does he not recognise that Iran has been able to close off the strait of Hormuz as and when it wants to, using its proxies and its geographical position? It is only once Iran learns the lesson that that tactic will not be accepted and that blackmail will not be accepted that that will not be repeated. What is this reluctance? Is it because we do not have the ability or we just do not have the political will?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given that she is still to bring forward a plan to spend the £81 million granted in the Budget last year, will he ensure that he keeps her feet to the fire so that people in Northern Ireland can receive the support that they need now, not next winter?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I suppose it was inevitable that the Minister would take the opportunity to bang the drum for his disastrous net zero policy, which has been responsible for giving people in the United Kingdom the highest electricity prices in the whole of Europe. Of course, he talks about the need for energy supply and security. We have our own gas and oil and, as far as I know, it does not have to go through the strait of Hormuz or through a Putin-controlled pipeline, yet we have turned our back on it. I welcome the support for Northern Ireland, even though it amounts to about £34 per household, but I noticed that the Minister said he is working closely with the Minister for the Economy in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chancellor raised a laugh at the start of her statement when she said she was following the right policies for this country—policies that have resulted in lower economic growth, higher unemployment, people staggering under an increased tax burden and businesses being damaged by employment taxes, and yet she has shown no change. Why has she not addressed the issues of lowering the cost of employing people, reducing the tax burden on hard-working people to help with the cost of living crisis, and reducing energy prices, which have been driven up by the net zero policies followed by this Government? Does she realise that people will be angered and amazed at her complacency today?”
House of Commons3 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should welcome the actions of America and Israel in trying to destroy a regime that, as the Prime Minister described, has exported terror all over the world, but why the weak-kneed response from the Government that we are limiting our bases to defensive actions. Will the Prime Minister clarify what he means by “defensive actions”? For example, are attacks on factories making drones that are used to deliver bombs defensive? Are attacks on the leaders planning the war against our allies in the middle east defensive? Would attacks on nuclear facilities be regarded as defensive? Would attacks on the infrastructure that is used to mobilise these weapons be defensive? What are the limits of this defensive action?”
House of Commons2 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No building society would charge someone more for their mortgage if they got a bit richer; they enter into an agreement and the terms are there. The third point is that it is not fair that, in some cases, because of the freezing of thresholds, many people who are on low incomes are now dragged into the system of repayment, and pay up to 9%. A number of things have been suggested. The first is that thresholds should not be frozen, but should increase with inflation. The second is that interest rates should be clear and linked to CPI. The third is that repayment should be set at a reasonable level of 5%—”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At the start of this debate, there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing as to who is to blame for this problem—was it the Conservatives, or the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition? I do not think that is the point. The point is that there is a problem, and we now have a Government who have the ability to deal with it. The second point—this word has been used time and again in this debate—is about whether the system is “fair”. I know the Chancellor believes that the arrangements in place are reasonable and fair, and I think that is wrong. It is not fair that people take out loans and then find that the terms of those loans are changed. It is not fair that, as people earn more money, the terms of the loans are changed.”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. and learned Member accept that the situation is even worse than that? If goods that are subsidised or get state aid in GB have a tenuous connection with markets in Northern Ireland, the EU can again limit the amount of state aid given, disadvantaging some producers even here in GB.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Would the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that there is a further chilling effect? Namely, companies that might decide to invest in GB or in Northern Ireland may well feel that since they would be able to achieve less support in Northern Ireland than in GB, they will simply choose to invest outside Northern Ireland in GB, and jobs and investment opportunities will therefore be lost as a result of the picture he has painted.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Northern Ireland would expect to do well out of this process, because proportionally we export much more of our industrial production than other parts of the United Kingdom. The Minister rails against the decision on Brexit and so on, but does he accept that since the United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave the EU, the Government’s responsibility was to make sure that the whole of the United Kingdom left on the same terms?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yesterday I met two apprentices who were engaged in firms delivering defence contracts in Northern Ireland and were enthusiastic about the skills and their prospects, but Northern Ireland benefits minimally from defence contracts across the United Kingdom. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that more contracts are awarded to Northern Ireland, and will he ignore the comments of the First Minister, who does not want that to happen?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last week the Government pushed through the imposition of the emissions trading scheme on domestic shipping. That will have a huge impact on Northern Ireland, because so many goods are brought into Northern Ireland from GB, or sent there, on ferries. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact this will have on consumer prices and manufacturing costs in Northern Ireland? Does he recognise that Northern Ireland will face heavy costs because of this net zero policy?”
House of Commons10 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I ask this particularly because when heckling fails, some Members of this House now threaten other Members by reporting them to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, to try to silence them that way.”
House of Commons9 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course we need a commissioner who has the power and ability to expose corruption and deal with it, but today’s statement was not required. We already knew that the Prime Minister made a bad judgment. What the public want to know is how he will be held to account for the things that he knew but ignored. Will the Minister assure the House that when he looks at extra powers for commissioners, he will not go as far as was gone in Northern Ireland, where the discredited former standards commissioner used her powers to silence Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly who were questioning Ministers too vigorously, or who were not showing enough empathy when they made public statements about security situations in their constituency?”
House of Commons9 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even if there were an investigation, I do not think it would find that Israel was reckless in the way it has responded to a terrorist attack on its own civilians.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, the judge who decided in that case was twice a candidate for Prime Minister of Lebanon, with the support of a terrorist group, so I do not think we can see the International Court of Justice as an independent body here. The fact is that Israel took every attempt to reduce the civilian casualties in Gaza. One only has to look at the ratio of civilian casualties in Gaza to those in Iraq or Afghanistan and the actions that Israel has taken, even putting its own soldiers at risk by leafleting, telephoning and using UN co-ordination to say when it will strike and withdrawing some of its strikes when it did. Who put the civilians in harm’s way? Hamas made it quite clear that civilians being killed would put blood into the veins of resistance. That is the kind of enemy Israel is up against.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The question was asked at the start of this debate, “Whose side are we on?” Let me make something very clear: I am on the side of the people who suffered one of the most horrendous terrorist attacks on 7 October 2023, when their citizens were raped, burnt, taken into captivity and killed in cold blood, and their killers boasted about it and stuck it on the internet. I am on the side of those people who since then have suffered the most sectarian abuse because they are Jews and happen to live in this country. Members have asked how we can ignore the ruling of the International Court of Justice. First, it has not said there was any intent.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Hamas would disagree with the hon. Member, because Hamas boasted that the killing of civilians would help to increase the resistance and put some fire into it. Before accusations are made against Israel, let us look at the record of Hamas on putting civilians in harm’s way, and basing their rockets and firing points in hospitals, schools, civilian infrastructure, and therefore inviting the retaliation, based on the fact that Israeli armed forces had to take action. The rules of engagement were such that even the former supreme chief of NATO was able to observe that when it came to the way that Israel engaged the enemy in Gaza, its standards were higher than what we would have expected even of the British Army in such circumstances. My concern is this: the motion, and this demand—”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, I will not give way. This demand will be used to justify the intimidatory marches that we see week after week throughout the United Kingdom. It will be used to justify the barricading of Jewish businesses, the banning of Jewish students and academics from universities, and even the banning of Israeli sports fans from sporting events in the United Kingdom. This is part of the campaign to justify the sectarianism, which is now creeping into the debate in the United Kingdom—”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, I am asking for a delay to allow further review and assessment of the impact. Secondly, given the likely impact on Northern Ireland and other isolated parts of the United Kingdom, I ask that the domestic application of the measure be dropped.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is a case for saying that this measure should not be applied to domestic transport; we have heard about the impact on ferries to the islands. There is certainly a case for looking at the speed with which it is being implemented. I urge the Committee to consider those points. I know that I will not have a vote on this measure. I suspect that even if I did have a vote and we tried to pack the place, it would not make any difference. I just ask that these serious issues are considered. This is not just a whinge and saying, “We don’t like this applying to Northern Ireland.” The measure will have serious impacts on our main trade routes with GB. The freight rates for those routes will not achieve the result that the Minister outlined. I ask that the issue be reconsidered with two solutions in mind.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have already mentioned the fact that this policy will first of all not reduce emissions because there are no alternatives, and secondly, the revenue that we raise from it will not be used to help operators transition from the methods that they use at present. There is nothing in this order about making money available for retrofitting, fuel experimentation and development, or putting power facilities on port sites to enable ships to use an alternative means of propulsion. This is simply a tax. It will not even achieve what the Government want—namely, to reduce emissions. It will have an impact on an economy—on a part of the United Kingdom —already burdened by actions that the previous Government took with the Windsor framework, which has been continued by this Government. This will be yet another cost on top of that.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My argument is this: if the 50% allowance has been put in place, it is only because the Government recognise the disproportionate impact that the measure will have on Northern Ireland. According to the operators, that 50% allowance will go nowhere near to wiping out the costs. It has not even been mentioned that this measure will have to be in place by July. There is not even any clear guidance available yet to the operators about what they will be required to do, and the EU is reviewing its emissions trading scheme simply because it recognises that there are technical details that need to be ironed out, yet the Government will load their scheme on to operators in three months’ time.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They may look to the Irish Republic, for example, for supplies instead of bringing them from GB, if the routes are more costly”, but the fact remains that we are dependent on GB, our main supply route is from GB to Northern Ireland and most of our goods are going from Northern Ireland to GB, so there is not even an alternative to switching, even if that were desirable, and it is not desirable because firms choose the GB market because it is profitable for them and they choose GB suppliers because they are the best suppliers that they can use for their businesses. The Government will probably say, “Well, yes, but we have made a 50% allowance for Northern Ireland”. I suppose the Minister will argue that that is a recognition that there is a special case for Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗