Hilary Benn
MP for Leeds South · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Irish Government published on 8 June their legislative outline, entitled “The General Scheme of the Legacy of the Troubles Bill 2026”. That is intended to fulfil the commitment that the Irish Government gave in the joint framework to co-operate to the fullest extent possible with the commission.”
“Northern Ireland is a society, as the hon. Gentleman knows better than most, that has been undergoing profound change since the signing of the Good Friday agreement 28 years ago. As the famous lines go, we have a shared history, but not necessarily a shared memory.”
“The right hon. Gentleman raises a really important point, and I am grateful to him for his question. We all have a responsibility—political leaders have a responsibility to call out what was witnessed for what it is and not mince our words, and as I have already indicated, social media companies have a responsibility to ensure that such m…”
“I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that the common travel area, which is more than a century old, is of great benefit to the citizens of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Many people in Northern Ireland live their lives across that border every single day.”
“I do agree with my hon. Friend. The attack on Mr Ogilvie was truly shocking, and there was no justification whatsoever for the racist thuggery we witnessed on the streets of Belfast in the days following.”
“That was, of course, an awful feature of what we saw. One of the things I learned in my discussions was that those from the far right had taken a list of houses in multiple occupation in Belfast—a list that, in the interests of openness, was properly available on the Belfast city council website; the council has now taken it down—and used…”
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“As the Secretary of State said, countless other people—many others, some of whom have been mentioned—contributed to this unique moment. I grew up in London. I watched the reporting of the troubles on the television and I read about it in the newspapers, and I will be frank: like many people, I despaired at what I was seeing. If you lived in London during the 1970s and 1980s and you got on the underground, you would look around the carriage to try to see if there were any bags that did not appear to belong to anyone who was travelling. For as long as I live, I will never forget the only time that I have heard a bomb go off. I was in bed, and it was this sound—you might think it is a bang, but as I heard it, it was a kind of deep thump.”
“It put to rest the idea that what was happening in Northern Ireland was a trouble in just a part of the United Kingdom that had no relationship to what had gone on over 800 years, from the original Norman invasion and the claim of the English kings to the land of Ireland, and the way in which the Irish people were denied their land, their voice, their language, their culture and their political representation during the course of those 800 bloody years. John Major, of course, also helped to lay the foundation, and Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern and Mo Mowlam have been mentioned already. We should add George Mitchell, as well as Jonathan Powell, who probably spent more time than anyone else on the shuttle from London to Belfast, back and forth to help lay the groundwork.”
“It is a privilege to take part in this debate: what we may lack in numbers has been more than made up for by the quality of all the speeches we have heard thus far. Maybe it is a sign that we have taken what was achieved 25 years ago for granted, but I agree with at least two speakers who have said that we should never, ever, ever do that. It is an occasion to say thank you, and many people have been thanked. There are two people who have not been mentioned so far: Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald. The 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement was hugely significant in the series of events that led up to what happened 25 years ago, because it embraced the legacy of the history that has bound Ireland and Britain together.”
“The right hon. Gentleman told the House a little earlier that the three sites, which we presume are RAF Scampton, RAF Wethersfield and a site in East Sussex—perhaps he would care to name it—will “provide accommodation for several thousand asylum seekers”. Can he tell the House how many thousands, and in doing so, can he remind us of the total number of people who are being placed in hotels currently?”
“The Minister said a moment ago that HSBC has to date provided some £2 billion to SVB to enable it to service its customers. Are such sums reported regularly to the Bank of England and regulators? Does he anticipate that HSBC will need to transfer further sums to continue to support depositors?”
“At a meeting in Leeds on Saturday of leaseholders affected by the cladding scandal, nearly two thirds said that they have absolutely no idea when their home is going to be made safe—six years after Grenfell. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is completely unacceptable? What is he going to do to make their homes safe?”
“They did not wait for the Government to say, “Well, we might or might not follow suit”; they said, “Henceforth, we will of course produce baby foods matching the EU standard”, because they want to continue to be able to sell their products. Ultimately, businesses will decide the standard that works for them. This is a very sensible measure. I congratulate the negotiators, and I really hope the House will vote for it.”
“When the Government decide which of those pieces of retained law they want to dispose of or change through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, they have a choice about the extent to which they want to create divergence. I suspect that, by the end of this year, many of those pieces of legislation will still apply in Great Britain, because divergence creates problems. That is the point that the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) made in a speech shortly after the referendum: divergence results in our having to make a choice. The final point I want to make is that it is very striking that businesses will take decisions for themselves. There was a recent example: the EU decided to reduce the amount of permitted arsenic in baby foods. What did manufacturers in Britain do in response?”
“In particular, the Stormont brake answers the point DUP Members make in this House about future EU legislation, because the brake is available. Secondly, I wanted to respond directly to the point the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) made about existing EU law that continues to apply in the United Kingdom. Many pieces of EU legislation have applied in Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom for years. Have they had an impact on the ability of Northern Ireland businesses to trade with rest of the United Kingdom? No, they have not. They continue to apply in Great Britain because of EU retained law.”
“I confess that when I read the Windsor framework I was surprised, and pleasantly so, because as the Secretary of State told the House earlier, there were things in it that I did not think negotiation would manage to achieve. It is to the great credit of the negotiators, and to the great credit of the DUP, that they have achieved so much in this agreement. The EU has had to move a long way. This proposal is very sensible. Leaving the European Union always confronted us with a choice in what to do about the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Apart from those who said, “That’s not my problem. Leave it to the EU,” everyone knew that some arrangement had to be put in place. The result was the protocol, but it did not work. The Windsor framework provides a way forward.”
“This barbaric execution was in breach of the Saudi authorities’ commitment to stop using the death penalty in drugs cases. They have also promised to stop executing minors, but Abdullah al-Howaiti was 14 when he was arrested and tortured, and 17 when he was sentenced to death. If his sentence is upheld soon, he could be executed at any time. We have heard from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) how the Government intervened successfully in the case of another minor. Will the Government now make representations, through the Foreign Secretary, to try to save Abdullah’s life?”
“Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) a moment ago, the Leader of the House knows that there is an affordable housing crisis in this country, in significant measure because of the catastrophic decline in the number of council houses. Leeds has 26,000 people on the waiting list, more than 5,000 of whom have the very highest priority—they need to be urgently rehoused. Given the lack of support announced in the Budget yesterday, will the Leader of the House encourage the Levelling Up Secretary to come to the House to make a statement about what the Government are going to do to build more homes that our constituents can actually afford to rent?”
“The Foreign Secretary will be well aware of the huge demonstrations in Israel opposing the Government’s plans to control the judiciary, which will undermine the rule of law—a situation described by the President of Israel yesterday as “very serious”. Does the Foreign Secretary share President Herzog’s concerns?”
“Despite having been repeatedly promised that HS2 to Leeds would be built, the Government broke their word. At the time, they promised they would look at the most effective way to run HS2 trains to Leeds, but just now, in answer to the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), the Minister speculated—if I heard him correctly—on what he would do about safeguarding land if it does not prove possible to do that. Can he clarify whether he is indicating to us that it may not prove possible even to honour the second promise and that it looks as if we will be disappointed again?”
“I very much welcome this statement, but I want to ask the Secretary of State about people living in buildings under 11 metres. The Government were not prepared to extend full coverage to them but said they would look at those buildings on a case-by-case basis—a commitment that the Secretary of State repeated this afternoon. Could he tell us how that is going? How many of those buildings have had assistance? What criteria are he and his colleagues using in deciding where to offer help? Does it include, for example, cases where the developers or builders went bust years ago? Does it include buildings where the leaseholders still cannot sell their flats because mortgage companies will not lend on them, despite the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors advice?”
“Given the close way in which we have been working with our European allies to resist Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is it not now time to seek a formal foreign policy and security partnership with the European Union alongside our leading role in NATO?”
“Any of us who has been through that experience, either ourselves or, in my case, with those we love, knows exactly how that feels, but death is not always the outcome. Our lives are not preordained, and we have seen real advances in the treatment of certain types of cancer in recent years—breast cancer is a good example—and, overall, I am advised that cancer survival rates in the UK have doubled in the last 40 years. But when it comes to brain tumours, the blunt truth is that there has been almost no progress at all. The five-year survival rate for glioblastoma, the most aggressive form, is 6.8%, and the average length of survival is between 12 and 18 months.”
“He has done so brilliantly, cheerfully and in a way that has brought out the best from all of the people who appeared before us, who came along to let us draw on their expertise, to share their frustrations and to offer their ideas and suggestions. It has been an honour and a privilege to work with him and all the other hon. Members here who took part. I also thank the wonderful secretariat from Brain Tumour Research for supporting us in our work and for pulling the report together so skilfully. A cancer diagnosis is a terrible thing, although statistics tell us that one in two of us will receive such a diagnosis during our lifetime. I think most of us, if we are honest, would say that we wince when we hear the word “cancer”, because all too often it conjures the idea of a downward path to the end of our lives.”
“The reason that I rise to participate in this debate is that just under two years ago a constituent wrote to me. He revealed that he had a brain tumour and asked me to go along to an APPG meeting to discuss ways in which we could try to find a cure. I went along and I must confess that little did I know then that I would end up taking part in the inquiry. We had, I think, six evidence sessions and we heard from a lot of people. The report, which the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) referred to, distils into its recommendations what we heard from those who contributed and who were very patient in answering the many questions that we put to them. I pay tribute to the hon. Member, who chairs the APPG and who chaired the inquiry.”
“What we would all want is to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to try to change that.”
“I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point, which reinforces, in all of us, our awareness of just how awful this diagnosis is, and it is the answer to the question that every person who receives such a diagnosis asks their doctor: “How long have I got?” Eight or nine months is no time at all. Dr Matt Williams, a clinical oncologist, is quoted in the report: “Every week I have to tell patients that there is nothing more we can offer. I have now been a consultant for 10 years and these conversations are the same now as when I started.” That is why a brain tumour is a devastating diagnosis. A patient quoted in the report says: “It’s devastating and living with a time bomb in your head.” That is a very good description of what it must feel like. In those circumstances, what do patients and loved ones want?”
“Their concern is: “Might this possibly work to save my life or the life of the person I love?” I hope that this report and the views of all those people who so generously gave their time—we thank all of them—will have an impact as, collectively, we roll up our sleeves, redouble our efforts, and express an even greater determination to find treatments and cures for this cruel disease that shortens the lives of so many people whom we have come to know or know already and love. What keeps us going in difficult times is hope, and I think these recommendations offer exactly that. As one patient said, “If you have hope, you have life.””
“Clearly, that is not happening, even though it is a simple thing to do so that anyone undertaking research can draw upon all the available material as they apply their mind, scientific skill and determination to finding a cure. We are also calling for patients with brain tumours to have equity of access to trials of new anti-cancer drugs that currently may be available only to patients with other types of malignant cancers. There can be a fear that if other people are brought into the trial, it will somehow skew the result. However, if a person is dying, that is not their concern.”
“We have a funding system that has been built in silos. It needs to be better joined up, from basic science through to clinical trials. At this point, I wish to pay tribute, as we all would, to the clinicians, scientists, doctors and others who work their socks off to try to crack this problem and find a treatment. That is why we have made some very specific recommendations. The example of biobanking and tissue samples seemed so simple when people talked about it. When we are dealing with any disease, but particularly this one, does it not make sense to pool all of the information that we have available about what we have learnt, what we still do not know, what may work and what may not?”
“I thought the hon. Member for St Ives explained well why the funds that have been made available and set aside for brain tumour research—I welcome them enormously—have not all been allocated and spent. It is not for want of willingness; it relates to the point he made about the lack of suitable research proposals coming forward and the frustration, which came across so clearly in that one evidence session in particular, of those who have put their research proposals to the research bodies, have been knocked back and feel, “They did not really understand what we are trying to do.” That is because those who sit on those panels may not have expertise in the field of brain tumour research, which is why we strongly encourage the research councils to look more widely at, and more favourably upon, proposals for brain tumour research.”
“We learnt about treatments that had been tried and had failed, and about the desperation of those with brain tumours to get on to trials that might just offer some hope, not of a cure, but of a few more months. For someone who has received a diagnosis of a brain tumour, every second—let alone every minute, week or month—is extremely precious. We heard of the despair of people who are unable to get this for themselves or their loved ones, and it is so particularly poignant when it is children who have a brain tumour. So we are calling for a renewed and determined focus on doing every single thing we can to change the situation, not because we are naive about the difficulties, which are many, but because it is the very least we can do for the people who find themselves in this position. So, of course, we have called for greater investment.”
“When it happens to you, you come to realise that there is nothing special to say; you just have to go up to the person and say, “How are you?” and listen. Yes, they will cry and you will cry, but that is so much better than people hiding it inside, with the suffering that it brings. That is what this report is trying to do—it is trying to make sure that we are doing everything we can. There are good reasons why brain cancer is proving so difficult to treat. I learnt about that, as did the other members of the inquiry panel. The brain is a complex organ. I had never heard of the blood-brain barrier before. I am not sure I still understand it, but I heard a lot about it in the evidence we received.”
“I agree completely with what the right hon. Gentleman has said. To borrow a phrase, it’s good to talk about brain cancer. That is why we are here in this Chamber today. We are here to raise awareness, because loved ones dying remains, among some people, a great taboo, about which we are fearful of saying anything. When my late first wife died of cancer at the age of 26, I was struck by the fact that my colleagues at work, though wonderful people, found it almost impossible to mention what had happened when I went back to work. I understand why, because before it happened to me I would have been like them. I would have thought I would say the wrong thing or cause someone to break down in tears.”
“I am listening carefully to the Minister. What does he say to the argument that we heard during the inquiry that the people who sit in judgment, quite properly, on bids might not have a sufficient degree of expertise in this area to be able to judge whether the research proposals are suitable to be funded? I do not expect an answer now, but will he undertake to go away and look at that point?”
“The Home Secretary told the House earlier that she is confident that these proposals are compatible with the UK’s international obligations. Does that extend to articles 31, 32 and 33 of the 1951 refugee convention?”
“I was going to ask the Minister a question, but his speech was so short that he sat down before I stood up. He will be aware that the slots formerly held by Flybe, which has gone bust, have been passed to British Airways, but a bit of an argument is going on about whether some of those slots should instead go to Loganair. Will he explain how the regulations may affect that particular set of circumstances?”
“While I welcome the grants of up to £5,000 that the Government are making available for boiler replacement, as the Secretary of State will know, a heat pump will cost £8,000 to £15,000, so many of our constituents would not be able to afford it even with that grant, and 90,000 such grants do not constitute a plan to decarbonise the 23 million homes in this country that have gas boilers. When do the Government intend to come forward with such a plan?”
“I congratulate the negotiators on this very significant achievement. I also congratulate the Prime Minister on his statement, in which he was so frank about the manifest failings of the original Northern Ireland protocol negotiated and signed by his predecessor, which made today’s deal so necessary. Does he agree that the European Union has moved a long way in these negotiations? And does he agree that everyone in this House looks forward, as soon as possible, to the restoration of power sharing in Northern Ireland, because that is in the best interests of the people of that part of our United Kingdom?”
“Paragraph 6.3 of the explanatory memorandum talks about the principal accountable person providing the information alongside “their application for registration”. Is that the same as an application for a building assessment certificate, which is mentioned in paragraph 7.3? I ask that because the explanatory memorandum goes on to say that the regulator will require early applications for buildings deemed to be at higher risk. How will the accountable person know that their building is in the higher-risk category when deciding whether they should provide information early, as opposed to later? Secondly—”
“The one point is: how will the accountable person know whether there might be missing firebreaks in the building they are responsible for if it has never been peeled apart and examined?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the difference between registration and the assessment certificate application. The regulations require the regulator to decide whether a building among the higher-risk buildings is particularly higher risk. Do we take it from that that the regulator will write to the accountable person to say, “I have assessed, based on the information, that you are a priority for an application, and therefore I would like to see your information sooner rather than later”?”
“The best example of that is medicines, where under full application of the rules, the EU would have said, “Unless your medicines for NHS patients in Northern Ireland have been approved by the European Medicines Agency, they are not getting on the ferry, or on the plane.” It did not take very long for the Commission to work out that that would be an absurd position to adopt, and as a result, it changed EU law. That solved the problem, but it also established a really important principle: the EU can be flexible where it wants to be flexible. That should give us all encouragement in trying to sort this out.”
“I do not want to dwell on the ebbs and flows of the rather sorry tale of what has transpired since, which I do not think reflects particularly well on the Government or, in the interest of balance, on the EU Commission. At the beginning, the EU Commission appeared to advance the argument that what happened in the Irish sea should be treated like any other third-country border of the European Union—that was where it started from. In other words, every single thing would have to be checked, and nothing that did not conform to the rules of the single market would be allowed to make it across the Irish sea into Northern Ireland. Very early on, the EU came to realise that that was not going to work.”
“We all know that leaving the European Union was always going to create a problem for the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and just about everyone I have ever spoken to has agreed that that could not be dealt with on the border—there could be no checks, infrastructure or anything else. Something therefore had to be done to address that, while recognising that the European Union needs to be able to ensure that goods coming into its jurisdiction meet its rules. That is perfectly reasonable and we would expect no less for the United Kingdom. In fairness to the Government, they acknowledged that from the start, rather than saying, “Well, it’s the EU’s problem, not ours, and there’s nothing that we need to do.” As a result, they came up with the Northern Ireland protocol, as we must remember.”
“First, I join other hon. Members in congratulating Dáithí on the law that will forever bear his name. It has been a remarkable campaign for an extremely good cause. Secondly, I say to the Secretary of State that I support the Bill, because it is a sensible response to a problem that has gone on for far too long. It is never desirable to postpone elections, but in this case I think it is necessary. As the debate has unfolded, we have been reminded that if it were not for the row over the protocol, we would not be sitting here debating the Bill. The Bill is a symptom of the mess that we have got ourselves into—one in which rather too many people have said, “We are not moving.” We will solve this issue only if those people are prepared to move in the interests of finding a way forward.”
“The willingness of the EU to delay the application of the rules to veterinary medicines, which I very much welcome, is another example of the flexibility that the EU has come to recognise it needs to apply. To address the point that the right hon. Member for East Antrim made, I hope that consulting the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly on new single market rules and how they might apply in Northern Ireland will be another part of an agreement, if one can be reached.”
“Of course, if there is any argument about what EU single market law means, the only body to which any person can reasonably go to try to find the answer is the Court of Justice of the European Union, because they are the EU’s rules, not ours. However, that is not the same as saying that any such ruling will absolutely determine the outcome of a disagreement or dispute about the implementation of the protocol within the wider dispute resolution mechanism. The example of medicines, which I gave earlier, is a really good illustration of that: a full application of EU law would have prevented medicines turning up in Northern Ireland, but in the end, a way forward was found.”
“That is why, on my last visit to Northern Ireland, the businesses I spoke to said that they were really quite keen on that benefit that the protocol gives them. We need to get this solved. Secondly, the fact that the Executive and the Assembly are not working is something that we should all be worried about. The EU now better understands the consequences of that than it perhaps realised at the beginning. We need both to be restored as quickly as possible. My third point is a plea against absolutism in addressing this problem, and I cite the role of the European Court of Justice as an example of that potential risk.”
“That is why sorting this out is so urgent. As was said by the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry), we want Northern Ireland to take advantage of the fantastic opportunity it has: my constituents do not have access to the single market, but his constituents do. The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) raised a point about the democratic deficit, which I will come to, because he raises a very fair issue. The difference is that in Britain, we are largely subject to exactly the same laws because of EU retained law, but we in GB do not have the opportunity to export to the single market. Northern Ireland is subject to exactly the same laws, but does have that opportunity, which puts Northern Ireland businesses in a very advantageous position compared with businesses in my constituency.”
“First of all, let us be frank: our relations with the European Union have been in a pretty bad place for far too long, and as the economic consequences of leaving the European Union are becoming more and more evident, that ruptured relationship stands in the way of trying to address some of the problems that arise from our exit from the European Union. To respond to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart)—it is a pleasure to follow her, because she set out her views very clearly indeed—many small businesses in Great Britain will describe the problems that they now face, and many have given up exporting to the European Union because we have left the European Union. It is not just small businesses in Northern Ireland that are facing problems. We cannot address those problems until the Northern Ireland protocol is solved.”
“Eventually, the EU and the UK both developed their proposals—again, with slightly different names—for what we now refer to as red and green lanes. When I saw that the Commission had proposed that and the Government had also proposed it, it did not seem to me that there was a huge amount of difference between the two concepts, and to judge by the reporting—we are all slightly in the dark, because we have not seen any text—some agreement may well have been reached, which would allow goods that are coming into Northern Ireland and staying there to not be checked on a routine basis. I hope very much that that is an accurate reflection of what has been happening, because it provides the basis for a settlement. Why does this matter so much?”
“I am sorry to hear what my hon. Friend says. That is news to me—I do not know anything about it. No doubt, those with responsibility for trying to find a solution will have heard what my hon. Friend has said, and will see what more can be done to address the issue. At the heart of the argument has been this really quite simple, but very complex, question: “How do you identify a good that is moving into Northern Ireland and is going to stay in Northern Ireland, and how do you identify a good that is moving into Northern Ireland on its way to the Republic?” That is why the concept of goods at risk was at the heart of the Northern Ireland protocol, but it was never defined in its application. The negotiation since, between the Government and the Commission, has all been about what that concept means in practice.”
“In international relations, and in particular in our fraught relations with the European Union, if we restore trust, it means we can look them in the eye and say, “If we sign, we will honour it as the United Kingdom, and we expect you to keep your side of the bargain as well.””
“The Secretary of State will understand there has been a terrible breakdown of trust between the UK and the EU over this matter. I have spoken to lots of people, and it is the thing that is mentioned more than anything else. The Government negotiated the protocol, signed it and urged Parliament to vote for it. They said they would honour it, and then they did not do so. I absolutely understand the problems with the implementation of the protocol. Reference was made earlier to people changing their understanding on the road to Damascus, and I think that is true. I have certainly got a better understanding of what the problems are since this process began, and I think the EU Commission certainly has, and we should welcome that process, because it is the route by which we will be able to find a solution.”
“First, the EU will have to drop the infraction proceedings it is currently taking against the United Kingdom for unlawfully, as the EU sees it, prolonging the grace periods; and secondly, the Government will have to drop the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, referring to the point just made by the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Again, we read that there are voices even within Government who say that the Government should not drop it, but I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which a deal will be done in which the Government say, “Great, let’s sign. By the way, we are just hanging on to that Bill that we put into Parliament, in case we don’t like what happens subsequently.” The reason that will never work comes to the question of trust.”