Claire Hanna
MP for Belfast South and Mid Down · Social Democratic & Labour Party · United Kingdom
“Community cohesion is deeply threatened by the violence and menace that took place on the streets last month, which included deliberate orchestration and paramilitary flags and trappings that now fly as bold as brass from lampposts in my constituency and in many others.”
“I, too, wish to pay tribute to Jo Cox and her family, and to the commitment in her name that we tackle division and extremism. We saw extremism play out on the streets of Belfast last week—a pogrom where families were burned out based on the colour of their skin; health workers were stopped and asked for ID by masked thugs; and small busi…”
“The UK Government and the Northern Ireland Executive spend millions each year on programmes intended to tackle paramilitarism, but, decades after the troubles, individuals linked to loyalist paramilitaries had a role in directing and fuelling the disorder last week, including menacing a senior journalist on tape.”
“It has been a shocking two days in Northern Ireland. The horrific knife attack in north Belfast has left a man fighting for his life, and an entire community distressed by what they have seen. Justice must of course take its course and deliver for that victim, whose family have asked for calm. Last night brought further outrage.”
“So many people are frighted to walk the streets and to be in their own homes tonight. And when all the online agitators who stoke this stuff move on to their next target, we will be the ones left to pick up the pieces.”
“We have seen this movie too many times before. In Belfast we know all about blaming an entire community for the actions of others, we know all about scapegoating and tit-for-tat violence, and we know all about street justice. Violence creates division.”
The complete record
Every one of 606 lines we hold for Claire Hanna, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 13.
“Schools have not been on the pig’s back at any point that I can remember, but the projected shortfall of £200 million is catastrophic. One of the many things not being covered is a much-awaited pay deal for the most shamefully undervalued parts of the workforce, SEN classroom assistants. That could lead to further strike action, which literally hurts the most vulnerable children, including those at Glenveagh School in my constituency, who have already picked up much too much of the slack of the politics. In health, we know that a standstill budget is, in essence, a cut and that we are doing nothing. We talked a lot in this House last week about a workforce plan, none of which reaches Northern Ireland.”
“The PSNI is facing its numbers falling to their lowest level, at a time of not just security threat, but increasing complexity of the issues it deals with, particularly on mental health. Across the economy, regions that are doing well are doing well by leaning into their economic potential and their successes, but instead we are cutting things such as the arts sector and Northern Ireland Screen, and we are cutting the budgets of Tourism NI and of further and higher education. All of these cuts undermine all of the flagship strategies about our economic future, particularly 10X. I am not sure where we can start on health and education, and I hope to be able to explore those areas in more detail in a Westminster Hall debate next week.”
“And if the DUP insists on creating the sense that Northern Ireland, as a unit, cannot work, the second choice is to realise the potential of all our people in a new Ireland back in the European Union. Especially when people are told that devolution within the UK is no longer available, the SDLP will pursue that aim vigorously and with honour, based on reconciliation and the potential of all our people. That is a big choice about our future, but there is also a here and now that this budget does not serve well. Colleagues from across the House have highlighted some of those impacts. On infrastructure, our ability to address climate change, let alone things such as road safety, is hampered.”
“We want devolved government based on the common good and Northern Ireland’s huge economic opportunities, and devolved government in which the SDLP can play a constructive role in opposition. To that end, we have already published our detailed triple-lock proposals to protect public services from these sharp, short-term cuts while creating a pathway to much better long-term governance. If the DUP continues to immiserate our politics, and if the Government continue to press ahead with this budget, more fundamental choices will present themselves. The first choice is to reform Stormont’s Standing Orders to make sure that one party can no longer hold up the formation of a Government.”
“I would be happy to give way in a moment if the right hon. Gentleman wants to tell me about any proposals or votes he made in this House with a view to achieving a solution that has the consent and consensus of all the communities. I was not a Member at the time, but I spoke at meetings in this House on a borderless solution being the only outcome without a sense of winners and losers. As I say, this has been about choices. I do not doubt that the DUP’s concerns are sincerely held but, on the choice to boycott politics, not a single thing is advanced by having no Government. Not a single technical concern about the Northern Ireland protocol or the Windsor framework is addressed by not having a Government. It is a choice, and we want a different choice.”
“The hon. Member is outlining powerfully the benefits of volunteering for the community, but he will also be aware of its benefits for individuals. Does he share my concern that, as the cost of motoring rises, we are excluding many people from the benefits of volunteering to both them and their community, and does he agree that all community transport networks should be consulted in any review of the mileage rate?”
“Progress in this area is very welcome and necessary, but parts of the statement will be dispiriting for families in Northern Ireland, as we fall even further behind. Can the Minister confirm that Northern Ireland will receive commensurate funding through the Barnett formula, and have she and her officials given any thought to how the new regulations and resources might be applied in Northern Ireland? Furthermore, given the extremely austere budget settlement in Northern Ireland, does she acknowledge that even where there are improvements in childcare, many children will be going on to increasingly degraded and under-resourced primary schools?”
“1. If he will have discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on ensuring similar levels of funding for Northern Ireland to that announced for early learning and childcare in the spring Budget of 2023.”
“Will he support the Department of Education and others to ensure that families in Northern Ireland can finally access the benefits promised in the Budget, promised in New Decade, New Approach and promised before that as well?”
“The Secretary of State may be aware that there is no childcare strategy in Northern Ireland and very little support, which is placing many families under extreme financial pressure because of growing costs, exacerbating inequality among children and forcing many, particularly women, to abandon their career for years. Research by the advocacy group Melted Parents demonstrates that families in Northern Ireland have been consistently failed on this issue. Does the Secretary of State agree that childcare must be recognised as a core part of the economic and societal fabric, as well as a tool to give kids a great start in life?”
“The hon. Lady is correctly outlining the deficits and the broken promises. She may be aware that Northern Ireland has even less legislation on animal rights. The Assembly even rejected an attempt to ban hunting with dogs and we have made no progress on issues such as having a register of banned welfare abusers and banning the online sale of puppies. She speaks about the UK-wide provisions. Does she agree that the House now has an opportunity to bring in progressive and far-reaching legislation that would even pick up the slack in regions such as ours, which are without governance?”
“Q13. Some 39 women have died violently in Northern Ireland since 2017. The police are called to a domestic violence incident every 16 minutes and ours is now one of the most dangerous regions in Europe to be a woman. Stormont officials have consulted on a strategy to tackle violence against women, but there are no Ministers to take it forward. The outstanding Women’s Aid Federation learned last month that its core funding is being taken away. In the demoralising absence of a Government, will the Prime Minister work with me and others to ensure that strategy is enacted and funded, so that we can tackle the cultures and behaviours that are having such a devastating impact on women in Northern Ireland?”
“I wrote to the Minister earlier this week about the continuing problem of mortgage prisoners, following a comment from the Treasury that it is open to proportionate solutions for those frozen in that position after their mortgage lenders were sold from 2008. Recent reports state that the Government made a profit of £2.4 billion from selling on those mortgages. Will the Minister work with me, and with advocates for the tens of thousands of people trapped in those precarious financial circumstances, to find those proportionate solutions?”
“This is an interesting discussion, and the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has, on a number of occasions, made sensible points about the challenges of delivering public services with the economy of scale that we have in Northern Ireland. Would the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) agree that when we look to a wider economy of scale, perhaps on the island of Ireland, services become considerably more viable? Would he further agree that it opens up the opportunity of using numerous other fiscal levers to take us outside the locked-in cycle of just being dependent on pocket money from UK Governments? Would he further agree that the substantial budget surplus that the Republic is currently identifying and enjoying could help with some of these problems?”
“I beg to move amendment 6, page 1, line 12, leave out “when an Executive is formed” and insert— “when the Executive Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly has completed a formal meeting at which substantive business has been transacted”.”
“It is time to get past pointing at it and to start the process of reform, transformation and giving people a feasible way to live shared and integrated lives.”
“Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who has, crucially, been vigilant on the ticking timebomb of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which has the potential not only to deepen and widen the implications of any sea border for goods and for rights, but to dramatically undermine economic sectors and actors on this island. We have absolutely no interest in doing that, so I hope that the reports that there has been change of direction on that very damaging Bill—like others, we wish to hear about those reports in the appropriate place and to have the opportunity to scrutinise them—are correct. Finally, I support amendment 4, tabled by the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry), which is prudent and sensible in addressing the cost of division. It is time to get on. There is endemic division in our schools and communities.”
“St Malachy’s youth club in the market area of my constituency does a mind-blowing array of interventions with young people, including homework support, citizenship, fitness, nutrition and lawfulness, making them good citizens and getting them ready for the world and the jobs out there. What is sustainable about its finances being cut by over a third, which will undermine all of its work with those young people? We have put off hard decisions for too long, but it is really important that this Bill is not used as a mask for the same austerity that we have had for over a decade, which does not change outcomes and limits the potential of our young people and of our economy, because they are its future. I want to address a couple of other amendments. Amendment 1 is a vital intervention by the hon.”
“It is appropriate that we do that in a genuinely transformative way. I also want to address the contradiction in what has been said about sustainable services in the light of the punishing and severe budget we face. What is more sustainable to invest in than children and young people, their health, education, future and resilience? The proposed cuts to the extended schools programme, Bright Start mental health support, pathway funds, education authority schools and youth services—alongside the loss of European social funding for Women’s Centre, which provides childcare and many other forms of family support—are the furthest thing from being sustainable.”
“Amendment 6 would support and evidence some of those necessary reforms by designing in a role for the Fiscal Council—a body that we have been hugely supportive of—as well as for the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commissions as consultees. Those bodies are truly creatures of the Good Friday agreement. They are there for a reason and they should have a role in this as well, to give them a locus and so that, as I say, it is not used in a cynical way. I want to address briefly the contradictions in the messaging we are getting about sustainable finances. There is, rightly, a serious public conversation going on about the sustainability of Stormont’s finances and structures. It is absolutely right to tackle the lack of responsibility-taking in our region, which in its century of existence has never enjoyed good governance.”
“People are ready to suspend their disbelief one more time and go back in to make that work, but a graduated response allowing these powers to be deployed to do all the grisly stuff through indirect rule, and turning it into some soap opera where everybody is hopping up and down and opposing the changes, will not be appropriate. We cannot set up civil servants to instigate and drive controversial issues only to get them out of the way before everyone goes back in. We absolutely need reform in public services, but we need it to be done with scrutiny, not just as a mask for austerity. It needs to be done in a way that builds public trust so that people say, “Yes, you may lose service A, but you will gain service B and C”.”
“Our amendments aim to address that by guarding against the potential use of graduated responses or the other fairly unedifying stunts that we have seen when the Assembly is being used as a political tool or weapon, and against the cynical use of such Bills to do things that damage public services in the name of reform, as a way to avoid responsibility and scrutiny. The DUP’s new clause 1(3) instances the possibility of the Assembly functioning in some way alongside these new powers in the absence of an Executive. I want to be absolutely clear: there is, as others have said, no alternative in the here and now to devolution under the Good Friday institutions.”
“I rise to speak to amendment 6 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), and to make brief comments on a couple of other amendments. We absolutely echo and share the frustrations of others that we are doing yet another of these Bills in this place. I am struggling to think of a single such Bill—certainly in the three and a half years that we have been here—that was neither a cause nor an effect of Stormont dysfunction, which occupies rather too much time here and limits our potential. We understand the need for interim decision making, but the Bill risks going too far in bypassing Assembly scrutiny.”
“Is the Minister aware—I cannot remember which year it was, because there have been so many crises —of the in-out Ministers stunt? I think it was conducted in mid to late 2015. Ministers resigned on a rotating basis over a period of months, so Ministers were in place but there was not a functioning Executive. It is that kind of carry on we are trying to guard against.”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clauses 2 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill. The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair. Bill reported, without amendment. Third Reading”
“I and my party have shouted loudly for two years, in and outside this House, about the unique proposition that we now have. We are seeing a boom in some parts of the economy, such as life sciences, advanced manufacturing and agrifoods, but that needs an Executive and it needs a very serious strategy in place to spend the Barnett consequentials and realise the potential of our region. Over the next few weeks we will be marking and celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. We have had two and a half decades of peace processing. With the right investment and the right strategy, the next 25 can be our prosperity years.”
“Northern Ireland can play a real part in the multi-level transition that we need. We are very well positioned to be a leader in wind, tidal and hydrogen power, and other things, but to be really game changing we need the sort of strategy and investment we see in the US and EU. It is a disappointing missed opportunity, with the squeeze on the most vulnerable, not to reinstate the universal credit uplift or address the two-child limit. Those are key concerns of the Northern Ireland Women’s Budget Group, which has led in this area. All of Northern Ireland’s opportunity comes back to the Windsor framework and the chance that we now have for a new beginning, politically and economically. That includes selling our dual market access.”
“I welcome the specific allocation to the tackling paramilitarism programme, and I urge those allocating that to invest, invest and invest in community resilience and alternative leaders, and to learn the lessons of practice in paramilitary transition. Look at the good and look at what absolutely has not worked, as we try to rid our neighbourhoods and our society of the cancer of paramilitary hard men holding people back and preying on the vulnerable. On green technology and transition, some progress is welcome but, as the Leader of the Opposition said, we are not yet really even on the pitch. I remind the Government that green jobs are not just people in hi-vis jackets working with steel and all that; jobs in caring and education are, by definition, low emission.”
“The Chancellor spoke directly about the so-called economically inactive, so it is penny-wise and pound-foolish to allow to fail many of the schemes that are tried and tested in getting people who need a little extra support, because of additional needs or other reasons, into the labour market. There are opportunities now and we cannot let fail the organisations that support them. Our labour market, by the way, is undoubtedly disadvantaged by the difficulty in bringing in talent from elsewhere. It is disappointing that there has not been a recognition of that and about the impact of labour shortages in key parts of the economy.”
“On the skills deficit that leaves workers, young and old, unable to access the training opportunities they need to get into the labour market of today and of the future, there is a mismatch in what we are providing for skills. I am disappointed that there are not, as yet, specific proposals to address the alarming cliff edge facing many charities and third sector organisations in Northern Ireland that specialise in employability, because of the loss of the European social fund. We are reckoning on a loss of tens of millions of pounds per year in Northern Ireland.”
“Northern Ireland does not even have the 30 free hours for three and four-year-olds that is in place in parts of England. I welcome the proposed allocation of up to £40 million for Northern Ireland for further and higher education. I hope that we can begin to end the export of Northern Ireland’s finest resource: our young people. Many thousands of young people have to leave after tens of thousands of pounds have been put into their primary and post-primary education in order to get a university place, because of the artificial MaSN—maximum student number—cap, but I hope that the funding is one of the things that gets us moving.”
“The sector needs serious reform that supports families, focuses on children’s development and tackles the educational inequality that we know is set in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, in which childcare has such a role to play. We need to ensure that funding is there, so that this is not just about “minding” young people but gets in there and changes some of those stubborn, fixed outcomes. The changes must not leave behind the workforce of this vital sector, whose wages have never matched the skill, care and, increasingly, the qualifications that they need. I am a true believer in devolution and its power to protect a region such as mine, but as a founding chair of the Assembly’s all-party group on childcare, I regret to say that this is one area where we have absolutely fallen behind.”
“The context for us is the real opportunity that we have to get on with things, through the Windsor framework, but also our disadvantage through the lack of an Executive to implement initiatives that may be better funded after today. Nowhere is that implementation gap clearer than in childcare. I commend all the Members of the House and the campaigning groups outside who fought very hard and pushed for these measures to be announced. As the lucky mum of three large childcare bills, I can confirm that the approach is overdue and vital, but it is crucial that it goes further than a press release, an announcement and a headline.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who gave a characteristically fair and practical speech. Many of the measures announced today are to be welcomed, although it is clear that people struggling with the cost of living, increased mortgages and pressures on small businesses to pay energy bills and find staff will not recognise the rosy picture presented by Government Members. It is impossible not to see that so many of the initiatives are due to commence in 2024, when it is likely that the Government Benches will not be occupied by the same people. In many cases, this is a fiscal hospital pass for my colleagues. Of course, my focus is on Northern Ireland.”
“Like many who are genuinely interested in supporting those who want to solve these problems, I have concerns about this approach, both in principle and in practice. The issues in communities that the Government uses as a straw man are, in fact, the result of a decade of systematic underfunding and neglect in health, housing and education. Instead of scapegoating the vulnerable, encouraging conspiracy and aggression, when will the Home Secretary get a grip on the chaos in her Department, whose processing rates have collapsed, along with conviction rates for people smugglers? When will she stop scapegoating and start solving?”
“So that we can maintain the huge opportunity of the protocol, will the Prime Minister commit his Government to championing loudly our unique dual market access, working to prevent vexatious use of the Stormont brake, and keeping a focus on restoration of the Stormont Executive, to allow those who genuinely believe in democracy and consensus to get back to serving the people they were elected to serve?”
“I echo the words of solidarity from many across the House for the Caldwell family and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and the rejection of extremist throwbacks; the people of our region are sick and tired of them. We all want simpler post-Brexit trading arrangements, so we sincerely welcome this progress and commend the Prime Minister on taking a much more constructive approach than his predecessors. I reiterate that there are many political outlooks in Northern Ireland and it is a fact that most people, most parties and most business representatives value our single market access, our high food standards and our 1998 agreement.”
“Agus a Dhaithí, ár laoch, iarraim ar Dhia go mbeidh dea-scéal agus croí nua agat go luath.” To Dáithí, to your family, to your mum and dad, and now to your wee brother: You should be so proud of all that you have achieved together—the huge progress that you have made. You have been a hero to so many people and we all just hope that you get good news and a new heart soon, and we are all with you. It is important that we say well done to that lovely family for all that they have achieved, and to so many people who have progressed the issue over the years. I pay tribute to Jo-Anne Dobson, an Ulster Unionist MLA, who advanced the issue substantially in a previous Assembly, bringing the issue to public attention and making it a political reality. She loosened the lid.”
“It is eroding belief in politics and it is giving comfort to some of the anti-democratic forces still skulking in the background who have not really come to terms with the agreement and with the will of most people in our society to move forward and to get on with solving our problems and creating our shared future. This Bill, like a few that we have seen recently, is a bit of a sticking plaster on failure, but some real good is coming out of it today—thank goodness—in the progress of Dáithí’s law. I want to speak to Dáithí: “Tá tú i do chodladh anois. Maith thú. Cinnte, tá sibh tuirseach i ndiaidh an taisteal. Duit féin, do do mhamaí, do dhaidí agus, anois, do dheirfiúr bheag, ba chomhair daoibh a bheith an-bróidiúil as an bhfeachtas a throid sibh, as an misneach a léirigh sibh, agus as an mbua mór a bhain sibh amach le chéile.”
“We can look at any number of examples of services in different geographical areas, but no more so than in the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen, where services are falling over and having to be closed without any sense of the compensatory provision that people would wish to see. People are seeing loss of services without any gain and without the improvements in health provision and outcomes that are possible if we do this properly with a locally accountable Minister and an engaged Health Committee. I do not want to labour this point, but it is very clear that the stalemate is eroding public services.”
“Clearly, the hope and the goal is to get back into Stormont as soon as possible to get on with the things that people desperately need us to progress on—in care, climate, housing and jobs. Without doubt, health is the most acute and burning issue, in terms of the need that is out there and the corrosive impact of stop-start government and what that has done to our health service over the past number of years. This has not been an overnight problem and there will not be an overnight solution. In the absence of an Assembly, we do not have health transformation; we are having ad hoc bits and pieces of collapse, which are not cost effective and not what clinicians would wish them to be, and they are not building confidence in communities about what is ahead for public health provision.”
“It is right, of course, that we are not having an election. The Secretary of State is correct to more comprehensively push that back, because it would be pointless to miss a series of little deadlines. Ultimately, an election without either a change in the context or a change in the rules would not put power in the hands of the people and would therefore be pointless. This is a delicate time, a sensitive time, in relation to the negotiations. Hopefully, it is also a time of possibility—a possibility that we can find a deal and an outcome with which most reasonable people can live. We have all said many words in this Chamber and outside of it about the parameters of that, so I will not dwell on it this afternoon.”
“I hope all those people, particularly Dáithí and his family, who brought the issue to this point, take some pride in and encouragement from their achievement, and I hope it will encourage and remind all of us in elected life that we can do good things when we work together. There are many things we need to do, and hopefully these couple of weeks can see progress and allow us collectively to get on with making many other necessary and positive changes.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman. I pay tribute to others, including Fearghal McKinney, who is here from the British Heart Foundation and has worked on this issue for many years and with his colleagues has helped to get all the ducks in a row to allow the family to have the reach they need and the regulations in place. I also pay tribute to Joe Brolly and Shane Finnegan from my own parish of St Brigid’s. Joe Brolly’s act of decency and humanity a few years ago in giving his kidney to a relative stranger opened many people’s eyes; it stopped us in our tracks and underlined how meaningful and how important for life organ donation is.”
“Would the right hon. Gentleman mind saying what he thinks the specific impact will be on the dairy industry, and the many producers that sell about a third of their milk to the Republic of Ireland? What would be the environmental impact of having to dispose of a third of the milk produced in Northern Ireland? Where would that be sold if we did not have our privileged access to the single market?”
“It is concerned by how limited the scope of SPF is compared to what they were able to do under ESF. The East Belfast Mission described well what is at stake: “Our programmes have a long track record of being more successful than government initiatives”.”
“If anyone has been in the café in Belfast City Hall, they will have seen NOW Group workers. They help hundreds of people with disabilities into all sorts of sectors, including leading corporates and the knowledge sector. It is a safe bet that any credible funder will keep backing a project like this, but the assurances are just not there. Reserves cannot last forever and, of course, smaller organisations will not have such reserves. In that project, 52 people are at risk of being put on notice and another 800 people with disabilities will be left with no service. Mencap in south Belfast and far beyond has run ESF projects on social inclusion for decades and was well on track to exceed the target set by ESF of supporting 13,000 people by 2023.”
“It is not even the survival of the fittest—that the strongest and best organisations will continue—because it is largely the luck of the draw on where organisations are in their funding cycle. Again, this is one more downside of the abandonment of devolution. Engaged and responsive local Ministers could monitor the situation and be flexible and creative with in-year allocation, match funding and bridge funding. They could, in short, protect us from the deficit created by Brexit and this devolution override. I want to touch on how all this affects specific groups. The NOW Group is a highly regarded project that works across Belfast and further afield, supporting people who are economically inactive because of a disability get into employment. It has 17 years of ESF funding and runs high-profile facilities.”
“How are we supposed to measure the impact of different interventions in areas like skills if the scheme is only one part of an equation in which all the other Departments are trying to do similar things? It seems that it will be impossible to disaggregate that. The governance is sub-par and the quantum is less, too. By comparison with the ESF and the ERDF averages, the allocation for the shared prosperity fund in Northern Ireland is £127 million over three years, so we are losing on average £23 million per year from that scheme. That has created this massive gap for funded groups, many of whom just cannot hold on. It is not like in the civil service; people have to be put on protected notice or face closure. Again, there is nothing co-ordinated about any of this.”
“Northern Ireland got an average of £65 million a year from the ESF and ERDF in the period from 2014 to 2020, with Northern Ireland Departments having the power to manage that in line with UK strategy. That allowed them to align projects that they funded with regional and local strategies, ensuring complementarity and targeted outcomes. The scenario now is that the UK Government and Northern Ireland Departments are essentially two players on the same pitch, in the same space, delivering the same sorts of projects. That has a built-in inefficiency and means that the results are less than the sum of the parts. That overlapping inevitably applies to monitoring, too.”