Colum Eastwood
MP for Foyle · Social Democratic & Labour Party · United Kingdom
“The Minister is making a passionate and important speech about a long-overdue piece of legislation. Freddie Scappaticci was the agent known as Stakeknife in the IRA. He was involved in lots of murders, but the Government have yet to unmask him as Scappaticci. Will the Bill put an end to the ridiculous position we are in by doing that?”
“Members are shouting from the Opposition Benches that people have been waiting nine months, but there are victims who have been waiting decades for this issue to be resolved.”
“The first thing to say is that there was an alternative. There has been a lot of debate recently about whether or not there was an alternative to murder and mayhem: there was an alternative and that is represented by the party of which I am a member.”
“His family were there and his mother had come home from Glasgow—she had had to leave, of course, after all that heartache and pain. There were 186 children killed in our troubles: 80 of them were killed by republicans, 50 by loyalists and 49 by the British Army or the RUC.”
“The people who went to try and comfort Stephen and see if he was okay were told that they would be shot as well. The soldier who carried out that murder—and that is what it was—was interviewed for one hour by the RUC.”
“The people who planted this bomb in Dunmurry have set their faces against the people of Ireland, who made the decision long ago that the only route to constitutional change is a democratic one.”
The complete record
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“I think we are really through the looking-glass now. It is great to hear real unity from those on these Benches about the problems that exist in Northern Ireland’s public sector and the budgetary difficulties that we have. It would be a lot better if members of our political parties were saying it in a different Chamber that has responsibility for bringing in budgets for the Departments of Northern Ireland, for dealing with the health service, the education system, the police service and all those other areas of public policy that we need to deal with as a matter of urgency—but I will let that one hang. It is interesting to listen to the Secretary of State, because he has let the cat out of the bag.”
“It was not me who suggested that that was a tactic. The Secretary of State outlined the tactic in his own speech: he said that the next stages of the Bill will not be introduced until after the summer, and that that would give us all time to work together to get to government. It is clearly a tactic, although it is not going to work as a tactic. There are better tactics in my view, and I have laid some of them out to the Minister before, but it is a bit disingenuous to pretend that this is anything but a pressure point for the DUP that is clearly not working.”
“One quarter of the population of Northern Ireland is on a health waiting list, our workers are on strike for fair pay, and our public finances are in a mess. Will the Prime Minister give a commitment that the Treasury will begin work immediately on a public sector rescue package so we can transform the health service and ensure that our public sector workers are given a decent wage—and will he join the people of Northern Ireland in telling the DUP to get back to work now?”
“It has been 15 months since we had an Executive at Stormont. Our health service has basically collapsed, and our economy is not taking up the opportunity provided by the Windsor framework and the protocol. Surely now it is time for the Secretary of State to look at a greater role for the Irish Government in the affairs of Northern Ireland.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He has talked about revenue raising. It is possible that a new model for funding higher education will be looked at. Given that all Governments have said that they want to ensure an expansion in student numbers in Derry, can he guarantee that that hope and desire will be protected under any new funding model?”
“It goes against the political current in the United States of America right now. This is a huge opportunity, and it is an opportunity that we need to grasp. Frankly, I do not understand why we cannot do two things at the one time.”
“Over the last number of years, we have faced chaos in our politics inflicted by a Brexit vote somewhere else, because the people in Northern Ireland voted to remain by a majority. That has been the genesis of the crisis we are in today. We argued for a couple of years about the protocol and its implications. Now we have the Windsor framework, which gives us the opportunity to trade into both markets. We have had former American Presidents, the current American President, former US Secretaries of State and the current US Secretary of State, countless Senators and Members of the House of Representatives coming over and telling us that they want to help us by bringing jobs to Northern Ireland. There is not a single other place in the world where American politicians are saying they want jobs to leave America for. That just does not happen.”
“That is painfully true and obvious, but is it okay, then, to have direct rule, which is basically what this is becoming, operating without the consent of the nationalist community? That is what we are being asked to have, and that will have its own consequences as we move through the process. The shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), rightly referenced the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement—the immense change it has brought about and the bravery of that political generation to make very hard decisions and take very big steps, much bigger than those we are asking people to take today. Its impact has been profoundly significant for many people, particularly in my generation.”
“Many of the arguments some of us are using today were used by the DUP when Sinn Féin pulled the Government down and kept it down for three and a half years. It seems to me that people cannot even learn the lessons they were trying to teach others. We know how that ended: Sinn Féin realised halfway through that boycott that it was doing nobody any good. The waiting lists were still getting longer and certain people were beginning to get the blame for that. My view is that we have a responsibility to all the people in all our constituencies, no matter what their politics are, to have a Government functioning and working together. I heard again today from the DUP that devolution cannot work without the consent of both communities.”
“It is great to hear that the Democratic Unionist party now supports north-south co-operation. It would be good if we were to allow the north-south bodies to operate properly as well. I totally agree with the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) about the deficiencies of the Barnett formula. The SDLP, many years ago, proposed moving away from the Barnett formula to a more needs-based approach. It is just a pity that DUP Ministers at that time campaigned loudly and actively against it. However, we are here now. This is a Bill that nobody wants, least of all the civil service which is being asked to use these powers. We know why we are here: the DUP refuses to form a Government.”
“I made this point earlier to the Minister, but I will make it again: we can talk about the detail of revenue raising at any point, but I want to make it clear that the Irish Government, the British Government and the former Northern Ireland Executive all committed to expanding university places in Derry, which has been waited for and campaigned on for many decades. In any new funding model for higher education, that needs to be protected, and the opportunity needs still to be there for expansion of university places in Derry. If we are really serious about rebalancing the economy regionally and giving people the opportunity to create jobs and get employed in their own areas, that has to be our No. 1 priority.”
“Right now, we have a health service that is not free at the point of delivery because people cannot get access to it without paying. Many people in my constituency are going to the credit union to get loans that they cannot afford to pay back, so that they can have the vital surgery they need to live their lives in a normal and comfortable way. There is no space in this budget for proper health service transformation. Those 500,000 people will remain on waiting lists, which will grow and grow.”
“Little Orchids in my constituency, which looks after kids from two to four years’ old, was told a couple of days ago that it would have to halve the number of children that it can help in its facility. They are the people affected by this particular budget. We are also told that there will be no new school buildings or extensions. Many of the teachers’ and children’s classrooms are crumbling. None of that work will start this year, and we do not know at all when it will. In all the discussions we have on radio stations, in TV studios and here about the need for health service transformation, as difficult as it will be, we have all bought into doing the hard things needed to make the health service more sustainable, to get 500,000 people off waiting lists and to make a health service that we can be proud of.”
“We can do both at the one time. The Bill and the budget are imposing huge cuts on the most vulnerable in our society. The extended schools programme is aimed at schools in disadvantaged areas and at kids who are the most disadvantaged in our society. It brings things like counselling for young people, breakfast clubs and after-school clubs. It is being axed because of this budget. We are axing free baby books for kids. Every year, 20,000 families are given access to free books and reading advice from the Book Trust, a vital tool we can give to our children. Anybody who has kids understands that teaching them to read as early as possible is a really important life skill. We are cutting that—that is where the axe is falling as a result of this budget. We are also cutting special needs places in nursery schools.”
“I know we will not be able to solve all the issues overnight, but we will not be able to solve them by doing nothing at all. Why can we not sit down as grown-ups and work through the difficulties, while at the same time implementing the changes required to help people in Northern Ireland get off the waiting lists, to help people create jobs, and to bring in investment that keeps our young people at home instead of sending them off to work somewhere else? That is not beyond the wit of the political class in Northern Ireland today, given all the hard things that had to be done, including by the DUP, in the peace process we have had since before 1998. We can do this very, very simply. There is no logic any more in holding up the institutions of the Good Friday agreement so that we can deal with outstanding issues.”
“That is a very interesting take on the fact that next year the Irish Government will have a budget surplus of €16 billion and we are squabbling over the crumbs from London’s table. There is another question the hon. Member should ask himself: why are we not trying to join the thriving economic entity that is the Republic of Ireland? Our people would be a lot better off. The point I was making is, in my view, very obvious. I accept that DUP Members still have some difficulty with some issues, and I am happy to sit down and work through them. I will speak to the Irish Government, the British Government and whoever we have to speak to, to help us to get over this hump. The reality, though, is that we are well capable of doing that at the same time as getting into government and dealing with the health crisis.”
“Why would we have any faith in Stormont to deliver for us?” People are beginning to think differently about their future. I will argue every day to end the divisions on our island and to build a new Ireland, but I caution those who stand up and talk about the precious Union a lot in his place that they are opening a door to something that they might end up regretting, because more and more people are moving away from support for Stormont. I do not want that to happen. I think we can do two things at once. We can have locally elected people running the institutions of Northern Ireland. There is a better way to do this in the longer term.”
“If we are not to have institutions at Stormont, and if locally elected people are not to have representatives running the place because they are denied that opportunity, the British Government need to look seriously at a greater role for the Irish Government in the affairs of Northern Ireland. I say that advisedly because in a number of periods when we were denied institutions at Stormont, it was only that promise that encouraged some people to get back and to form a Government representing all the traditions on the island. That is well worth considering. We are knocking on doors and speaking to people. An awful lot is said about Unionist concerns, which we listen to and try to be respectful of, but many of the people we speak to say, “Why would we have any faith in the DUP to work with nationalism?”
“I have been clear with the leadership of Ulster University that people are very weary, tired and lacking in trust in that institution. The leadership needs to come up urgently with a plan to expand university places to at least 10,000 students or people will begin to look elsewhere, as the hon. Member says. We must be realistic and serious, and we must make this happen because we cannot wait any longer to have proper university provision for the people in my city. We are now basically in a period of direct rule, and we are moving inch by inch closer to London-only rule. That flies in the face of the Good Friday agreement and every single agreement that we have made since. I urge this Government to think carefully about what happens next, because this situation cannot be allowed to run and run.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and his work on this issue. There was a short period when we did not have an MP for Foyle in this Chamber making these points. The hon. Member and others stepped up on that issue, and we were very grateful to him. The people of Derry have been starved of a university since 1964. That has massively damaged our economic opportunities—that along with the bombing campaign that blew the place to bits. We are now 25 years on from the Good Friday agreement, and we still have not maximised that opportunity. We have a university in Derry—we are clear about that—but it is not big enough and it does not do enough to attract the kind of students who, in turn, will attract the economic opportunities that we want.”
“Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) and his colleagues to achieve some modicum of change around that. My appeal to him is this: let us sit down, work together in our substantial common interest, work the common ground, get back into Stormont and try—as hard as it might be—to begin to fix some of the problems that beset all our people.”
“I have tried my best to understand the concerns of Unionism, and I think the European Union and the British Government have as well, to be fair. That is why we have the Windsor framework. If there are still outstanding issues, let us talk about them. Even when we were threatened with a hard border, we did not walk away from government. We did not stop working in the institutions. We wanted to sit down and continue to work with our neighbours—even those who we disagreed with—because that goes right to the heart of the Good Friday agreement. Walking away and boycotting will solve nothing, in our strong view. If there are outstanding issues, and if there are solutions that do not impact upon the principle of protecting all-Ireland trade and avoiding a hard border, we will be open to looking at those and to working with the right hon.”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way to me. I thought I was going to have to do a whole lot of squats just to get in. One of the criteria for using the Stormont brake, and for signing the Petition of Concern, is that Members of the Legislative Assembly “must be individually and collectively seeking in good faith to fully operate the institutions, including through the nomination of Ministers and support for the normal operation of the Assembly.” Does this mean that Jim Allister will be precluded from signing the petition?”
“If memory serves me right, the hon. Gentleman voted for the protocol, which did not have a Stormont brake and had far more checks in it. Can he explain why he is voting against this?”
“They are more interested in internal Tory politics than they are in the wishes and interests of the people in Northern Ireland, and I urge the DUP to learn the lesson of the past few years. The people who the DUP Members can trust—the people who want to work with them—are sitting right here on these Benches. They are not over there on the Back Benches of the Tory party.”
“In the very short time I have, I will make a number of brief points. We do not like the Stormont brake, for a number of reasons. I would never have agreed the Stormont brake, because I think it damages and clouds the investor proposition; it has no specific role for the human rights or equality commissions; and the brake can be pulled before the committee can even finish its work on scrutiny. Most importantly, given the number of years I spent in Stormont, I think it is a very bad idea to give the DUP a veto over anything. I also want to say something about some of the people in this House who will vote against this motion today—former Prime Ministers and members of the European Research Group, all of whom supported the protocol which had no Stormont brake and far more checks for businesses.”
“Dual market access is a huge opportunity that is right in our face—as somebody said earlier, people from around this House would give their left arm to have that opportunity for their own constituents. Despite some concerns that even I have with the agreement, why, oh why, would we give that up? The most important thing to remember, though, is that it is done—it is over. The negotiation is finished. The British Government and the European Union are moving forward. They are moving on; they are dealing with other issues. It is now time to deal with the crisis in our health service, which is at the point of collapse, and to deal with the economic stagnation. It is time to get into Stormont, to do the work on behalf of the people, and to come back together again and work the common ground. There is no other alternative.”
“However, let me make something very clear to this House: if the DUP still refuses to go into government after all of this, I can guarantee that more and more people will figure out that the best way to make the north of Ireland work is within a new Ireland. That is where this is going, and people should be very aware of that. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), the Secretary of State, and myself were all in the United States last week. We know that President Biden has appointed Joe Kennedy as an economic envoy to try to take full advantage of dual market access. We met investors and senior members of the US Administration who want to help us bring jobs to places such as Derry that have been left behind over many years.”
“And, of course, the agreement that the right hon. Member did not support. We will vote for this motion, because it has been made very clear that this is a vote on the whole framework. We have been through many a negotiation in the past. We understand when the negotiation is done and a decision has to be made. There have been parts of every single agreement that we have not liked, but we have had to stomach them for the greater good of the people of Northern Ireland. We see the Unionist concerns; we see many of them—most of them—addressed in this agreement; and we are prepared to make the decision on that basis.”
“Well, I have to say it is great to hear of the conversion that the Prime Minister has had on the benefits of the single market. Given Northern Ireland’s access to the dual market—both markets—and the benefits that that brings, will his Government commit to investing in infrastructure and higher education provision to maximise that benefit?”
“Does the Prime Minister agree it is important that his Government now support that dual market access and promote it to international investors?”
“I associate myself with the remarks about Betty Boothroyd, and I join colleagues, particularly my colleagues from Northern Ireland, in sending our love and support to the Caldwell family and every single PSNI officer in uniform today standing up for our peace and democracy. Although we have some concerns, particularly on the Stormont brake—we will study the detail of this as we go—we are happy that things seem to have moved today. There has been an awful lot of talk, particularly today and in recent months, about the concerns of the DUP and the Unionist community. It is important to remember that the majority of people in Northern Ireland opposed Brexit and want to see the benefits of dual market access properly utilised.”
“I am also grateful to the Secretary of State for taking this action. I commend him and all the politicians who got us here, but does he agree that the real thanks and praise should go to Dáithí and his family for their fantastic campaign? It has been an extraordinary campaign, and they all deserve great praise.”
“Does the Chairman of the Select Committee agree that in this sensitive period, when we are hopefully at the end of the negotiations, we all have a responsibility to be careful and to allow the negotiations to conclude, hopefully successfully? Does he also agree that in the Western Health and Social Care Trust, some people are waiting for eight years to see a consultant, and that that situation can no longer stand? We need a Government as soon as possible to deal with that crisis.”
“The Minister will know that the people of Derry have been waiting five and a half decades for a full-scale university to be built in the city. Given that we have no Government at Stormont, are this Government ever going to do anything about that?”
“Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is a former Finance Minister, but we should not go into his record in that Department if we want to get through the day. He knows that I am no supporter of Sinn Féin, but has he noticed that Sinn Féin has said that it would take the Department for the Economy if an Executive were formed tomorrow? Given everything we have seen over the past 25 years, that would likely mean that the DUP would get the Department of Finance. Surely that is an incentive for the DUP to go back into government and put a Budget in place very quickly.”
“The Minister—a man I often agree with—made a clear point: there is no connection whatsoever between the negotiations that are going on between the European Commission and the British Government and the formation of a Government in Northern Ireland to deal with the problems that we face. Anybody who says otherwise is lying to themselves. In my view, the issues around the protocol will be resolved, but it is vital that a core part of that resolution respects the fact that we now have a fantastic opportunity, because of the protocol, to trade into two markets unencumbered—an opportunity that no one else has. Indeed, the Secretary of State is in America right now, selling to American companies.”
“The argument from the DUP seems to be, “Sure, we can’t fix everything, even if we do go back into government. There is no magic wand.” As a harsh critic of the DUP-Sinn Féin Government over many years, I can say that it is impossible to fix everything—absolutely, Stormont could not fix everything, but it is the job of public representatives to roll their sleeves up, get in there and try. It is like a Pontius Pilate concert—“nothing to do with us”—with hands being washed all over the place. The reality is that a Budget has been set by the Conservative party, which has absolutely no support in Northern Ireland, because the DUP will not go into government, although it could go into government tomorrow morning if it wanted to.”
“I promise not to make as many final points as were made in the previous speech. Listening to some of the contributions, one would almost think that Brexit was a bad idea for the people of the north of Ireland, given all the consequences. We do not have any influence or representation any more in the European Union, and I could think of one or two ways in which we could remedy that. At the last election, the Conservative party in Northern Ireland secured 0.03% of the vote, but today the Conservatives are setting a Budget for the Departments and the people of Northern Ireland. They are doing so because the Democratic Unionist party will not go into government and take control of the Department of Finance and set a Budget for the people of the north of Ireland.”
“It is difficult and it is tough, but it is what we are supposed to do. I welcome the conversion of the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) to levelling up areas that need it most. I will extend an invitation to him now to visit Foyle, because my experience of previous Executives is that they did not do an awful lot of levelling up there.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we would not be where we are today were it not for the actions of the DUP. And where are we? We have people dying in their homes because ambulances are not coming in time. We have people on trolleys for over 24 hours in every hospital in Northern Ireland. We have an Education Department that is being cut to ribbons by this Budget. We have people from my constituency emigrating every day because they cannot find work. Will that all be solved by the Executive in the morning? No, it will not, but it is our job to try. That is the whole point of representative democracy. That is the whole point of devolution. That was the whole point of the Good Friday agreement—that people who disagree with each other can come together and thrash out agreements to get things done.”
“There is the Brandywell stadium—there is still no funding for that from the Government. And there is the Northlands addiction centre—we have had promise after promise, but the money is still not in a bank account. Frankly, I find it difficult to watch people jumping up from their seats and giving excuse after excuse as to why it would not make any difference if we were in government, when people are literally dying on trolleys right now because they cannot get access to the health service. We are abdicating our responsibilities as elected representatives for the people.”
“It is interesting that people in Derry are entitled to some Government funding—thank you very much! My constituency has the highest unemployment, the highest claimant count and the highest household overcrowding, and it has five of the 10 most deprived areas in Northern Ireland. Maybe some work was done, and maybe some money was spent outside the Greater Belfast area, but it has not had the impact that some might claim. If people think it is good enough or acceptable just to say that we will throw a few quid at people in Derry—people who have been left behind—after many decades, they are absolutely wrong. The New Decade, New Approach agreement was referenced earlier, and this Government have a responsibility for some of the commitments in it. I think of the expansion of Magee—there is still no funding for that from the Government.”
“I am saying, as an Irish nationalist who thinks that all these economic and social outcomes will be better in a new Ireland—I think we will get there sooner than some people think, and I thank some of the people sitting to my left for that—and who wants to bring about constitutional change, that the principle of consent is sacrosanct. It is not going anywhere, and it is not changing. This pretence that we have been taken out of the United Kingdom and nobody noticed is the basis of the boycott of the Executive, but I must have missed the victory party, if we are now all in a united Ireland. I did not notice.”
“I also put on record my condolences to Alex Easton, his whole family and his family circle. It is an awful tragedy to happen to anyone, and I cannot imagine what that family is going through. We have proposed a change to the rules around how a Speaker would be elected, which I think could get the Assembly back up and running and at least see Committees meeting. It will not see an Executive up and running, but that is down to a political decision by the DUP. The DUP tells us that the basis of the Assembly is consensus—well, not in my experience. I do not remember an awful lot of consensus in the Assembly in the nine years I was there. The principle of consent is the basis for the Good Friday agreement, and it is a very different thing.”
“We have councils across Northern Ireland right now considering massive rates hikes, which will put more pressure on ratepayers and small businesses, and it will mean that workers in those small businesses, many of whom are already on the breadline, will lose their jobs. We also have an opportunity missed today—I think the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) and every other political leader in Northern Ireland will agree with me on this, because they all signed a letter about it—to implement the organ donation law known as Dáithí’s law. The Government missed the opportunity, and I ask them to revisit that. The work done by young Dáithí, his whole family and the people around that campaign deserves support from this Government.”
“We now have people in the DUP using the Good Friday agreement as a reason why they cannot go back into government. It is absolutely astonishing, it is wrong and it is an attempt to pull the wool over people’s eyes. We all, in all our communities and constituencies, should recognise that the European social fund, for example, has gone. That was £40 million into communities, supporting 1,700 jobs and activity right across every single community. The British Government are proposing to give us half of that back, even though they told us that we would not lose a single penny as a result of Brexit. That is 800 jobs in the community and voluntary sector gone.”
“That is astonishing, given the fact that we had the Sunningdale agreement, where we had people working in those institutions. They were brought down, frankly, by people associated with the right hon. Gentleman’s political party and other Unionists. That accusation thrown at the Social Democratic and Labour party for not wanting to make institutions work is coming from someone who walked away in the dying hours of the negotiations to bring about the Good Friday agreement. That agreement had to be brought about because the three strands—the three sets of relationships—had to be recognised. We could not have an internal settlement in Northern Ireland without north-south institutions and institutions that recognise the east-west dimensions to our relationships as well, and it is absolutely ridiculous to state otherwise.”
“No, I am not being childish. The DUP’s argument is that this is a constitutional rupture and the people of Northern Ireland have been taken out of the United Kingdom. That has been said twice by DUP Members in this debate, and it is simply not true. If that is what they want to tell people, it is a very strange way of being a Unionist. My view is that the Assembly is there to deal with all the problems we have in the health system and the education system. I want to see a united Ireland, and I will work to make that happen, but I have to convince enough people and we have to have a referendum, and that is when the principle of consent comes into play. The two things should not be conflated. A political decision has been made by the DUP, and there are consequences for it. My view is that the DUP has to own those consequences.”
“I am extremely frustrated, as the Minister knows, because this has been going on since the New Decade, New Approach and beyond. We have people dying every single day of addiction-related conditions. Can I press him on one issue that was raised by me and other colleagues, which has a total support across political parties in the Northern Ireland? It is Dáithí’s law on organ donation. Will the Government do something to address that wrong, and to follow through on what had already begun when we had an Assembly and an Executive?”