Colum Eastwood

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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435 held · 431 searchable for Colum Eastwood. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 9.

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1. “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.”

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2. “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.”

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3. “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.”

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4. “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?”

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5. “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.”

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6. “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.”

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7. “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.”

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8. “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.”

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9. “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.”

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10. “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.”

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11. “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.”

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12. “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.”

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13. “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.”

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14. “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.”

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15. “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.”

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16. “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.”

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17. “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.”

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18. “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.”

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19. “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?”

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20. “When it comes to workers’ rights or environmental protections, does the shadow Minister suspect, as I do, that this is a Government determined to throw people’s rights on to the Brexit bonfire? If this is the future of the United Kingdom, is it any wonder that more and more people in the north of Ireland are looking forward to being part of a progressive new and united Ireland?”

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21. “Does the Minister agree that without locally connected broadcasters, we will not be able to have the same connection to the BBC and the same valuable public service broadcasting?”

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22. “I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and thankful to the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) for securing the debate. Tim Davie has offered a number of meetings to some of us. We would like him to come to Derry to see the impact of the cuts, which in my view will end up closing the station. He will not get to Derry today, because most people in Derry, and even the airport, are totally snowed in. People right across our community have been tuning in to Radio Foyle this morning to find out whether the schools were closed, whether roads were open, and whether they could move around the town and greater area. That would not happen if Radio Foyle did not exist. It is absolutely clear that the intention behind the cuts is to end up without Radio Foyle.”

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23. “I know that the Secretary of State likes to fly around in his own private plane, but I can tell him for a fact that while he has been doing that, many nurses in my constituency have been accessing food banks. This Government seem very uncomfortable with nurses standing on picket lines but totally relaxed about them lining up to get food for their families at food banks. If this Government are serious about stopping the strikes, surely now is the time to pay these essential workers properly.”

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24. “Of course we all agree that there needs to be a deal with the European Union to resolve some of the outstanding issues. Would the Minister care to comment on the data released just this morning that states that trade from GB to Northern Ireland is up by 7% since the protocol was implemented?”

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25. “I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. An announcement was made last week about my local radio station, Radio Foyle, and we will not even get morning programming. There will not be a local voice on Radio Foyle in the north-west of Northern Ireland until 1 o’clock in the afternoon. The breakfast programme is being stripped away and more than half of the news staff are being got rid of to save £420,000. BBC Northern Ireland’s budget is £55 million. In effect, it will destroy a local radio station, going against what its own charter says about providing local people with access to local news, all to save a measly £420,000. The BBC has a massive number of staff in Belfast and two massive buildings, but the axe is falling on the local community in the north-west of Northern Ireland. Surely the right hon.”

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26. “Yesterday, BBC Northern Ireland announced cuts to programming and jobs at BBC Radio Foyle, which in my view will leave the station totally unsustainable. The BBC charter places an obligation on the BBC to allow audiences to engage fully on local issues. This decision is a very clear breach of that obligation, leaving licence fee payers outside the Greater Belfast area without proper local programming. Will the Prime Minister act to defend this very important local public broadcasting service?”

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27. “Does the Secretary of State agree that New Decade, New Approach contains many commitments, such as funding the Northlands Addiction Treatment Centre, the Magee university expansion and the Brandywell stadium—all in my constituency—and that in this new context they should not be seen as controversial but should be able to get funded even though we do not have Ministers in the Executive?”

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28. “Far be it from me to get involved in this conversation between the Alliance party and the DUP, but would the hon. Member like to tell us his understanding of what the DUP’s position actually is on mandatory coalition, because as far as I am concerned, it seems to be a new convert to the principle?”

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29. “On the issue of the enhanced payment for patients with hepatitis C, stage 1, that scheme is backdated to 2019 in Northern Ireland, but in the rest of the UK it is backdated to 2017. The British Government today have begun acting in the devolved space around budgets, because we do not have a Government, of course, in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Member agree with me that the British Government should urgently backdate the payments in Northern Ireland to 2017, which is what everybody else has?”

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30. “I am grateful for that commitment. Can the Minister bear in mind that we do not have a single Minister in Northern Ireland over any devolved area right now, and that people in Northern Ireland are getting a bad deal as a result of this scheme? The Government today published a budget in the devolved space for Northern Ireland, so what I am asking for is very doable for this Government. Please, please take it seriously.”

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31. “A former Member of Parliament for Cork City once said: “No man has the right to fix a boundary to the march of a nation. No man has the right to say to his country, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further’.” Of course, this Parliament no longer has a Member for Cork City, because Charles Stewart Parnell was right. This United Kingdom is clearly not a partnership of equals—that has been made absolutely clear today—so when will the Government publish clear criteria for how the people of the north of Ireland can leave it?”

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32. “Surely now is the time to put these arrangements aside, have a DUP Deputy First Minister go into Stormont and have an Executive to deal with the priorities of the people.”

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33. “May I say at the outset that I was never quiet when Sinn Féin kept the institutions of the Good Friday agreement down? I will challenge any party that tries to stop the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland being properly implemented. I thank the Secretary of State for recognising that an election at this time is a bad idea and would make things worse rather than better, and for recognising that an arrangement will have to be put in place in the absence of an Executive, but does he not agree that it is pretty shameful, in the middle of winter when people and businesses are panicking about their bills, that one party is preventing a Government from being formed in Northern Ireland so that we can deal with those issues?”

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34. “Today though, I can feel, I can cry, and I can see what my mother and my sister meant all that time ago. I can see for myself the hurt and the pain and the despair my drinking was causing to my family and myself. Today, the difference is, I can do something about it. I am learning about myself and this horrible disease every day of the week, and for today anyway I didn’t drink, and for me as an alcoholic, that’s a miracle. The treatment in Northlands along with the help of AA since then has given me my life back; it’s given me a life!” That is just one of many thousands of stories from people in the city of Derry and right across Northern Ireland who have been affected by the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction, and who have been helped by the wonderful volunteers and staff at the Northlands centre in Derry.”

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35. “I beg to move, That this House has considered delivering on New Decade, New Approach commitments to a Derry addiction centre. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I will begin with a quote from a service user of the Northlands addiction centre in Derry, which has served the people of our city for almost 50 years. It reads: “My mother on one side of me, crying her heart out, my elder sister on the other side with a Kleenex in one hand and her head in another. I didn’t know how I felt. I didn’t know how to feel. I was numb. No tears, no emotions, just nothingness. All I could do was stare at a spot on the carpet and try not to look up and see the hurt and pain in my mum’s face. That was over two years ago, and thankfully, I haven’t had to lift a drink since I came in here.”

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36. “Are the British Government still committed to delivering on the Derry addiction centre aspect of NDNA? We hear an awful lot about all the commitments, but this is a very important commitment for many people. What is the impact of the political instability on this particular proposal, and how will this Government act if we do not have a functioning Executive? As much as we all will it and want it, if we do not get to the point of having a functioning Executive, will those people who rely on this world-class service, and those who do not even know that they are going to rely on it, be able to access it?”

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37. “To be fair, we had that commitment from the previous Government in the form of New Decade, New Approach, and I have had support from the current Government. We now really need an Executive in Stormont to deliver that. Unfortunately, even when we had an Executive—and we had a Minister up until last Friday—we still could not get the money out. There are a number of things that I would like this Government to commit to now. What we need is an understanding of what happens if we do not have an Executive. I think all of us in the Chamber want to see an Executive as soon as possible. I would love to see all parties commit to get into government urgently—to get round the table and do the job that we were all elected to do. However, I want the Minister to answer a number of questions for me in the event that that does not happen.”

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38. “We wanted to see an Executive back, but an Executive that actually worked on issues that matter to people. Late one Friday night, the right hon. Gentleman and I had a long discussion about what it would take to get us back into the Executive if we had a successful negotiation. People will understand that, for me, one of those things was the expansion of the Magee university campus. Another was the Northlands centre, which, after many decades of work, has a strong proposal for a world-class addiction centre in Derry. True to his word, as always, the former Secretary of State got that commitment into the New Decade, New Approach agreement. I was very grateful for it, as were the people of Derry. However, as we know in Northern Ireland, words on a page are not enough. What we need is money in a bank account and proper commitment.”

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39. “The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the impact of the disease of addiction is felt keenly right across our constituencies. Of course, it is important to say that the Northlands centre, which is referred to in the New Decade, New Approach agreement, serves people from right across Northern Ireland. Every single constituency is affected by it. Now that I see the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), in the Chamber, I might say a word about how we got to this point. For three long years, we did not have an Executive—it feels a bit like we are approaching that period again. During the long hours of torturous negotiation, there was a lot of publicity around a couple of issues, but some of us were focused on a lot more.”

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40. “We should be rushing to get this money out the door and spent. Northlands has a very proud record. I want to put on record just how grateful the people of our city, and the people of Northern Ireland, are to all the staff and volunteers at Northlands, as well as all the people who put their money in the boxes to support that wonderful service. Over the past five years alone there have been 1,186 weeks of treatment for hundreds of people attending the six-week residential programme at Northlands, and 12,886 non-residential counselling slots have been used. On average, over 35% of people for whom the data is available in that period are in recovery, with an average of under 10% in relapse management.”

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41. “The hon. Member is absolutely right; one person every single week dies from alcohol-related disease in Northern Ireland. If we add in drug-related deaths, we are talking about 10 deaths a week. Imagine the outcry if that was happening in full public view; we would be rushing to deal with the issue at every level of Government. Frankly, there is no excuse any more for anybody to stand in the way of this commitment. New Decade, New Approach was an international agreement, signed off by two Governments and supported by five political parties. Some of us actually went into government on the basis of this and other commitments. Everybody in the Chamber knows about the cost of living crisis and the time it takes to access the health service. We should all know about the impact of drug addiction and alcoholism in our communities.”

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42. “Of course, it was this Government who committed to getting this money to Northlands and getting the project up and running. I am grateful to the Minister for being here, but I will be even more grateful if we can get this money spent, as has been committed to.”

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43. “In my view, the best way to tackle it—because we have tried everything else—is to deal with the root cause, which is addiction. Organisations such as the Northlands centre do that in a way that needs huge support. What better way to do that than to get this money into that organisation’s bank account and to get this project delivered? Before I finish, I ask again: will the Government continue to be committed to funding this service? What will happen if we do not see an Executive formed as a matter of urgency? Will this Government step in if we do not get a Health Minister at Stormont? I hope that we do, and I assume the Minister is going to talk about the need for an Executive. He has no bigger supporter in that call than me, but if we do not get an Executive, what are this Government going to do?”

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44. “I am grateful for the right hon. Member’s intervention and I want to put on record my gratitude to him for getting the commitment in writing in the agreement. He went to meet the people behind the Northlands centre—people like Denis Bradley and many others, who over many years gave of their time, expertise and love for the people of our city and the people who have been struggling with this disease. The House would not believe the number of people who are very grateful for the work they have done. It is also important to say that in our city and in other parts of Northern Ireland, we are faced with another problem: the grip of paramilitarism. Paramilitaries use drug addiction and abuse to coercively control communities in a way that needs to be tackled.”

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45. “I congratulate the hon. Member on being called to speak early in the debate. Does he accept that it is not just Sinn Féin that cares about the Irish language or the protection of minority languages and cultures?”

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46. “Member for North Antrim represents has not had a nationalist mayor or deputy mayor since its inception. Does the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) think that that is acceptable or that it embraces diversity?”

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47. “I thank the hon. Member for giving me a useful opportunity to make this point. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) talked about embracing diversity. That is wonderful language. In Derry, since we got rid of the old Derry Corporation, we got proper democracy into local government after the civil rights movement, and we have been embracing diversity in Derry. We have all the old Unionist and British symbols still up in the Guildhall. We have added new ones that represent other traditions, such as the one that I represent. We have also done power sharing since the beginning of that council’s inception. The Social Democratic and Labour party had the most seats, but we had a Unionist deputy mayor and we had Unionist mayors over many years. The council in the area that the hon.”

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48. “I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving way, but will he bring a little clarity to some of his remarks? He said that DUP Members would return to the issue. He is entitled to his opinion and position on any issue, but we already have no Government in Northern Ireland because of the DUP’s stance on the protocol—we will not debate that today. What exactly is the right hon. Member saying about the DUP’s position if the Bill goes through? In my view, we have a desperate need for a Government in Northern Ireland.”

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49. “I understand that, but I think that it is important to put this point on the record. We have heard talk about Sinn Féin this and Sinn Féin that, so will the Minister maybe take the opportunity to put it on the record that people who love the Irish language do not necessarily vote for Sinn Féin? It is a language that has been embraced by people from right across our community; it is not a political tool and it should not be treated as one. That has been part of the problem up to now.”

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50. “The Irish language has been embraced by people across our community. It was protected, supported and defended by Presbyterians many years ago, and it is now being supported, protected and enriched by people from different backgrounds in east Belfast and right across our community, in the same way that the Ulster Scots tradition and identity has informed my identity and the identity of the people I represent. We should all be big enough to be capable of acknowledging, embracing and celebrating each other’s identity. That is the only way forward for the community we all represent.”

    House of Commons26 October 2022Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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