Jim Allister MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Apr 2025 · Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member makes a key point. When people bring business-to-business parcels into Northern Ireland from their own country, from GB, and those parcels are decreed—as the presumption is—to be at risk of going into the European single market in their ultimate manifestation, when manufactured, they have to not only complete the full EU-dictated data regime of declarations, but pay duty. People have to pay duty to bring goods from their own country to another part of their own country. That is how extensive and wrong placing Northern Ireland in the EU single market and customs code has proven to be: when goods are moved now, they are subject to taxation tariffs, because they are moving from a so-called foreign single market into what is decreed to be the entry point of the EU’s single market. I have a question for the Secretary of State: where and when will those duties be collected? As the right hon. Member pointed out, we already know that when duties are collected in the red lane, for example, they may be recoverable, if someone can show—the onus is on them—that the goods did not go into the EU single market, but the duty is paid on the presumption that they will, and the process to reclaim it is taking months upon months. My other question for the Secretary of State is: will parcels be held until the duties are paid? Will we really get into the ludicrous situation where someone buying a parcel of bolts to bring to Ballymena or Ballymoney will have to pay duty on those bolts because he is bringing them from a foreign market, even though that is the GB market? Where and when will he have to pay that duty? We all know that he will wait months upon months to get that duty back, if he can demonstrate—it is very difficult in a manufacturing situation—that the end product never went near the EU. The absurdity is obvious, but the political connotations are overwhelming, because they send a clear constitutional message to the people of Northern Ireland: “You are not really any longer a part of the United Kingdom—your trade laws, your customs laws and the laws that govern how you make your goods are now all made by a foreign Parliament, not by this Parliament.” Here am I, a Member standing in the United Kingdom Parliament talking about something governed by rules set by a foreign jurisdiction. They are rules of that foreign jurisdiction and it is their foreign border. That sends a clear constitutional message, which was of course the intent of the protocol: to create, through economics, a stepping stone for Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. We now have a Government who, through their junior Minister, tell us that a couple of dodgy opinion polls might be enough to trigger the exit sign for Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom. Those are some of the issues that rightly concern us. They particularly concern businesses, which have been very patient with the Government. They have been looking for guidance for months and have not got adequate guidance, and now they are facing a dire situation, whereby even to keep their businesses going with the basic raw materials that have flowed for decades to them from the source, they will be put through not just the difficulty but the humiliation of not being a proper part of this United Kingdom. The Secretary of State can tell us all he likes about how we have access to dual markets. No, we do not. We have unfettered access to the EU single market, but our access to and from GB is very much fettered by these rules. That is the fundamental objection for a part of the nation whose economy is so intertwined with that of Great Britain.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery · Hansard source

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  In a moment. Information must be provided about the country of origin each item, the value of each item and the total value of all the items in the parcel, and any goods that are at risk of passing into the EU’s single market across the border. One of the weaknesses of the protocol is the presumption that everything is at risk of passing, and therefore any raw material—if it is going into manufacturing, who knows where it will end up?—has to go through all that rigour. That is a preposterous imposition, not just in bureaucracy, but in cost and making Northern Ireland non-competitive. It means that a business manufacturing something in Northern Ireland that it wants to sell back on the GB market or wherever is subject to restraints, which will increase costs, making it less and less competitive. That is one of the greatest iniquities of the sea border and of the business-to-business parcels border. We have had the protocol in place for four years. Is there any evidence that business parcels are imposing any harm on the EU single market? Have the Government, the EU or anyone else carried out an audit of the alleged harm that business parcels passing from GB to Northern Ireland could do? For four years, they have been flowing unfettered because of the grace periods, so where is the harm caused to the single market that must now be protected from?

• 30 Apr 2025 · Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State ignores the impact on consumers of the general product safety regulation, which requires the business in GB that is sending to Northern Ireland to have an agent in Northern Ireland and to be in a trusted trader scheme—all the things that are totally alien to supposedly being in the same single market.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery · Hansard source

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  The answer for the Secretary of State, and indeed the last Government, shamefully, was to sacrifice the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and to allow part of the United Kingdom to be governed by laws that we do not make and cannot change. Is it not a principle of international law—to which the EU is supposed to adhere as well—that in agreements and treaties we should respect, not challenge, the territorial integrity of those with which we reach the agreement? That is the source of the problem. We sacrificed the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland in order to placate the EU, who had their objectives in that regard.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery · Hansard source

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  Of course, the natural, inevitable consequence of that is that GB suppliers will simply say, “It’s not worth the candle. We’re not going to make the effort. Why should we put ourselves through all these hoops in order to supply to Northern Ireland? It’s not a huge market in the first place. We’ll simply stop supplying.” That has already happened. I constantly receive complaints from consumers, but increasingly I am getting them from businesses that say, “We know that our suppliers will simply stop supplying.” That is going to be another hammer blow to our economy.

• 30 Apr 2025 · Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of the Windsor Framework on parcel deliveries across the Irish Sea. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. Tomorrow, 1 May, the noose of the Irish sea border will tighten even further in respect of business in Northern Ireland. We already have the red lane Irish sea border, subject to the full complement of EU requirements, through which all raw materials for our businesses have to pass. We also have what was called the green lane, which has been renamed but otherwise little about it has changed, for the passage of other goods; we have a business-to-consumer border for parcels; and now—in some ways the most threatening because of the scale of the businesses that will be affected—we have the business-to-business parcel border. Of course, that is a border partitioning the supposed United Kingdom and its supposed internal market. The essence of an internal market is that goods move unfettered and unchecked between and within all parts of it. We now have something else, courtesy of the absurd protocol—or, as we now call it, the Windsor framework. In view of the fact that that decreed that we in Northern Ireland are subject to the EU’s customs code, which in turn decrees that Great Britain is a third or foreign country, we now have the absurdity of various dimensions of border for the passage of goods from GB to Northern Ireland. For 200 years, the Northern Ireland economy has been intensely integrated with the GB economy, particularly in manufacturing. It was always the northern part of Ireland that had the big manufacturing sectors. Therefore, the integration, in particular with regard to the supply of raw materials, has been pivotal and GB has been the primary source of all that. Now, parcels will be subject to rigorous EU requirements, including the requirement for a commodity code—

• 30 Apr 2025 · Windsor Framework: Parcel Delivery · Hansard source

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  Indeed. This is a real issue. In my constituency of North Antrim, I have many satellite small engineering firms. Many of them are subcontractors to Wrightbus, for example. They get their raw materials from GB. To get a simple parcel of bolts, nuts, washers or whatever, because they are manufacturers, they will now have to go through the processes of the red lane business-to-business border. That is in circumstances in which there is no evidence—if there were, we would have heard of it—that the EU’s vast single market is being the least bit impacted by business-to-business parcels. The people who will now be affected are those businesses —the people who employ my constituents. The other consequence of the machinations of this border is that when GB suppliers stop supplying, firms will have to get their raw materials from somewhere, and some of them will have to come from the Republic of Ireland. Of course, that is the overall, underlying intent of the Windsor framework: to reorientate the economy of Northern Ireland away from its GB roots and connections, and to force an increase in all-Ireland trade. Here we are, arriving at a situation where we have a perfectly unfettered, all-Ireland single market, but in the nation of which we are a part, the United Kingdom, our single market is fettered and partitioned. That was the intent of the protocol. The protocol was always about making Northern Ireland the price of Brexit, and so it is turning out to be.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Irish Republican Alleged Incitement · Hansard source

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  With the scale of imprisonment that we have seen in recent months for those who make inappropriate comments on social media, does the Minister agree that confidence in policing and the prosecution services is on the line in this appalling incitement to murder, and that such confidence requires action against this group—a group that have made their hateful career out of advocating and supporting terrorism, be it Hamas, Hezbollah or the IRA? In that regard, will the Minister consider the adequacy of the offence of glorification of terrorism, which has so many let-outs that such groups are adept at exploiting and needs to be tightened up? Will he do that as a consequence of this episode?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Surely there is something fundamentally flawed with the process of local inquiries if the option of holding the inquiry rests with the defaulting authority. Is there not equally something out of kilter with the Government’s approach to public inquiries when at this moment they are about to spend up to tens of millions of pounds on a public inquiry to meet the political demands of the Finucane family while denying a national inquiry to this national scandal of child rape gangs?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Under the Windsor framework, the Government, through the Cabinet Office, regularly supply data to the European Union about the number and type of checks conducted at the Irish sea border, but they refuse to provide that data to Members of this House. When I was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the oversight of those checks lay with the local Department, I was able to acquire that, but now that it is under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Members who ask those questions get a refusal of an answer. Why is that?

• 24 Apr 2025 · Ukraine War: London Talks · Hansard source

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  How can the Minister describe yesterday’s talks as productive if the United States continues to make unreasonable demands of Ukraine that the United Kingdom does not support?

• 22 Apr 2025 · “For Women Scotland” Supreme Court Ruling · Hansard source

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  Given that article 2 of the Windsor framework ridiculously requires Northern Ireland to be in dynamic alignment with EU equality directives, which include embracing self-identification, what steps will the Government take to ensure that this common-sense ruling of the Supreme Court is applied consistently and without adulteration across the whole United Kingdom now and always?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Earlier, when the Chancellor was talking about the impact of tariffs, she pledged that the Government would act in our national interest. How can it be in the whole national interest, so long as the trade laws governing Northern Ireland are not the trade laws of the UK but those of a foreign jurisdiction, namely the EU?

• 8 Apr 2025 · EU Tariffs: United States and Northern Ireland Economy · Hansard source

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  As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is the right hon. Gentleman not embarrassed that he and his Government have no control over the tariffs in respect of goods imported into Northern Ireland? Is the obvious and inevitable answer not to repatriate to the United Kingdom control over trade laws? What happens if Northern Ireland is used as a conduit by the Republic of Ireland or the EU to export goods to the US? Who checks those goods and where?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Persecution of Christians · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. The first Christian martyr was Stephen. Stephen was martyred simply because of his loyalty to the head of the Christian Church, Lord Jesus Christ. Stephen has been followed, down the eons of time, by millions of others who have been persecuted and put to death for simple adherence to the basic Christian message of redemption through the sole mediation of Christ. There is nothing offensive in that and yet it offends. The offensiveness has caused many to lose their lives, and that is a shocking indictment of the wider world. We take for granted all of the freedoms and liberties we have, but a debate such as this rightly causes us to reflect on those who exercise the freedoms that jeopardise their own lives. Think about Iran, where there has been an increase in the imprisonment of Christians from 22 in 2023 to 96 in 2024, indicating the trend. Think of Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s return and their extreme sharia law means many people have been executed simply for converting to Christianity. That is a sobering reminder of the values that we have, should hold to, and never take for granted. I finish with words from the beatitudes: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

• 2 Apr 2025 · UK Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  An industrial strategy would be very welcome, but is not the reality that any assistance under an industrial strategy in Northern Ireland would be subject to EU state aid rules, that any raw materials for industry in Northern Ireland that come from GB would have to pass through the international EU customs border, and that many goods would have to be made to EU, not UK, standards? Unless or until we get rid of those hindrances, how do we liberate such a strategy?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Council Guidelines · Hansard source

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  I certainly welcome the fact that the Sentencing Council has been forced to back down on its woke proposal. As the new legislation progresses, can the Lord Chancellor assure the House that there will be no dilution of the robust principles of the separation of powers and the independence of our judiciary; and that the right approach will continue to be that Parliament sets the maximum sentence for any criminal offence, and our judges decide on a case-by-case basis what the sentence should be?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  One critical thing about the Bill is that, under the Sewel convention, it does not extend to secondary legislation. It does not extend to statutory instruments. The Bill drives a coach and horses through the Sewel convention as far as devolution is concerned, because it heaps all the powers into statutory instruments. One might expect such a bold move to realign the United Kingdom with EU law to be an up-front piece of legislation. I do not think that that is too much to ask—that it should be plain and clear for all to see. Instead, it is to be conveyed in these statutory instruments. And statutory instruments, as we know, are those that, in the main, pass through unnoticed. We have all been to Delegated Legislation Committees. We know that they are farcical in that the Minister comes in with a brief, which is simply rigidly read, and Members nod the motion through. It is a farcical way to make legislation of any sort.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member is absolutely right. If one wanted to realign the United Kingdom with the EU, the easiest passage would be by statutory instruments. That is why that is the chosen mechanism here. I have one final point. This Parliament traditionally and properly makes the law on criminal offences. We set the tariffs. Sometimes we say what the minimum penalty for a criminal offence is, but we always say what the maximum penalty is. We say what the content is of the criminal offence—what are the actus reus and the mens rea. But amazingly under clauses 3(9) and 3(11) and clauses 6(9) and 6(11) of the Bill we are going to make criminal offences by statutory instrument. Surely we have lost the run of ourselves if we think it is appropriate to make criminal offences in that essentially uncontrolled manner. It deprives this House, and therefore those we represent, of the very careful scrutiny that should always go into making something a crime. That is but another of the fundamental flaws of this undeserving Bill.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. If the Government are not—as many of us suspect—following a deliberate approach of circumventing debate in this House on key realignment issues, and is seeking rather to channel it through statutory instruments, then call our bluff, change this Bill in that regard. But this idea of skeleton legislation, which sets up the powers that have been taken from Parliament and given to the Executive, is something which, historically, this party of Government have railed against. Indeed, within a week of Second Reading in the other place, the Attorney General gave the Bingham lecture. He said: “excessive reliance on delegated powers, Henry VIII clauses, or skeleton legislation, upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law values…but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty. In my view, the new Government offers an opportunity for a reset in the way that Government thinks about these issues. This means, in particular, a much sharper focus on whether taking delegated powers is justified in a given case, and more careful consideration of appropriate safeguards.” That was the Attorney General. Where did that go to?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Forgive me for bringing the Commons back to the purpose of Parliament. Its historic purpose is to make laws for our constituents and to hold the Executive to account. That is the fundamental that has been loosened by this Bill. Although it is entirely skeletal in form, the Bill’s effect is very far-reaching indeed. It is quite obvious that the Bill has a clear purpose, which is to align Great Britain with the EU single market on goods. If it were not so, we would not have clause 2(7). The standard that is set in that clause is the EU standard. If the Bill was just about creating the opportunity to make regulations because of a regulatory gap, it would not be tethered to the EU provisions on goods. It would be open ended, and we would be free to make the choice that best suited us. However, the giveaway clause in the Bill is clause 2(7). That lets the cat out of the bag, as indeed did the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) when she quite clearly indicated that that was the direction of travel that she sought. Therefore, that is the purpose. When we look at clause 1(2), we again have the open affirmation of the desire to make the compliance with “relevant EU law”, so it is abundantly clear that this is a creation to realign us with EU law. The intent is to create this vehicle for realignment without voters noticing. Of course that means realignment with laws that we do not make and that we cannot change because they are made by a foreign Parliament. The ambition in this Bill in respect of clause 2(7) is to disenfranchise—as has happened already in Northern Ireland by our subjugation to the EU single market and all its rules—the people of the United Kingdom, so that, in their entirety, they are at the Government’s whim and can be subjected to laws they do not make and cannot change. That then inextricably ties us to the European Court of Justice. It is the ECJ that mediates and deliberates on those laws that this Bill wishes to tie us to. Therefore, it is an attempt to tie us not just to the EU single market, but to the court that rules the EU’s single market.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Draft Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  Surely the truth is that we are here to impose regulations that the EU thinks will be better for consumers, because it treats Northern Ireland as EU territory. These are not the regulations of the United Kingdom Government.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Draft Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  The essence of these regulations is that a part of this United Kingdom should be subjected to regulation governing energy-related products, not by the laws made by this Parliament, nor even by the laws made by the devolved Stormont institutions, but by laws made by a foreign Parliament and initiated by an unelected foreign institution—namely, the European Commission. Those are the laws that would be imposed on consumers and citizens of Northern Ireland by these regulations. Any rational observer might expect that the right to make the laws of any part of a country would rest with the elected representatives of that country—but in fact, pursuant to the protocol/Windsor framework, the right to make those laws was surrendered to a foreign polity. We have an absurd situation, illustrated by these regulations, whereby seven new EU regulations are being enforced automatically upon citizens of the United Kingdom, and the very Parliament of that United Kingdom is prohibited from changing, amending or disapplying them—or doing anything other than applying them—because the lawmaking powers on these issues have been surrendered to the EU. That is all set out in graphic, frightening detail in annex 2 of the protocol, where we read 289 areas of law where the United Kingdom can no longer make laws for Northern Ireland. These regulations represent one of those ambits or areas of law. Of course, that has many ramifications, including the important democratic fact that it disenfranchises the people of Northern Ireland. The fundamental principle of this nation, and indeed of any democratic nation, is that people live under the laws made by those whom they elect. These laws, however, are made by those elected not by anyone in Northern Ireland or the rest of the United Kingdom, but by people in 27 foreign countries. That is the absurdity of what has been imposed in these regulations. That issue is of immense constitutional significance and, in truth, it is why there is no consultation. There is no consultation about whether these laws should be applied to Northern Ireland for the simple reason that, if there were a consultation, and if that consultation suggested that they should not be applied, it could not be adhered to. It would only show up the impotency of Parliament and the institutions in the United Kingdom, because the right to make these laws has already been surrendered to a foreign Parliament. The view of the Government is that there is no necessity or point to consulting, because their hands are tied. However, if there is a suggestion that similar regulations might be imposed in Great Britain, there has to be a consultation. Paragraph 7.2 of the explanatory memorandum says that there will be such a consultation—why? Because that is the normal process. We do not impose something without going through the due process of consulting about it. But what we are doing here tonight is the antithesis of that. We are imposing on Northern Ireland regulations upon which we will not consult, because we have already sold the right to consult and the right to make any decision other than to impose them. It is not just a constitutional issue; it is a practical economic issue. It applies to the vast range of energy-related products, from smartphones through to tumble dryers. Take tumble dryers as an example. There are basically two types: the convector or vented tumble dryer, and the heat pump tumble dryer. Under the regulations, it will become illegal to have a convector tumble dryer in Northern Ireland, or for a retailer to sell one. It will be impossible for a manufacturer in Great Britain to complete an order for a convector tumble dryer in Northern Ireland. A convector tumble dryer operates at lower ambient temperatures, so many of them are in garages attached to houses, whereas a heat pump tumble dryer would not operate in those colder temperatures. We are saying to the people of Northern Ireland, “You cannot any longer have a British-made convector tumble dryer in your garage. Why? Because the EU says you can’t.” Think of the magnitude of the absurdity of that: citizens of this United Kingdom are being dictated to not by the democratic mandate of this House but by the undemocratic control of a foreign Parliament. That is the abiding absurdity of the regulations. The Government’s answer to all of that will be to just align the whole of the United Kingdom to the same EU standards, as we will see tomorrow with the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill and as we are seeing through their approach to these regulations. What was the point of Brexit? The whole point of Brexit, we were told, was that we could be master in our own house and make our own regulations, but now we will simply reregulate back into line with the EU. That is a very retrograde step. One other very important thing about the regulations is that they provide that there will be no further debate about such matters when it comes to further new regulations. All there will be is a statement by a Minister that they have come into effect. Courtesy of what is being approved tonight, there will never again be a debate, a discussion, a Delegated Legislation Committee or a debate on the Floor of the House about new measures, because that right is being surrendered as well. That was confirmed by Lord Hunt in the other place. I say to the members of this Committee—although I know that, whipped as they are, they will not do it—that this is a step they should not take. They should have some thought for their fellow citizens in the rest of the United Kingdom, in Northern Ireland, and stand up for the right that they should be governed by laws that this Parliament can make and that this Parliament can change, and not subject them, colony-like—because that is what it is, colony-like—to the laws of others.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Defending Democracy Taskforce · Hansard source

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  When the defending democracy taskforce was established, it was proclaimed that its primary focus was to protect the democratic integrity of the United Kingdom. What work, therefore, has it done on the fact that there is a part of this United Kingdom—namely, Northern Ireland—where the democratic integrity of the United Kingdom has been upended by the fact that, in 300 areas of law, our laws are made not by this Parliament and not by the Stormont Assembly, but by a foreign Parliament: the European Union? What work has been done to restore democratic integrity to the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland?

• 27 Mar 2025 · St Patrick’s Day and Northern Irish Affairs · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Since this debate is not just about St Patrick’s day but about Northern Ireland affairs, I am surprised that I am the only Member of the House from Northern Ireland participating in it. That is a pretty poor situation.