Jim Allister MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Member had been listening more carefully, she would have understood why it is failing. It is failing because at its heart is a party that does not want Northern Ireland to succeed and, if it has the levers of power, will never permit it to succeed. That is the fundamental point. What do we do? It is quite clear to me that the Executive is the failing side of devolution in Northern Ireland. It is the Executive that has collapsed multiple times. We need to distinguish the various strands of devolution. We have the Executive devolution, we have legislative devolution, and I suppose we have the scrutiny side of devolution. The latter two have actually worked, within limits, relatively well. The lamentable failure is on the side of the Executive. If the only type of Executive that can be formed has at its heart a party that wants Northern Ireland to fail, the obvious answer is not to have an Executive of that type. We should sustain the legislative devolution and the scrutiny and pass the Executive powers to the central Government, but we should make their Ministers pass their legislation through the Assembly and make their Ministers’ actions subject to the scrutiny of the Assembly. Indeed, it would be far more vigorous scrutiny than at present, because at the moment the scrutineers who sit in the Assembly Committees scrutinising Ministers are members of the same parties that they are scrutinising. If Assembly Members were scrutinising Ministers from the Northern Ireland Office, it would be a lot more vigorous, I assure you. If we are to get government that works, we have to face the reality that the current system is incapable of working. It will never work, because of the fundamental flaw that at its heart is a party that thinks that Northern Ireland should not even exist, never mind succeed. We have to circumvent that. If we cannot have an Executive that allows those who want Northern Ireland to work to govern, Executive powers must be vested where they will not be subject to that restraint and that flaw. We should keep the part of devolution that is working. If we ever come to the point at which we are capable of forming a workable Executive, we should restore it, but we cannot go on as we are, limping from one crisis to another. Stormont is now a byword for failure in Northern Ireland. People just roll their eyes and laugh at the very thought of good government coming from there. We are only going to take politics further down the longer we cling to a system that is lamentably and totally failing. Let us get some new thought, which needs to be focused on getting an Executive system that can work. It does not need to be perfect, but I want to be very plain: flawed British rule, subject to the restraints of Stormont, would be preferable to destructive, malevolent Sinn Féin rule.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I commend the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this debate. That is probably where the consensus largely ends, although I suppose I could agree with her—indeed, I would put it much more robustly—that our system of government at Stormont has lamentably and demonstrably failed. The Executive eventually scraped together what passes for a programme for government; they now cannot agree a budget, and we have individual Ministers locked in litigation, one with the other. Of course, all that is against the background of the Executive almost more often being down than up. The elephant in the room, to which no one has been prepared to refer, is this question: why is this system of government not working? It is very simple. If the only form of devolution we can have is one based on the prerequisite that a party that does not even want Northern Ireland to exist, never mind succeed, must be at the heart of the Executive, it should not be a surprise to anyone that that Executive stumbles and fails. You cannot say, “We will make a success of Northern Ireland, yet we need an all-Ireland.” The very raison d’être of Sinn Féin is, first, not to believe that Northern Ireland should even exist and, secondly, to ensure that it is not a success. There is no better place from which to make sure it is not a success than from the inside of Government. That is the fundamental reality. Day and daily in Northern Ireland, we hear very clearly from the so-called First Minister that everything they are doing and everything they are working towards is about getting a referendum to destroy the United Kingdom and take Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. If we create a system where those with that motivation, who have no desire to make Northern Ireland work, must be at the heart of government, and we cannot have a Government without them, it should not be a surprise that the system fails. It is not rocket science.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Political Institutions: Reform · Hansard source

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  On the childcare point, the childcare money was Barnett consequential. It was of the order of £50 million, but Stormont chose to spend only £25 million of it on childcare, so in fact under devolution we saw a diminution in what was available for childcare.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak to clause 62 and schedule 12. I certainly welcome the fact that, though belatedly, the Government did get to the point of climbing down on the £1 million threshold. They should have gone much further: this tax should not exist at all. If there is to be such a tax, it should be at a viable threshold. The climbdown was not delivered with great grace; indeed, it followed a debate in this House in which the Minister doggedly defended the £1 million threshold, telling us it was fair and necessary—the very words that he uses now to defend the £2.5 million threshold. However, even though that was the manner of the delivery, the climbdown, so far as it goes, is welcome. We need to be aware of the limitations on how far this concession does go, as it will very swiftly be diminished with time because of the lack of indexation. This is a diminishing win—a win secured by our farming communities through their determined campaigning, but a win that will melt away as each year goes by. Take my part of the United Kingdom: Northern Ireland. In the past five years, land values have increased by 40%. If that trajectory continues for the next five years, in today’s terms the threshold will be worth only £1.5 million. It will lose 40% off its value. Unless the Government are willing to face up to the need to index-link the threshold, the bona fides of their conversion on this issue is very suspect indeed. If they have genuinely realised that £1 million was wholly inadequate and £2.5 million as a minimum was necessary, they need to sustain that value going forward. That is the real test of the bona fides of this Government on this issue. They cannot simply sit back and wait for the Treasury to increase its tax take because land values rise and the value of the £2.5 million diminishes every time that happens. If it is only a tactical move to buy time, then time is on their side, because in due course this will fritter away to the point where it is of very little value indeed. My plea tonight is for the Government to demonstrate that they have genuinely realised the need to protect farming families by committing to index-linking this concession. Without that, it will diminish very severely with time, and surely those who feed us and keep bread on our tables are the people this Government should be thinking about. They are not thinking about them if they insist on a de minimis threshold that will dimmish almost out of sight as time goes forward. That is the test of this Government.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  Indeed, and I would remind the House that, because of concerns about the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, there was an automatic right of appeal, to try to build some confidence. That automatic right of appeal would not exist, in the main, in the proposals before us. We are told that this measure will save time. It will not save time. What time would we be saving—an hour to swear in a jury or maybe a day while a jury deliberates? As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) pointed out, a judge who has to make a decision might do so there and then, but he would then have to go away and write it up. He would spend a lot longer writing it up, knowing that it might have to go through the fine-toothed comb of the Court of Appeal, than a jury would spend reaching a decision. There will be no time-saving. In my experience, the loss of time and the delays in our courts come primarily from delays in providing disclosure and from witnesses not being available. None of that will change under this new system. What will change is the body blow to confidence in the judicial system and the legal process. For me, the Government lost this debate today when the bottom fell out of their case and the Minister had to say, effectively, that this was not about delay but about an ideology. It is an ideology that ill fits this House and an ideology that the House should most convincingly reject.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  For me, the key question in this matter is this: what will be the impact on public confidence in our legal system? I will answer that question based on my professional life as a criminal barrister practising in our criminal courts. I shall also answer it from the perspective of someone who practised in Northern Ireland, where we had both jury trials and judge-alone trials, called Diplock courts. I have seen and operated both, and I know the public confidence level resulting from those respective types of trials. I have absolutely no doubt that the public have far more confidence in 12 peers making the decision than in a single judge making the decision. It is not that our judges are not intellectually adequate. It is not that they do not have massive legal experience. It is the fact that they do not have the lived experience of 12 individuals who are making a decision about charges against an equal person. That is the genius of the jury system. Those 12 individuals come to the case without preconceptions and without the baggage of anything else, and when they hear the evidence—and the evidence only—they make their decision.

• 7 Jan 2026 · European Convention on Human Rights: Belfast Agreement · Hansard source

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  It is plain wrong to say that the survival of the Belfast agreement is dependent on the ECHR. Why is the Secretary of State so selective in his Belfast agreement allegiance? It was he who implemented the jettisoning of the agreement’s cornerstone of cross-community consent when he invited the Northern Ireland Assembly to continue the imposition of the Windsor framework without cross-community consent. Is it only nationalist consent that matters to him under the Belfast agreement?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention · Hansard source

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  Special forces operations inescapably involve split-second decisions and walk a very fine line. If those operatives perceive that the Government do not have their back, is the Minister seriously saying that will not have an adverse effect on morale or recruitment?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Venezuela · Hansard source

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  Most Members of this House will agree with the Government that there are no tears to be shed over the removal of the brutal regime in Venezuela, but my question for the Foreign Secretary is this: how does such a desirable outcome impact on the Government’s view of what is permissible within international law?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief · Hansard source

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  I certainly welcome the increase in the threshold as far as it goes, and I commend the campaigning farmers who secured it. In explaining it today, the Minister said that the Government have “got the balance right”, but of course those are the very words that he used at the Dispatch Box and in Westminster Hall when defending the £1 million threshold, and each time he caused torment and anxiety to farming families. Is he sorry for the anxiety caused needlessly to those farmers?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State does not need me to tell him that he and the Government are struggling to command veteran support for his Bill. In order to address that deficit of support, should he not consider an amendment to clause 3 to have the Veterans Commissioner for Northern Ireland serve on the legacy commission? Would that not be a token of making good on his affirmation that this is about capturing the confidence of veterans and not pursuing lawfare against them?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Chagossians: Trust Fund and Resettlement · Hansard source

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  In getting to this point, the Government have made much of their adherence to international standards and bodies, yet in the last 15 minutes the Minister has been asked three times to respond to the United Nations’ findings, which call for a suspension of the treaty, and criticise the denial of the right to self-determination and the right to return. Why is the Minister now so timid when it comes to dealing with those international findings?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Has the Ministry of Justice had any contact with the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland in relation to the looming crisis in criminal justice arising from the fact that on 5 January the criminal barristers will go on strike because there has not been an uplift in legal aid rates since 2005? If contact is made, will the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland be asked why, given her statutory duty to review the rates, she paused the last review in 2022, and why the interim uplift that she announced last year has never been paid?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I want to begin by endorsing and agreeing with the very articulate and passionate contributions from Members right across the House. It is encouraging that there have been speeches from those on the Labour Benches attacking the cruel death tax on family farms—that is the only way to describe it. It is cruel, no matter what way you look at it. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) laid it out very clearly, as indeed he did yesterday in the Liaison Committee when he put the Prime Minister on the spot and the Prime Minister had no answer. A Prime Minister with no answer needs to change course. The Government have lost the argument on this issue. It is no answer to simply say, “We have the numbers to drive it through”. This needs to be done on the basis of equity and what is right. Having lost that argument—and so patently lost it—they need to face up to that. Just as the Prime Minister lost the argument yesterday in the Liaison Committee, so the Government need to face up to that point on this issue as well. I want to make some comments about the Bill that are particularly pertinent to Northern Ireland. In any fiscal landscape, critical to being a part of a United Kingdom is the reasonable expectation that there will be the same fiscal ground rules across that United Kingdom—that if business is given advantage in one part, it will equally have that advantage in another. Yet when I come to this Finance Bill, particularly clauses 13 to 15, I discover to my dismay that businesses in Northern Ireland are not to have the same advantages when it comes to the capacity to scale up, as is provided for in clauses 13 to 15 regarding enterprise investment schemes, venture capital projects and enterprise management incentives. That is because the hideous tentacles of the Windsor framework have reached right into this Bill. Because of the Windsor framework’s imposition on Northern Ireland business of EU state rules, we find in clauses 13 to 15 the exemption of Northern Ireland companies from the advantages to be given to others under those clauses. That removes the fiscal level playing field that should operate in any UK internal market. That undermines the UK internal market, because under those clauses companies in Great Britain will rightly be able to maximise state aid so that they can maximise their trading power, but an alike company in Northern Ireland has the benefit it can obtain from those scaling-up opportunities capped by EU state aid rules. That means they are not on a level playing field when it comes to competitiveness in respect of the capabilities in the Finance Bill. That causes me to challenge the declaration that the Bill has no effect on GB-Northern Ireland trade. It most patently does if some companies in GB can scale up using these enhanced benefits from investment and venture capital unfettered by any state aid rules, while the same type of company in my constituency has the benefit it can draw fettered by the imposition of EU state aid rules. That is neither fair nor right, and it is but the latest manifestation of the Windsor framework and our continuing subjection to foreign laws. These are not laws that we make here. EU state aid rules are not set here; they are set in a foreign Parliament that no one in this United Kingdom elects by a combination of Ministers from 27 other countries who have no accountability to anyone in my constituency or any constituency in this Parliament—and yet those rules are traducing and impeding business in Northern Ireland.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The key is in the point that the Minister finally made there; that is under the previous scheme. Northern Ireland is not to get the uplift that the rest of the United Kingdom does under clauses 13 to 15. Why? Because we are subject to EU state aid rules. We are being held back by the old rules, whereas everywhere else in the United Kingdom gets the new uplift.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  It has to end. It is discrimination at the behest of a foreign power. It is Brussels saying, “You must impose state aid rules on Northern Ireland.” The product of that in these clauses is a foreign Parliament dictating to this Parliament what we can and cannot give to our own businesses in this United Kingdom. That is so fundamentally offensive to our constitutional integrity that it goes to the very heart of what it means, or what it should mean, to be part of a United Kingdom.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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• 15 Dec 2025 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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• 15 Dec 2025 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is always good to hear about a rise in the availability of financial assistance to industry. In the context of Northern Ireland, the Minister has referred to the Windsor framework. One of its drawbacks is that Northern Ireland is subject to EU state aid rules. In my constituency, I have a large bus manufacturer that sells buses to Germany. Can I seek an assurance from the Minister that that company, for example, will not be disadvantaged by the cap in state aid rules in comparison with a competitor bus manufacturer in another part of the United Kingdom where there is not a state aid limitation?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In view of the fact that Northern Ireland, alas, remains subject to much European Union law, including legislation on ozone-depleting substances, it seems that from 1 January the MOD’s fleet of Dakotas, Chinooks, Wildcats, Shadows and C-17 Globemasters, among others, may be unable to operate in Northern Ireland because their on-board fire extinguishers use halon, which will be banned in the EU from that date. What steps have been taken to deal with this ridiculous situation?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts · Hansard source

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  I am listening with interest to the Minister, but as a Member of this House, I would like to know whether the figures quoted by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) are correct or incorrect. Surely the House is entitled to know that.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Kenova · Hansard source

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  On a day like today, it is important to remind ourselves that our security and intelligence forces saved hundreds of lives in the face of murderous terrorism. Terrorists, of course, kept no records to be pored over years later. Does the Secretary of State agree that Scappaticci was, first and foremost, a ruthless IRA murderer? Does he agree that the RUC and the Ulster Defence Regiment—whatever the renegade actions of a very tiny number of members, some of whom have rightly faced justice—were organisations of immense integrity, whose members’ service and bravery preserved many lives? Does he agree that the Denton report finally lays to rest the republican myth that the security forces were implicated in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  As I represent North Antrim, I know of many parts of my constituency where people cannot get the digital connections that are supposedly promised, and I know what digital exclusion is in that regard as well. This proposition is flawed no matter which way we look at it, but most fundamentally flawed in the compulsion that it brings. The final point that I want to make to the Minister is this: whatever happens on this subject—I trust the idea will be ditched in its entirety—and whatever the ultimate outcome is, it has to be a nationwide outcome. Too often, I have seen differences of treatment in my part of the United Kingdom that add to the already obnoxious situation in which we are partitioned by an Irish sea border. We do not want to be partitioned by a digital border as well.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  The scale of the response to this petition—almost 3 million people—should cause us all to pause. This rash proposal has clearly touched a deep-seated opposition among our constituents to anyone interfering with their personal data and personal details. Almost 5,000 of my constituents are among that number, and I well understand and support their opposition. Yes, digital ID might be convenient and it might be expedient for some people to have all their data in one location that they can share, but the key issue here is that the Government are choosing—without a mandate—to make it mandatory. It would be a different matter if the Government were coming to this House to say, “We are going to provide a facility whereby, if you wish, you can have the convenience of this: if you want to take the risk of being hacked, we will provide the facility,” but when they say to the citizen, “You must,” or, “We will impose,” they have crossed a line that no self-respecting Government should cross and that no self-respecting people should tolerate. That, for me, is the critical component: this is a Government who think they know better and who will impose it, and we will be left with no choice as citizens. That is so illiberal, so fundamentally an assault on our personal freedoms, that no one in this House should be entertaining it, least of all the Government.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  That is a question that I obviously cannot answer, and it is one that I doubt the Minister will answer, but it is well posed. Why, oh why, if the Government were going to impinge on the personal liberties of their citizens, would they not, in asking for their votes, tell them that that was their agenda?