Jim Shannon MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Jul 2024 · Clean Energy Superpower Mission · Hansard source

  More

  Oh, thank you—you caught me off guard there, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I am so used to being the last one in the House to be called. I welcome the Secretary of State to his place. I know it has always been his ambition to have the opportunity to have this role. Now he has it, I hope it goes well for him, and we will support him in what he is trying to achieve. With the new Government comes a new way of achieving goals and aims. I represent Strangford, which is a mostly rural constituency. Farming is a way of life and a key part of the economy. It creates thousands of jobs and opportunities, and is key to our future. Green energy and net zero are important for that as well. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the farming community and agrifood needs will be paramount in any effort to achieve a better world for all of us to live in?

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

  More

  Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you for calling me and all hon. Members who have made contributions so far; I am glad to see you in your place and I am glad to be in mine. I thank the good people of Strangford for voting for me in the election, and I wish all Members in this House God’s richest blessing for this term and the years ahead. I am very pleased to see the Labour party and the Prime Minister in their place. I believe that all of us across the House and out in the nation we represent wish for things to go well—there is good will and a wish to see things in a better way. I was delighted to hear in the King’s Speech the Prime Minister’s goal of taking the brakes off Britain, which is a goal that every party can get behind. Yet the Unionist in me would gently remind the Prime Minister and the Labour party that that responsibility applies equally to the whole United Kingdom, not simply to mainland Britain. We need to remove the brakes, wherever they may be, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. One brake that springs to mind at this moment is that mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson): the one holding back Harland & Wolff from providing jobs and financial stability by not fulfilling the contract promised by the last Government. Security on the loan is critical to prevent the removal of economic growth, and I do hope that brake will be released urgently. I also welcome the indication that the creation of wealth is to be a Labour party priority, as that is foundational for any nation. I look forward to working with the Labour Government to ensure that it is spread across the whole United Kingdom, of which Northern Ireland is an integral part. There is work to be done when it comes to Northern Ireland’s place in the Union. In response to my intervention on the Prime Minister today, he quite clearly committed to ensuring that Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom is strengthened. If that is the case, it is good news, but I look forward to seeing those words become action. My colleagues and I are anxious to continue the work of ensuring that our constituents have the same treatment as the rest of the UK, from shopping to post, to imports and border controls. I look forward to meeting our new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who is in a position to establish that working relationship to the benefit of all within the United Kingdom. There is work to be done on the remnants of the protocol, and I know that must be a priority for this new Government. There is also work to be done on establishing an adequate formula for funding, which both my right hon. Friends the Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and for Belfast East referred to. When I was a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, along with other colleagues, all parties on the Committee and the Government officials were clear that the funding formula was wrong and had to be addressed. We are £500 million to £600 million shy of what other parts of the United Kingdom are getting, and there was a commitment given to ensuring that that would come through. My request to the Labour Government, and in particular to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, will be to ensure that that £600 million gaping hole in Northern Ireland’s finances is addressed. With great respect, I say this: we do not need a vanity project of Casement Park, at a cost of more than £300 million, when the very basics of life are being neglected. I was pleased to hear the aim of improving mental health services, which other Members have referred to, particularly for our young people. In Northern Ireland we have the largest prevalence of mental health problems in the whole of the United Kingdom. My request to the Labour Government and to my Prime Minister, as he is, is to ensure that his mental health programme can work in conjunction with the Northern Ireland Assembly so that we can address mental health issues for our young people head-on. Again, there is a way of doing that, if we do it here at Westminster and ensure that the Northern Ireland Assembly are working alongside us in that partnership. I am very keen to ensure that happens. I also put in a plea for peace in the middle east to be an aim of the Government. I would gently highlight that calling for a ceasefire when hostages remain in unimaginably cruel captivity, and without ensuring that Hamas terrorists can never inflict that kind of savage damage again, must surely be premature. There is a solution, and it can be found; I know that is the desire of all our constituents, as well as our friends in Israel and on both sides of the Gaza strip. I believe that the Government must consider maintaining the previous Government’s procedural challenge to the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction in Israel and in the Palestinian Territories. It is important that the ICC retains its proper role within the law and exercises jurisdiction based on its own statutes and in accordance with the principle of complementarity. As long as I have been in Parliament, there has always been a plea from both sides of the Chamber for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be condemned and made illegal. Those pleas came from the Opposition side when the Labour party was in opposition. Now that Labour is in government, I hope those pleas will be answered. The IRGC is the world’s most powerful terrorist group, committed to the conversion or murder of Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and others it considers to be infidels, and for 40 years it has pursued its repugnant goals through violence on a global scale. It is time for it to be proscribed, and I ask for that to happen as soon as humanly possible. I am afraid I do not have time to go through all the things I wanted to speak to, but I will quickly mention the issue of conversion practices. I just say this gently. I think the Minister responsible has got it. There will be a consultation beforehand—there has to be—and there are many of us who have Christian faith and beliefs, and who wish to ensure that the beliefs to which we hold fast are considered fully when it comes to making any decisions. I also make a plea, as have the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) and others, for the WASPI women. As you probably know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I led a debate on the issue, and I believe the Government need to deliver for the WASPI women. I have some 5,500 of them in my constituency, and there are 76,000 in Northern Ireland. We have an obligation to everyone across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to deliver. This is a new Government, with new ways of doing things and new aims, but there are also new opportunities. I, for one, will do all I can, working alongside the Government, to achieve the aims of making this wonderful United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland a wonderful place to live, educate our children, work and thrive. I believe that all of us in this House can work together to see that goal realised and people’s lives made better as a result.

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

  More

  I commend my right hon. Friend and colleague for what he has said. When it comes to responsibility, the Republic of Ireland should be held accountable for the fact that it gives sanctuary to the IRA terrorists who murdered my cousin, in December 1971, and Lexie Cummings, and escaped across the border. There is something wrong with the Government in the Republic of Ireland in particular if they can give sanctuary to IRA murderers and killers—and they think they can get away with it.

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

  More

  I commend the hon. Gentleman for what he says about the armed forces. In Northern Ireland we have always had a large recruitment, both to the regular forces and to the territorials. Does he agree that when it comes to recruitment for Northern Ireland, extra money should be made available to ensure that those who want to join can do so?

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

  More

  May I commend the Prime Minister? There are many in this House, on both sides of the Chamber—not only in his party, but on the Opposition Benches—who welcome his election as Prime Minister and look forward to the delivery of some feel-good factor for all of this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Better together is what I always say. Perhaps even those in the Chamber who have different ideas think the same. In my provincial paper two weeks ago, it was recognised that Northern Ireland was very much part of the Prime Minister’s 10-year plan. Will he outline exactly what that plan will be for Northern Ireland? Can he ensure us that our position will never weaken and always get stronger?

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Prime Minister give way?

• 17 Jul 2024 · Health Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome the Minister’s clear commitment to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and particularly to Northern Ireland. Let me declare an interest: I am a member of the Ulster Farmers Union. I know that the Ulster Farmers Union back home, in conjunction with the NFU here, has been trying to work with the health service and with all those with responsibility in this area on the issue of suicides. Farmers mostly work on their own and suffer from anxiety and depression. They face pressures from finance and pressures from the bureaucracy that exists in farming. I know the Minister is compassionate and understanding—I mean that honestly. When it comes to addressing that issue, does she think that it must be done in conjunction with the farmers unions? Trying to work together to make things better must be a step in the right direction.

• 17 Jul 2024 · Health Services: Rural Areas · Hansard source

  More

  I want to keep the tradition alive, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is my first intervention during an Adjournment debate in the new Parliament. I commend the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for raising an issue that is very important to me and to my constituency. I also congratulate him on his excellent victory in the polls: he has done exceptionally well. I hail from a rural constituency where my own doctor has to service a huge number of people, and the inadequacy of help for rural constituents is abundantly clear to me. Does the hon. Member not agree that the current postcode lottery must end, and that access to GPs, physiotherapists, nutritionists and mental health services for farming and other rural communities must be at least on a par with those in cities and large towns? Why should those in rural communities be second-class citizens in their own country?