Speeches by Shannon.

“I certainly do and I commend the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I know that he has done lots of work with youth groups in his constituency. Sometimes we need to be at that level to try to change the mindset. All Members are probably focused on that as well. In Northern Ireland, we are seeing a substantial number…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry for his intervention. As always, he brings pertinent words of wisdom to the debate and I thank him for that. There is a worrying trend as well. I read an article about children—my goodness, it is hard to take this in—as young as four years old taking knives or shar…”

“Absolutely; I will be happy to.”

“It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey, and to give you the respect that you deserve for the position that you hold. May I say a big thank you to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for leading today’s debate on this very important issue? Knife crime is such a prevalent issue across the U…”

“I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. Representing a rural community, I, like him, understand how important this is. We are very blessed to have an air ambulance available for our communities in Strangford and Northern Ireland. It truly has been the difference between life and death for so many. Howeve…”

“I will leave that. Thanks very much. Again, apologies for being a wee bit late.”

“Do you want me to leave anything?”

“Thinking of one back home, it has no more than 40 pupils. The impact upon them is greater, simply because the school is small, but the overheads are incredible, and the VAT on top of that creates a problem.”

“I think probably Treasury, since it is to do with VAT. They are the people who make that decision. Again, we have a good consensus, with some 12 MPs in total from all the parties.”

“Again, I made copious inquiries across the Chamber. I am mindful about being fair to some of the Labour Members. You always tell me, Chair, to make sure that I get at least four Labour MPs to sign it, so I had to have a number of long conversations with them in relation to this. I did not want to put them in an embarra…”

“That is fine.”

“Well, she was the second one to sign, because I asked her, “Would it be okay to sign?” and she said yes. But if she wants to withdraw her name, I am happy with that; it doesn’t bother me personally. But I wished to give her that respect because her conversation with me was to ask for it.”

“Unless she has withdrawn her name—would this be Sorcha Eastwood?”

“Yes, they all did. I asked them all individually and personally, yes.”

“No, I understand that it will not. I did make inquiries, before I even approached the Committee, to see whether it was appropriate to do this, and it was indicated to me that it was. I think the fact that the chief constable has called for a public inquiry would indicate that. To me, if the top man in the PSNI back hom…”

“Are they going to speak?”

“I understand that. It is just to make sure that the Members of Parliament from Northern Ireland who always travel home on a Wednesday—”

“I think for this one it is the MoD. That is my understanding.”

“I was presuming it would be the MoD. Would that be right?”

“Chair, can I apologise? There was a Northern Ireland statement in the Chamber, and as always, I was called near the end. The first application is for a debate on justice for the families of the 1994 Chinook disaster. It is a well-known disaster in which the cream of intelligence experts from Northern Ireland were kille…”