Speeches by Kane.

“I am not quite the greyhound at the bit there with the juices.”

“I will be coming to Minister McDougall in a second about this, but, in terms of what evidence there is that UK Government Departments are prioritising economic development in Northern Ireland, are they champing at the bit, to continue the metaphor?”

“No new tablets of stone.”

“Thank you for that very impressive answer. In a previous life, you worked to a certain extent with the Member for Makerfield, and even more closely with his potential chief of staff. How do you think policy might change if we see a change of leadership in that direction?”

“I will come to that in just a second.”

“Minister Patrick, the NIO, in its annual report for 2024-25, said that it would be publishing an economic strategy. Do you know when that is? If you do not, fair enough, but are there any titbits that you could give us about what will be in that to get our salivary juices flowing?”

“Minister McDougall, there is no one in the room more expert than you in devolved Administrations, as somebody who kept the union together in 2014 as leader of the Better Together campaign for the nation—and we are grateful to you for that—before you were in this place. Do you think it works as well as it could do in te…”

“To clarify, in any organisation where I have been chief exec or that I have managed or chaired, in either the public or the private sector, there is always a budget against or an actual against budget. Do we not know what the first quarter is for the Executive?”

“To clarify, in any organisation where I have been chief exec or that I have managed or chaired, in either the public or the private sector, there is always a budget against or an actual against budget. Do we not know what the first quarter is for the Executive?”

“Sir Robert, can you go through that again? Where are we up to now with financial overspends by the Executive this financial year?”

“Sir Robert, can you go through that again? Where are we up to now with financial overspends by the Executive this financial year?”

“12. What progress his Department has made on ensuring that incidental findings from the lung cancer screening programme are followed up.”

“Mr Speaker, if there is a five-a-side doctor in the House, I would be most grateful. Following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is one of the big killers in my constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale East. Chiesi, a company based in my…”

“It’s the football, Mr Speaker—it’s Tuesday. Sorry.”

“Question No. 12 please.”

“My question is about the world as it is, and the world as it should be in the future. Thirty years after the peace agreement and 40 years after the Berlin wall fell, we still have barriers. We have walls in Portadown, Lurgan, Derry and, mainly in Belfast, we still have segregated housing. When will the walls go—in five…”

“Churchill famously said, “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.””

“We have heard it before.”

“While I have the John and Pat Hume Foundation here, let me pick up my particular hobby horse, if that is all right. When organising a dinner for my Member of Parliament in the mid-1980s—my goodness me—the guest of honour, who I spent the evening with, was a certain John Hume. He was talking about a peace process, which…”

“Does the foundation pursue that goal?”