Speeches by Swann.

“Will the Minister give way?”

“As far back as 2019 there was talk of manufacturing and logistics hubs for the Heathrow hub being sited in Northern Ireland. Can the Secretary of State still give a reassurance that the whole of the UK will be considered in support of the manufacture of the third runway, should it go ahead? Will sites be considered in …”

“Chinese officials recently briefed Stormont’s Finance Minister on the status of a local company in his constituency owned by the Chinese state. Information on that briefing, released under the Freedom of Information Act by the Department of Finance, withheld details, citing freedom of information laws that protect conf…”

“It is an hour and a half—it is. If you go to the Northern Ireland Assembly and have a look around the Chamber, there are two large clocks, which tell you how long you have been speaking for and how long you have left. Those are there to keep Members on track. The Speaker will intervene at four minutes and 45 seconds to…”

“That’s all right.”

“A call list would not help that; if the Chamber becomes so fluid that you get the same prepared points time after time because nobody knows what even their party colleagues said three speeches prior because they were not there, there also comes the problem that you start speaking in a debate into an empty Chamber.”

“From my point of view, that engagement with the Chair is crucial. It is actually quite transparent and open. Our Speaker and Deputy Speakers are more than helpful in giving an indication of how long they think somebody is going to be speaking for and when we will get the opportunity to come in. Picking up on Ellie’s po…”

“Unless a ministerial statement comes in out of left field, but because of our structures in the Northern Ireland Assembly, that very rarely happens. Urgent questions will come in, but they are timebound for half an hour; there are not the extended timings that we sometimes see here. You know that if an urgent question …”

“They do. In the Northern Ireland Assembly it is a bit clearer than the Order Paper here. It is very much set out that, for example, there will be a debate between 2.30 pm and 3.30 pm, but it can still change should a Minister want to make a statement, for example.”

“Looking at the speaking lists and the way the Northern Ireland Assembly works, it is done by D’Hondt. It depends on party size: it is biggest party, then second party, and you could get a number of speakers from those two parties before you move to the smaller parties at the end. The difference with the Northern Irelan…”

“Politeness and courtesy in the Chamber do not need codification. We are moving far away from who we are and what we are actually meant to be doing, if it is going to be brought in that we have to codify how we speak and when we speak. If the additional onus on speaking lists is codification of how you speak, when you s…”

“It is maybe just us who notice that.”

“I think I have already articulated some of my concerns. Has the Chamber just become somewhere so managed that the spirit of debate gets completely lost? One other thing that has not been touched on is indicative timings. You can look at the Order Paper in the morning and the debate might look as if it is going to last …”

“I am Robin Swann MP, Ulster Unionist MP for South Antrim and leader of the Ulster Unionist party delegation. There is only me.”

“I come from the other end. I would be opposed to introducing a call list because it would manufacture an expectation of when people will speak, and it would move the Chamber away from being a debating chamber and towards being a public speaking chamber. It is common that, as smaller parties, we are always at the end of…”

“I suppose, as a Northern Ireland MP who can get here only by plane, the times that the Chamber is now sitting—half 2 to 10 pm on a Monday, and so forth—actually manages that and manages the expectation on when you are meant to be here, rather than having debates running into the middle of the morning or early night. Th…”

“I think there is an opportunity to look at fixed time slots in regard to speaking rights. I no longer prepare six-minute speeches; I prepare a three-minute speech, because I know where I am coming.”

“I agree with Claire about some of the speeches that you have to sit through and try to see the relevance of, either to the topic or to where we are trying to get. That is the challenge for us—sitting and waiting to the end. I think something could be done earlier in regard to speaking times, but I would not be in favou…”

“May I welcome the Minister to his place as well? Will he ensure that there is that co-working across the Northern Ireland Executive and the Ministry of Defence with regard to the Executive’s investment strategy, which is also integral to the defence industrial strategy, and that the NIE will work to remove any blockage…”

“I congratulate the Prime Minister on getting us to this point. The Labour Government’s role in decommissioning in Northern Ireland is not as complete as portrayed. In a memo of 17 January 2003, an adviser to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said: “The IRA will never be able to account for all their weapons or retri…”