Casement Park: Spending Review

Baroness Suttie Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will be aware that the Arts Council has pulled funding from the festival. The Government believe in the power of sport to bring people together and our focus is on supporting activities that unite communities across Northern Ireland, not those that divide it. On the glorification of terrorism, prosecutions are obviously an operational matter for the PSNI, but let us be very clear: community events should be about uniting the community, and we need to make sure that is the case.

Yesterday I had the genuine privilege of spending some time with footballers from a youth leadership programme called Beyond the Ball, which is supported by the Rio Ferdinand Foundation. These footballers are from the Republic and from Northern Ireland, yet they came over here to play football together against young people from Camberwell. I think they were surprised at the somewhat challenging community tensions that can exist between Arsenal and Spurs, both of which they visited yesterday, so this can happen across the piece. While I am talking about football, I just want to say good luck to the Lionesses on Sunday.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches I add our thoughts and condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured in the shootings this morning in Fermanagh. As the Minister said, sport can play a very positive role in building community cohesion and bringing communities together. In this regard, does the Minister agree with me that the Belfast Giants ice hockey team have given a positive example of bringing people together from all communities in Northern Ireland?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, my officials told me to say, “Let’s go, Giants”, so for them, at the end of term, I say, “Let’s go, Giants”. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. My good friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when he met his hero Pat Jennings on Thursday, said:

“Sport has this extraordinary capacity to bring people together to give joy and to unite people and it can’t be something that divides us”.


Belfast Giants have gone out of their way to make sure that they are cross-community and work genuinely for sport, through sport. That is exactly what we should deliver, not just in Northern Ireland but across the country.