Lord Bellingham
Main Page: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bellingham's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(4 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
John Penrose
That is precisely why we need to come up with these proposals as fast as we can. It is clear from both sides of the House that the time for action is now—well, it was probably several years ago actually—and that this situation cannot be allowed to persist. The hon. Lady’s example is only one of a spectrum of concerns, depending on which part of the community one talks to in Northern Ireland and who one talks to in the UK. However, that concern is absolutely valid and we cannot allow this situation to continue. We will come back to this as soon as it is decent to do so; and by “decent”, I mean when we have a chance of getting something that is practically going to work, rather than something that sounds good as a soundbite. We need to ensure that this thing works under legal challenge.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Is it not ironic that throughout the whole Brexit process we have been bending over backwards to treat Northern Ireland the same as the rest of the UK, and we are now about to treat Northern Ireland differently? I understand the sensitivities of the Good Friday agreement and the Stormont House agreement, but surely this can be sorted out with robust and strong leadership. I put it to the Minister that no other country in the world would treat their veterans in this way. He goes on about taking more time, and going through this and that. All this time, veterans—including in my constituency—are suffering.
John Penrose
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I certainly did not want to imply that we are countenancing being leisurely about this. This situation has been wrong for many years. The only reason for not announcing something tomorrow—or, indeed, today or yesterday—is simply that we need to ensure that we have put all the answers from the consultation out and in front of the House, so people have a chance to work through the details and ask, “All right, what does this mean in practice then?” We need to move as fast as we can, but it has to be as fast as we can in a way that is consistent with forging a consensus in Northern Ireland. We have to ensure that whatever answer we come up with sticks, survives and works for both sides of the community, otherwise it will come unravelled in the fullness of time and we will have failed to protect our veterans from the kind of problems that we have all heard about and that I think everyone here agrees are absolutely unacceptable.