Jim Shannon MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I thank the Leader of the House for all his answers to our questions and wish him well for the summer. I look forward to returning in September. Can we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary on the continuing discrimination faced by the Baha’i community in Egypt? The Egyptian authorities continue to refuse to recognise Baha’i marriages, leaving Baha’i children without legal status and denying them access to citizenship rights, residency and, in some cases, education. Will the Leader of the House make time for a statement so that the Government can set out the representations that they are making to the Egyptian authorities on upholding freedom of religious belief and the fundamental rights of the Baha’i community?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Estate Regeneration · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) for highlighting this issue. Many of us can be guilty of forgetting that a house is not just a unit on a spreadsheet, but the anchor of a family’s life. I see it that way, as do others, including the hon. Gentleman. Our historical, post-war social housing estates across Northern Ireland possess an incredible and undeniable community spirit, but are too often choked by generational underinvestment, outdated design and structural neglect. As always, I will give the Northern Ireland perspective on this topic to support the hon. Gentleman in his challenge and focus, and in what he wants to achieve, as it is what I want as well. It is nice to see the Minister in her place again—she is becoming a regular in Westminster Hall. I look forward to hearing her contribution. I stand here to speak up for the thousands of families living in social housing across my constituency. Those estates were built decades ago, and although they were built with the best of intentions, time, by its very nature, has taken its toll. We are dealing with ageing housing stock that suffers from chronic dampness, poor insulation and completely outdated heating systems. In an era where energy prices remain painfully high, it is a tragedy that our lowest-income families are living in the hardest-to-heat homes and are forced to choose between heating their homes—or even just their front rooms—and feeding their children. Considered estate regeneration is about so much more than putting a new lick of paint on a building, replacing a roof or putting in insulation; it is about having a holistic blueprint for community renewal. I thank the hon. Member for Basingstoke for highlighting the community aspect, because I want to focus on the community drive as well. It means looking at the layout of our estates to eradicate the poorly lit alleys that breed antisocial behaviour. It also means investing in community infrastructure: the playgrounds where our children can play safely; the community hubs where our elderly residents can find a reprieve from chronic loneliness; and the green spaces that support mental wellbeing and social interaction. True regeneration must be considered, meaning that it must be done with the community, not to the community. As the hon. Gentleman outlined incredibly well, our local communities must be the co-architects of their own future. We must empower local tenant associations and community groups to lead the design process. If they are drawn into that project and focus, it will make a community and a family atmosphere, and it will bring people together. That is what I would love to see. To know how to fix a troubled estate—I say this respectfully—just ask the grandmother who has lived on that street for 40 years. She knows exactly where the problems are and exactly what the neighbourhood needs to thrive. Her love for that estate—the place she stayed in for 40 years of her life—should focus us all in the future. Although housing policy and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive are devolved matters managed by the Minister for Communities in Stormont, the fiscal reality is that our devolved Administration cannot deliver the scale of transformation needed on their own. That is why the Barnett consequential and what the Government give the Northern Ireland Assembly to dish out are so important. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive faces a multi-billion-pound maintenance and investment deficit over the next decade, just to bring its current stock up to a decent standard. That is why we need a joined-up, UK-wide approach to funding capital infrastructure. The UK levelling-up and building frameworks must ensure that Northern Ireland receives a fair, proportionate share of macro investment specifically earmarked for social housing regeneration. This subject means a lot to me. Back in 1985, when I was first elected to a council, the social, bread-and-butter issues were about housing; it is still one of the biggest issues that my constituency office receives in the mailbag every week. Today’s debate means a lot to me. I congratulate the hon. Member for Basingstoke on securing it and look forward to hearing what the Minister can do to encourage him and us.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Estate Regeneration · Hansard source

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  You’re playing catch-up!

• 15 Jul 2026 · Waste Management Sites · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Countryside Alliance. The Countryside Alliance is, of course, a country sports organisation, but it is a very credible and influential organisation that highlights things such as rural crime and waste sites as well. Does he recognise that it has an important role to play in the countryside and that should be commended for doing so?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Waste Management Sites · Hansard source

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  It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. We owe a big thank you to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) for setting the scene and addressing a matter that has been an overwhelming source of anxiety and frustration for my constituents—the physical, environmental and social effects of waste management sites on our local communities. I welcome the Minister to her place. We are very fortunate to have her here, and I am sure that she will have all the answers that we seek. I hope she will give us some encouragement. I wish to give a Northern Ireland perspective. Northern Ireland is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I would like her help, and my request to her would be to enter discussions with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland, Andrew Muir at the Northern Ireland Assembly, to ensure that we can work together on such things. In this House, in debates on waste management strategy, we often get bogged down in talking about percentages, targets and EU-aligned frameworks. I will bring something from ground level to this Chamber, however, from the Ards and North Down borough council, in my beautiful constituency of Strangford. Let it be known that the people of Ards and North Down are not against recycling. For example, recycling rates of nearly 56% have been reached through the commitment of nearly every house—indeed, of every house—in Ards and North Down. Households separate their glass, they compost and they wash their plastics, but there is a tipping point, and that is what we are talking about today. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood has brought forward the question of what happens when, literally and metaphorically, the burden placed on local communities by waste management sites becomes entirely unsustainable. The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has submitted clearly that Northern Ireland simply does not have enough waste infrastructure to handle what we throw away. I know that the Minister is always amenable to my requests, and everyone’s, but will she have some discussion with the relevant Minister to see how the actions, methods, experience and knowledge gained here can be used for us back home? Whether this is a waste transfer station, a commercial heavy-recycling depot or a landfill site boundary straight up against residential lines, the community pays the price. My concern is that areas such as ours, Comber and parts of the Ards peninsula are dealing with the harsh reality of those limits every day: excessive heavy goods, with vehicle traffic pounding down narrow rural roads that were never built to handle 30-tonne waste trucks; persistent issues with odour; airborne litter; and the psychological strain of living next to the expanding footprint of regional refuse. The Arc21 waste management plan has faced years of delay in delivering modern infrastructure. Local sites have been pushed to their absolute limits to manage the waste. Many of our local facilities are hydrologically linked to the uniquely sensitive ecosystem of Strangford lough; I live on the edge of that, so I understand what it means: an immediate ecological threat to a globally recognised marine conservation zone. In an effort to curb waste tourism and management costs, the council has had to introduce rigid online booking systems. It has taken many steps to try to address the issue, including residency identity checks at our nine household recycling centres. When councils make local centres too complicated to use and restrict their hours, it becomes a knock-on crisis, resulting in fly-tipping in the rural countryside and agricultural fields with farmers left holding the bill. Environmental protection and planning policy is devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive, so we need a planning framework that respects the proximity principle—the very thing that the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood mentioned. What discussions will the Minister have with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland to help local councils like Ards and North Down when it comes to moving towards hyper-local, lower-carbon circular economies that do not require massive, sprawling, intrusive regional depots. If we can work hand in hand, we can find a solution that perhaps helps us all.

• 15 Jul 2026 · National Energy System Operator: Blackout Risk · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister, as always, for his answers and for his solution-based responses. My constituents watch developments with absolute dread, when every day families and vulnerable pensioners face skyrocketing bills. The very least they deserve is the truth about whether the lights will stay on this summer. The Minister will know that that NESO recently signed a major partnership with the system operator for Northern Ireland to deeply integrate our grids and balance system resilience, so a crisis of integrity at the top of NESO is a crisis for the whole United Kingdom network. Can the Minister guarantee that the allegations will not undermine energy security or grid stability in Northern Ireland?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Regional Accents and Social Mobility · Hansard source

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  It certainly is. I appreciate that intervention from my hon. Friend and colleague. The Hansard staff do a heroic job. They are always happy to write down the names of my local farmers, community groups and townlands such as Ballywalter—which we know as Whitkirk—or Kircubbin. Last week, I got a wee message, “Could you spell your sons’ names, please?” That perfectly illustrates the point of this debate, and the centre and core of what the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton had to say. If a Member of Parliament, with more than two decades of public service, still faces hurdles to be understood because of his or her regional tongue, what hope does a 21-year-old graduate from a working-class Ulster-Scots background have when trying to navigate an interview panel of elites? How challenging and hard could that be? One of my favourite stories dates back to when my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and I served on the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is again about the accent being hard to understand. I had an American guest for a meal in the dining room there. The lady, an English professor at a prestigious American university, was really interested in Ulster Scots words and accent. We were served by a young boy I knew and had probably grown up with in Ballywalter—or Whitkirk. I chatted with him and asked after his mum and dad, as you do in small talk. That lovely, intelligent lady from Philadelphia leaned over to Naomi, my private secretary, and said, “That’s wonderful. Jim is speaking in Ulster Scots.” Naomi replied, “No, he always speaks like that.” Again, that is an illustration of this. It was not really Ulster Scots; it was the way I talked. That is how we speak, and although that story may be humorous in a way, it highlights the issues that an accent can bring. I will come back to the seriousness of this issue and why it is important. When someone constantly has to repeat themselves, is met with blank stares—nobody is ignoring them; sometimes they just do not follow—or is asked, “Could you maybe say that again?” or “Speak more clearly, if possible,” it chips away at their confidence. The hon. Members for Leigh and Atherton and for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) both referred to that; it is a key issue. That breeds a form of imposter syndrome that tells our young people that they do not belong in high-flying professions, and it pushes them out of the rooms where decisions are made, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South said. Linguistic diversity is the ultimate sign of a rich and vibrant democracy. We should be celebrating the fact that the United Kingdom is a tapestry of different voices, dialects and accents. That enriches us all, and there are some people in this room—I am thinking of one in particular, and he knows who he is—whose accents I love listening to. I just love it when some other MPs, such as the Plaid Cymru Members, speak. Their voices and their words are almost like singing in the way they come over. There are also the Scotsmen. Angus MacNeil—I can use his name, because he is no longer a Member—was speaking one day in the Chamber, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry said to me, “Do you understand him?” I said, “I understand every word he said,” and he said, “I suppose you probably would.” Angus speaks fast; his words were at a rate similar to my own. That example underlines the issue. What do we need? We need employers, universities and civil services to actively train interviewers to look past the phonetic wrapper and focus purely on the substance of what has been said. I will conclude with an Ulster Scots phrase for Members to work out—it will be a challenge, of course. Keep ‘er lit!

• 15 Jul 2026 · Regional Accents and Social Mobility · Hansard source

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  Thank you very much, Sir Roger, for giving me the chance to participate. I thank the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt), my cousin from across the sea—or across the shuck, as we would say back in Northern Ireland—for highlighting this issue. It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate. When I first came here, there was a time in our friendship, Sir Roger—I have learned to value your advice on many things—when you would have said, “What’s that boy saying?” You never said it to offend, of course, but you might have asked yourself that question. When we talk about diversity, inclusion and breaking down barriers to social mobility in the country, we rightly talk about race, gender, background and socioeconomic status. But, as the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton said, there is a silent, pervasive form of prejudice that remains entirely socially acceptable in corporate boardrooms, academic institutions and possibly the very corridors of power in this place. I am talking about accentism. I have a very clear accent. I think it is normal, but when I came over here I realised that I might be the only one with it. People’s intelligence, competence and worth can be judged entirely on how they sound. I will give an example. I was saying to the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) that when I asked a question in the Adjournment debate one night, the Minister said, “That’s a great question. I’ll come back to you with the answer.” I just thought that was what she meant; I never had any reason to think otherwise. She happened to meet one of my colleagues, David Simpson, who used to be an MP, and she said, “Jim asked me a question in the Chamber the other night. I have no idea what he said, so I just told him that I would come back to him with a written response.” That illustrates that, in the early days, it took a wee bit longer for people to understand. I stand here today as a proud son of County Down, and I speak with the voice of my constituency. All my constituents can understand it—I suppose that is the important thing. It is a voice heavily shaped by our rich Ulster Scots linguistic heritage. To me and the people of Strangford and Northern Ireland, it is the language of our hearts, our history and our homes. It is a dialect full of warmth, character and deep-rooted culture. But if we step outside Northern Ireland, that same voice is too often treated as a barrier. I speak not for me but for some of my constituents who have come here for university or to seek employment. Studies into accent bias, such as the landmark “Speaking Up” report by the Sutton Trust, have shown that regional working-class accents, including those from Northern Ireland, are consistently ranked lower for prestige and perceived professional capability than received pronunciation or standard BBC English. I remember, at school as a young boy, my earliest words were in Ulster Scots. Education was different at that time. Whenever a child said something wrong, the teacher, Mr Whisker, would say, “That’s not proper English.” I would say, “Those are the words my granny and mum use.” In those days, a child would get a clip round the ear for that. That is not a criticism; it did not do me any harm. Teaching was done in a different way. Young people from my constituency, who travel across the water and study at top universities or apply for corporate roles in London, are routinely told—sometimes subtly, sometimes brutally—that they need to soften their accents if they want to be taken seriously. That it is a damning indictment of our social mobility framework. Why should a young person have to trade away their identity just to get a foot on the career ladder? We speak pretty fast in Northern Ireland, and the speed of words may be part of the problem. Kate Hoey, the former Member for Vauxhall, said, “Jim Shannon gets more words to the minute than any other MP.” In all honesty, she told me that and I took it as a compliment, which I am sure it was. The fact is we do talk a wee bit fast. The House will know I am not a man who is shy about speaking up for his constituents. I mention Strangford almost as many times as the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) mentions Harlow. I make it a point of principle to participate in as many debates, urgent questions and statements as I humanly can. I have lost count of the number of times the brilliant and hard-working staff from Hansard have had to chase me—down the corridor sometimes—saying, “Mr Shannon, have you got a wee minute, please? Could you send me your notes? Who was that person you mentioned? Where was that place? Will you spell it, please?” They do it for urgent clarification of names, towns or specific phrases I have used in a debate. I say that with the utmost fondness and kindness to the Hansard staff, who are incredibly understanding. I respect all of them for doing a heroic job. I know they go the extra mile for me to ensure that everything is correct.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Regional Accents and Social Mobility · Hansard source

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  I love the hon. Gentleman’s accent. It portrays the person he is: the history, the culture, and the locality he comes from. Every word that the hon. Gentleman speaks is a word from his constituency and from his people. I like him as a person, by the way, but I just wanted to say that I love his accent as well.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Regional Accents and Social Mobility · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady referred to her aunt’s father, who was almost 90 years old, and that reminds me of my own dad, who is dead and gone. He was a very proud Donegal man, and one of the wee poems or verses that he taught me when I was small was this: “Where ye fa? Donegal. How’s your purties? Great or small. How do you eat them? Skins an a.” Those wee verses will be lost forever if they are not retained and written down. It is important to retain some of those wee stories from days past, as well as the fact that potatoes was what it was all about. Potatoes in Donegal—that is what they lived on, for their dinner and their tea. That is just a wee step back in time.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  First, may I welcome the Minister to his place, as this is the first opportunity I have had to do so? I also thank him for the contribution he made in his former life, and the expertise and experience he brings to this Chamber. I very much welcome the Government’s proscription of the IRGC. Indeed, if I had it my way, I would eliminate the IRGC in its totality so that it would not be a problem for anybody else in this world, but that is not something that the Government can do by themselves. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will go further and seize all the IRGC’s assets in this country, including its buildings, banks and accounts, and can he confirm that the IRGC will be held accountable for its actions—for the people it has murdered, the children it has killed, and the women that have been raped and violated? Are the Government collecting the evidence necessary to ensure that those people who are responsible will be accountable for their actions in this world? I know that they will be accountable in the next world, because they will be in hell burning, but before that arrives for them, I would like to see them held accountable in this world.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Peak Cluster Pipeline and Project · Hansard source

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  I fully support the right hon. Lady’s efforts on behalf of her constituents. I have an understanding of the issues. Does she agree that any final approval for the Peak Cluster project must include cast-iron, legally binding guarantees to protect landowners’ rights, and that local environmental objections and community safety fears must be genuinely addressed rather than bypassed by central Government?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Northern Ireland Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  It is no wonder that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) had to go all the way to Northern Ireland to get an Ulster girl to marry. That tells you what Ulster women are like. They are the best.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Northern Ireland Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way on that point?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Northern Ireland Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making a very good and clear speech. He referred to parts of Europe whose Governments are considering a VAT reduction because they recognise the importance of the hospitality sector. Are the Government considering that? If there is an evidential base for it, perhaps they and the Minister will at least consider it at some stage to see what can be used to our advantage.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Northern Ireland Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. Gentleman, who is a friend and colleague, for securing this vital debate. I rise to support the UK-wide #VATsTheProblem campaign, alongside our local champions at Hospitality Ulster. The hospitality sector in Northern Ireland is an industry trapped in an impossible competitive vice. This month, the Republic of Ireland dropped its VAT on food and café catering to 9%, meaning that our border communities face a 120% tax disparity compared with neighbours just a short drive away. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are asking only for a fair fighting chance for our hospitality sector?

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

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  I am in a state of shock; I had to fiddle through my papers to get my notes. Thank you, Sir Alec, for calling me to speak. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for setting the scene. He is right about the deprivation of coastal communities everywhere in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I will obviously speak about my constituency. I know it is not the Minister’s responsibility, but she is always very responsive and helpful. When we discuss social isolation and deprivation in this House, the mind naturally wanders to stark images of inner-city decay or urban high-rises. I want to take us to a different kind of hardship, referred to by the hon. Gentleman, that is wrapped in beautiful scenery but is no less cruel to those who live through it. I am talking, of course, about the Ards Peninsula in my beautiful constituency of Strangford. It is a place of incredible community spirit, from Portaferry to Donaghadee, right down to the village of Ballywalter where I was brought up from 1959. We have people who look out for one another, a real definition of a community at work. Scrape beneath the surface, however, and stats from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency tell a troubling story. According to the Northern Ireland multiple deprivation measure, the Ards Peninsula suffers under one notable category: the geographic access to services domain. Villages like Portavogie, Kircubbin, Ballyhalbert, Ballywalter, Carrowdore, Cloughey and Portaferry—all the way down—are ranked among the worst in the province. What does that mean in reality? It means that anyone without a car is trapped. We have an ageing population in Ards and North Down, with around 20% aged 65 or over. Regional data shows that nearly a quarter of those older folks live in social isolation. The local bus service is infrequent and 11 local bank branches have closed down in my constituency in the past few years. I suspect the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) has had a similar experience. The nearest GP’s surgery requires a complex, multi-stage journey. Elderly people are being cut off from the world, suffering in silence from chronic long-term loneliness. Looking at the other side, the cost of car insurance for young people is astronomic, among the highest in the United Kingdom, so they cannot afford to drive. They might get a wee car worth maybe £500 or £600, but the insurance will cost £3,500.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

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  I do not expect an answer today, but I did ask about Northern Ireland. I know it is not the Minister’s responsibility, but would she please do me the favour of discussing with the relevant Minister there how we can be better helped in Northern Ireland?

• 14 Jul 2026 · Coastal Communities: Isolation and Hidden Deprivation · Hansard source

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  I thank my friend and colleague, whose intervention is now on the record. He is right to focus on that. I hope the Minister will be able to answer. What happens in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency happens in mine. Pockets of the peninsula face employment and income deprivation due to the seasonal nature of the economy. The stigma of poverty and mental health often keeps people from reaching out for help. We have high levels of mental health issues. While healthcare and transport are rightly devolved matters, handled by the Assembly in Stormont, I believe there is an opportunity for the Minister to hold discussions with the relevant Minister at the Assembly. The stats are a warning sign that we are facing a postcode lottery of the highest order. We need targeted infrastructure funding, robust support for rural community transport schemes, as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East referred to, and digital connectivity to ensure that no rural pensioner or struggling family is left behind. I welcome some of the schemes introduced by the Ards and North Down borough council, but economies of scale dictate that they cannot reach rural businesses as they should. Councils are limited to their funding pot, which is why I look to the Minister to have discussions with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland. When it comes to the block grant, maybe this money could be ringfenced to help. I am conscious of time and those who want to speak, so I will conclude with this. I urge the Minister to work with the devolved Administration to look closely at the hidden pockets of rural deprivation. Let us show the people of the Ards peninsula—they are my constituents; it is where I live—that although they live at the geographic edge of our nation, they are at the centre of our concerns. They are always at the centre of my concerns as their MP, but they should also be at the centre of the concerns of this House. Respectfully, Minister, let us invest in these worthy communities.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Support for Pig Farmers · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right to outline the exports from the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland, we export almost 80% of our product, so it is even more critical for us.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Support for Pig Farmers · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship again, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) for setting the scene incredibly well. It is a pleasure to champion a sector that is not only vital to my constituency, but a cornerstone of the entire economy of Northern Ireland: our fantastic, resilient yet deeply struggling pig industry. When we talk about agriculture in Northern Ireland, we are talking about the lifeblood of our rural communities. There are some 27,000 family farms across the province and our intensive sectors, particularly pork and poultry, punch vastly above their weight. Northern Ireland holds the highest density of pigs and poultry anywhere in the United Kingdom, and for a nation of some 1.9 million, we produce more chickens and pigs than Scotland and Wales combined—that is not to boast, but it is a fact of life and a statistic I want to put on record. We feed millions of people across the United Kingdom and the globe with world-class, top-quality, traceable pork products. As I stand here today, however our independent pig farmers are facing an existential crisis.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Support for Pig Farmers · Hansard source

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  I certainly do. That is one of the things that the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan and others have asked for, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. Sadly, pig farming cannot simply be switched on and off like a tap. It requires immense long-term investment, precision and dedication, but it has been squeezed to the absolute limit. Our farmers have battled skyrocketing input costs: feed, energy and fertiliser prices have gone through the roof. I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union, which has been forced to hold emergency meetings with major processors such as Sofina Foods at its Cookstown site, because of severe contract reductions and reductions in weekly slaughter volumes. Our independent family farms are being left adrift in a sea of commercial uncertainty and Ulster Farmers Union has had to take those concerns directly to major retailers. I ask the Minister in his speech to take up the issue of cost, and specifically what farmers are getting for their products and what Tesco—I name it—and other large supermarket chains are getting. The supply chain is simply broken, and we need intervention. The Northern Ireland Executive have to deal with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs back home, but macroeconomic stability, supply chain legislation and national food security are firmly the responsibility of this Government. Our family farms need protection from immediate financial ruin and the Government must engage with the major supermarket giants to ensure that they are paying fair and reasonable prices. If we do not support our pig farmers right now, we will see generational family businesses shut their gates forever. Let us remember this one thing: if there are no farmers, there is no food.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Extreme Heat: Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak, Sir Christopher; it is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship. Let me say a big thank you to the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) for highlighting this issue. Whether people like it or not, it has to be addressed. It is a key issue for many people. The temperature rises across the United Kingdom cannot be ignored either, and they set a trend. The experts tell us that we have to be prepared for that. When we think of heat planning, we must think in bigger terms than—I am not being facetious, by the way—having enough ice lollies in the freezer. It is about the pressure of running the freezer, and about the additional fans and cooling systems, which are running in a nation that is better equipped to store heat and not let it escape, which suits us 90% of the time. There are also some practical things we have to address. I want to talk about two things, health and agriculture. I believe we must also highlight a blind spot in our national resilience planning: the unique, devastating vulnerability of rural, coastal and agricultural communities to heat stress events. I want to ground this debate in my own beautiful constituency of Strangford, which stretches across the Ards peninsula and mirrors many coastal communities across the United Kingdom. In the Ards and North Down area, roughly 20% of our population is aged 65 or older, so, from a health point of view, thousands of those elderly constituents live in older traditional stone or poorly ventilated rural properties, which act as little storage heaters during a heatwave. In my office in Ards, when it is warm in the summer, it is like a sauna bath, and when it is cold in the winter, it is like a freezer. That is the nature of the building; the walls are about a foot and a half thick, and they were built for a purpose—to hold the roof up—but they were never built for ventilation or for heat. We have those buildings across the Ards peninsula, where I live. An isolated pensioner living in a village in the Ards peninsula cannot just pop out to an air-conditioned shopping centre or a cold public building, so there is a personal health concern as well. Furthermore, our agricultural sector, the very backbone of the Strangford economy, faces unprecedented strain. Vegetable and crop farmers are already grappling with intense summer droughts and skyrocketing water demands to keep yields alive. Our livestock are also highly susceptible to heat stress, threatening food security and farmers’ livelihoods alike. Our critical infrastructure is, I believe, also hanging by a thread. Just last month, I tabled a parliamentary question on the resilience of our electricity grid during extreme weather. When a heatwave strikes, transformers overheat and water treatment facilities face immense pressure. In a rural area such as Strangford, if a water pump or power line fails because of extreme heat, entire communities are left vulnerable and cut off from basic utilities. The impact is on not just one but multiple households. Although environmental adaptation is heavily devolved, the strategic funding and macro-infrastructure backing must be an all-of-the-United-Kingdom effort. We cannot treat heatwaves as an occasional summer novelty. I love heat, but I am not sure that I like 40°C; I can probably just about take 30°C. We had our Twelfth of July parade yesterday, and it was a lovely sunny day and I really enjoyed it; it is nice to have that heat now and again, but maybe not at the constant level that we now have. I ask the Minister what cross-departmental work has been done with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the UK Health Security Agency’s heat-health alerts and emergency response playbooks are seamlessly integrated into rural healthcare networks. We have the system in place and we need to make sure that healthcare centres—whether that means GPs, clinics or hospitals—and health workers and carers are all integrated and working better together. It is my belief that we need specific capital funding to be made available to modernise rural electricity grids, so that they do not buckle under the twin pressures of winter storms and summer heatwaves, and to support our agrifood sector in transitioning to heat-resilient farming practices. Of course, those improvements all take planning and funding, but if the Government truly believe in the environmental concerns that are seeing green taxes levied on those who can least afford them, that funding must come to these industries at the same time. In conclusion—ever mindful of your timescale of about five minutes each, Sir Christopher—we must act now to ensure that national heatwave preparedness protects every citizen, whether they live in the heart of London or in my constituency on the shores of Strangford lough, and to ensure that our farmers and our agrifood industry are prepared to deal with any continued periods of heat. If that is what is to be expected in the future—the Government tell us that that is the way things are going—we have to be able to respond to that, and I gently say that we need to be more prepared. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I know that the Minister is always very keen to ensure that the regional Administrations and Westminster work together. My hope is that that will be exactly what we do.

• 14 Jul 2026 · UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister very much for his statement. There are strong commitments to all of the United Kingdom. In particular, I welcome the focus on—and, indeed, the bonus for—the high-tech industries in Northern Ireland, which will enable our businesses to grow even more. Does the Minister agree that this is an excellent example of the benefit of being an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? As I often say in this House, we are always better together, and here is the proof.