I think that this is probably the first time that I have served under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain; it is an absolute honour to do so. I pay tribute to my co-sponsor, the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for her excellent opening speech and for setting out so eloquently the contribution of the Irish community in her community and in the wider United Kingdom. She is such an advocate for the Irish community in the UK.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate on 14 March, the closest we could get to St Patrick’s day. When we applied to the Backbench Business Committee, we said that we were keen to have the debate as close to St Patrick’s day as possible. That has meant that we could not be in the Chamber, for obvious reasons—it is estimates day—but we have a full three-hour debate, and we have the chance to talk, as close to St Patrick’s day as possible, about our views and our love for the Irish diaspora and all things Irish in our communities.
I confess that I fail the family test, because I am a Mancunian Howarth. The Howarths do not seem to have a great deal of Irish heritage in us; we tend to just be from Manchester. I can pick out lots of bits of Manchester that I have heritage from, but I cannot pick out anywhere in Ireland. I can claim a marriage link, however, because the Bradleys, who I married into, were originally the Bradleys of County Tyrone. I am proud that my children have that Irish link, even though I do not, and that they can proudly say they have Irish heritage. Irish heritage matters: people value being able to identify with Ireland and the Irish community. My mother told me that when she was growing up in Manchester, the Irish community played an important role in Gorton, where she lived. Her father worked in construction, and he knew many Irish colleagues.
The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles mentioned the football clubs. I confess that I support the team that has had fewer Irish players in its history, City, but United has always had a significant number of Irish players and a very big Irish support contingent. Getting a plane from Dublin or Belfast to Manchester on the day of a United match is nigh-on impossible.
My links to Ireland were really cemented when I was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—SoSNI, as they say in the Northern Ireland Office. I will not pretend that it was not a shock. The late, great James Brokenshire had been doing the role, and he had done a really excellent job. I do not think it is possible to find anyone who would ever say that James Brokenshire ever did anything that was not utterly brilliant, and he was brilliant at that job, but he had just been diagnosed with lung cancer, and for his health and his family’s sake he needed to step away from the role.
At that point, I was Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I walked into the Department in the morning planning what we were going to do for the rest of the year. It was the first day back—it was actually James’s 50th birthday, so I had been wishing him a happy birthday, and then the news came through that he was resigning and we did not know why. It suddenly dawned on me that someone was going to have to go to Northern Ireland. It never occurred to me that I would be given that role, but the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), invited me into the Cabinet room and—because I had been a Whip and, more importantly, had served with her in the Home Office and understood the sensitivities around the security issues—asked me if I would take on the role. It was a shock to the system, but I have to say that it was the greatest honour.
Serving in the Northern Ireland Office, as the Minister knows, is truly one of the greatest honours that one can have in this place, because of the warmth of welcome and the depth of hope and expectation that are put on the politician. There are very few roles that have that as much as Secretary of State or Minister of State for Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a place where politics genuinely changed lives. There are very few places where politics and politicians managed to do something as incredible as the Belfast/Good Friday agreement 26 years ago, which got the weapons laid down and ended the violence.
We all agree that there are still many problems, and some people who have never accepted the peaceful solution to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, but the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, Ireland and the United Kingdom accepted that that political settlement and the compromises involved in it were worth making because of the change that could happen. The two architects—the late Lord Trimble and John Hume—should be admired for their ability to put aside sectarian differences, come together and show true leadership to solve what had seemed an intractable problem. I wish there were more leaders like them around the world who could do the same thing and make that difference.
The other person I want to mention from my time in the Northern Ireland Office is Tony Lloyd, my shadow. He was a wonderful person to have shadowing me. We would occasionally have ding-dongs across the Dispatch Box; that is what politics is about, but I can assure
everybody that when we got behind closed doors we got on like a house on fire. We supported different football teams—again, that Manchester difference—but we always had great conversations. If we were in Belfast at the same time and we could make it work, we would make a point of getting together with the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth)—I will call her my hon. Friend —who was part of his team too.
We had great conversations. We wanted the same thing: we wanted the restoration of devolved government, and we wanted to work together to achieve it. We had different ways in, and different people we could influence, but we were all trying to get to the same thing. I am so relieved that we currently have devolved government in Northern Ireland, because it is vital for the people of Northern Ireland that they are properly represented by the people they elect to do so.
My constituency does not have a large Irish diaspora, but it has two great Irish employers. Advanced Proteins owns a plant that does animal rendering—it is not a terribly attractive thing to do, but it does it very well. The Irish dairy company Ornua, which brings Irish cheese and butter across the Irish sea to Leek in Staffordshire, also has a plant; Kerrygold is packaged in Leek, and all the cheese from Ireland is processed, grated, put into blocks and sold to consumers across Great Britain. I have a great need for the Irish to be successful, because they employ so many of my constituents. It is incredibly important that Ornua and Advanced Proteins know that we welcome them in the United Kingdom and we want them to continue to invest.
I have the great honour of being co-chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who did a fantastic job for so many years—he has been missed at our meetings. For those who do not know, the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly began with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Back in the early 1990s, there was a recognition that we had inter-parliamentary groups and there were conversations at Government level, but conversations at parliamentarian level are incredibly important in allowing people to recognise that we all face the same problems and all want the same solutions.
Before what was the British-Irish parliamentary group, there may have been a lack of trust and understanding and a lack of ability to empathise with parliamentarians on the other side of the Irish sea. The two Inter-Parliamentary Union groups—the British one, which I am honoured to chair in our Parliament, and the one from the Oireachtas—were therefore asked if they could form a grouping of parliamentarians to find a way to open up that dialogue. That was six years before the Belfast/Good Friday agreement; it was a very important part of the dialogue that created an atmosphere in which the agreement could happen.
I pay tribute to the late Lord Temple-Morris, who was one of the people who led the initiative from Westminster, and to Dick Spring from the Oireachtas. We were honoured that at a recent assembly Dick was able to address our dinner: it was lovely to hear from somebody who had not only been an architect of the agreement, but been there beforehand laying the groundwork for it.
I also pay tribute to the wonderful Amanda Healy, who has been the administrator of BIPA for 30 years. Without Amanda, the whole thing would collapse. She is utterly amazing. It would be wrong of me to say
anything other than that she is absolutely fantastic—thank you, Amanda. I also thank the brilliant clerk, Martyn Atkins, who makes sure that I know what I am saying as co-chair, keeps me on track and ensures that I entirely deliver the message that needs to be delivered.