Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this debate. I also thank the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) for introducing the Bill. I listened with interest to some of the points made by Opposition Members, particularly the words of the right hon. Members for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who suggested that there are attempts to talk the Bill out. The only people who appeared to be attempting to talk the Bill out were the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for Belfast East, and they did a very good job of it.
It has become increasingly clear in this debate that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim has no interest in progressing the Bill. He knows that it is unworkable and has no intention of its ever becoming law. What he is doing today is purely and simply political posturing for nakedly electoral reasons.
I was interested and slightly amused to hear the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim refer to his interest in ensuring equality and equal access to citizenship for all the citizens of Northern Ireland. I wonder if he felt the same way about extending access to equality and citizenship when it came to reproductive rights for the women of Northern Ireland and the right to equal marriage for people in Northern Ireland. I do not recall him being as vociferous at that time.
I was interested to hear from the Member from South Acton—I mean South Antrim. Apologies—I represent an area very close to Acton, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) knows. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) asked whether Labour Members had read the Good Friday agreement. Back in 1998, as a very young woman, I recall vividly buying the newspaper that printed the full Good Friday agreement, laying it out on the floor of my bedroom at the time and reading through it clause by clause. For me, and for the people of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and all the United Kingdom, it was such an important and joyous occasion to see that agreement come to fruition.
That joy is properly experienced if one watches the final episode of “Derry Girls”, when Orla dances through the streets of Derry on her way to register to vote in favour of peace in Northern Ireland. What a contrast that moment of joy is to some of the words that we have heard from Opposition Members today, which have been less about forging a prosperous future for Northern Ireland and more about raking up the arguments of the past. Today we found ourselves revisiting old grievances rather than pushing for progress. The Bill drags us back into the quagmire of disputes that were settled through the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework—painstakingly negotiated and endorsed as a solution that works for Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.