Speeches by Hanna.

“I have said this before. There is a lot of money being made, not necessarily by family farms in Northern Ireland, but there is a lot of profit in the chain linked to land use around the lough. There are close to hundreds of millions of pounds of profit being made from that intensification.”

“Look, it was different because it was just sitting in your back bedroom, speaking. It is just not the same as a debate. Like others, I enjoy and welcome interventions and all of that. It was not like for like, but as I say, it meant that there was a degree of assurance that you were going to get in on a debate. I find …”

“It was great simply that you knew whether or not you were going to get in. Bear in mind that when covid happened, I had been an MP for two or three months; I was still learning the ropes. It meant that you would definitely prepare, and that was back when I was trying to speak on a number of things. I probably spoke on …”

“We’re having a debate here.”

“I am not trying to be blamey, because I want to talk about Farming with Nature and the supports that are and are not available. I believe that farmers, particularly family farms, are trying to achieve the same balance. I am trying to see where there is agreement that that intensification has been a contribution.”

“I think there is a lot to commend that, and it is the case that you get slightly tweaked iterations of the same speech, back and forth. People perform for their clip rather than having that idealised form of debate. It is important to say that I think we have all had the experience where something is important enough t…”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“I do not think those are two fair proposals. Like Ellie, I would go for a hybrid. We do not have endless debate for almost anything else, so there would be no reason to protect it in this scenario either.”

“When you say fixed voting time, do you mean the guillotine of the debate ending?”

“I think very similarly. We know that there are different rules if it is legislation or other types of debate. Sometimes there is a lot of space for the early speakers. I have had exactly that experience, many’s the time, of trying to compress a complex argument, when you might have known in advance that you would be sp…”

“Impacts on, say, caring responsibilities probably pertain more to London-based MPs; if you have travelled by plane, when you are here, you are here. You are not getting home for bedtime or any of that stuff. As Robin said, there are some protections and provisions around time to make that work. It is a fact that, for e…”

“We obviously respect and uphold the primacy of the Chamber as a central part of your duties, but it is important that we respond to the Parliament and the politics that we are actually operating in, and not an idealised version of what parliamentary debate is. When people talk about the interruptions that call lists wo…”

“Thank you very much to all of you. William, in the Lough Neagh action plan, DAERA estimates that 62% of the phosphorus pollution comes from agricultural sources. Is that your understanding?”

“I have one last question, perhaps to you, Alistair, about the review of sand extraction. It was discussed earlier. Gerry Darby from the Lough Neagh Partnership was talking about the environmental impact, which is probably less than has sometimes been foregrounded. There is obviously now a regulation in place. There had…”

“Will we have one in place by the end of the mandate?”

“I am sorry. The Chair is giving me the evil eye about the time. We have been discussing this for two decades. There has been a series of reviews, panels and assessments. There is consensus that we need an independent environmental protection agency. That is something I think you support as well. What is the likelihood …”

“Others, and possibly you, Minister, have spoken about some of the challenges of one Department being responsible for both agriculture, with its obvious importance to our economy, and environmental protection. Many, including me and you, have spoken about the need for an independent environmental protection agency to we…”

“The £7 million would be a start.”

“Minister, you have regularly spoken about the funding gap and the need to support farmers. The SDLP Opposition have proposed a levy to try to use the very substantial profit that we know is being made by corporations involved in agriculture in and around the lough. You will be aware of a similar voluntary levy on agric…”

“This is not your fault, but we are in one of those big circular flow charts here.”