Speeches by Hanna.

“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…”

“I am Claire Hanna, MP for South Belfast and Mid Down, and leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party.”

“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.”

“Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the major deterrents to investment and growth in Northern Ireland is the absence, 20 months after the restoration of Stormont, of a published investment strategy from the Executive with any sort of a road map for investors or businesses on the infrastructure, roads and hous…”

“I thank the Secretary of State and his team for their work on this package, including the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), who was so well regarded by everybody who came across her in Northern Ireland. I also thank the officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin for their work, because that partner…”

“I do not think anybody could fail to be moved by yesterday’s scenes of hostages finally being reunited with their families and of Gazans being able to contemplate days and nights without hunger and bombardment. I would love to be able to celebrate and believe, as they are doing and as they should be given the space to …”

“We will pick up on disclosure. The families are participating in hope and after decades. I know that it is incumbent on everybody to make sure that their investment of time and energy, and all else, should not be in vain. It is important that they get maximum disclosure from that. Broad clauses such as that, with all t…”

“Secretary of State, disclosure, deciding who has the say over what information victims get from those who did the killing, whether in uniform or out, is, you might agree, at the centre of a lot of the paralysis—a lot of what has caused these cases, in many cases, to take decades to resolve. This touches on some of the …”

“I am not going to insist that you speculate, but people will wonder whether that was a solo run or whether that idea was put in his mind in terms of the thinking and the framing of this issue within the Department. Taking into account that this is not the chief constable’s first rodeo—he has a lengthy background in han…”

“This is creating the same layers of cases being relitigated and rehashed out, and creating further years of victims having to travel. We have been talking about commentary, but I am also talking about feelings. You will be aware of the family who are having to return to the Supreme Court again. Can you understand how t…”

“We have discussed the “neither confirm nor deny” policy. The chief constable outlined the way in which, from his experience, it is used liberally, prolifically and, he has said, in a way that has “stopped wrongdoing coming to notice and prevented people from being prosecuted for murder”. We have discussed—I will not re…”

“It is a veto.”

“Can you understand the perception of these increasing layers, rivets and processes that have been put on for decades? Files have been sealed. We have all seen documents with page after page of redactions. People are told, “We will not tell you until you have come back to court”, but the people who go to court have aven…”

“That is very well said, Secretary of State. It is fundamentally about moving forward. People think this is all an obsession with the past, and it is not. It is obsession with the future. I genuinely and truly believe that, if there is disclosure and forthcomingness from the state, which is the bit that you have most co…”

“There is no question that the Omagh bomb had a cross-border dimension. It is absolutely right, in terms of getting at truth for the families, that it should have disclosure and participation. That is why it was a huge error of the previous Government to establish an inquiry with no legislative vehicle, no defined MOU, …”