Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): May I say what a pleasure it is to speak before you, Mr. Martlew? I give you my best regards for your football team's performance in winning the championship this year. I welcome the debate - [Interruption.] It is halfway to Belfast.
I thank the hon. Member for East Londonderry(Mr. Campbell) for securing the debate today. I agree with a lot of what he said, particularly the fact that we cannot look at the situation in Northern Ireland as just an add-on to what is happening in the Irish tourist industry. It is different in many ways, and we should recognise, appreciate, respect and promote that difference.
I bring apologies from the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), Chair of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. The Committee has agreed to look next at what is happening in the tourist industry.
I shall speak about my experiences, which go back almost 20 years. Despite having a grandmother born in County Cork, I never managed to get to Ireland until the summer of 1989. I had just been made redundant from the coal mines, and my 68-year-old father and I decided that it would be good fun to go camping. We camped in south-west Scotland, and while we were there we saw an advert for a day trip to the Bushmills distillery, which is quite a long way from Kirkcudbright. It meant waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning, getting to Stranraer for 6 o'clock, taking a three-hour ferry trip and then hitting the road, going around the coast to Ballycastle.
Ballycastle was the first place in Northern Ireland where I spent any time, and if I do one thing before I die, it will be to go back there and take the boat to Rathlin island, which I understand is a very impressive place. Perhaps we could build that into the Northern Ireland Committee's itinerary.
We went to the Bushmills distillery, my father being something of an expert on whiskey. He was certainly an expert in how much he could drink. I do not know about quality, but he certainly understood quantity. That made the bus drive back to Belfast very interesting.
That was the start of a lot of happy trips to Northern Ireland. My old man and I used to go together and just bum around. We would take the car with no idea where we were going, stopping by the roadside, in hostels and in bed and breakfasts - whatever suited.
There was one occasion when I was more worried than on any other. My dad was what I would call a quiet-man republican. He believed in the cause, he sang the songs and he had the craic, but he did not have very good political antennae. One night, we were welcomed into a British Legion - I cannot remember whether it was in Portrush or Portstewart - by an old man wearing a white tuxedo with the biggest bow tie I had ever seen in my life. I said to my dad, "If you start singing republican songs in here, you're dead." Thankfully, he concentrated more on playing dominoes than on singing that night.
Mr. Campbell: Wiser counsel prevailed.
Mr. Anderson: Absolutely.
Despite the fun that we had, it was a worrying time. Daft things happened. My car had a Great Britain registration; were we in danger? We were stopped at checkpoints and when crossing the border. The sight of watchtowers and of helicopters in the air was not something that we were used to, although over the years I have come to know that my Northern Ireland colleagues had to live with it day in and day out for far too long.
In 1993, I became a member of the national executive committee of the trade union Unison. During my time there, I worked with people in Northern Ireland and had many happy times trying to find a way forward in the peace process for working people over there. One of my happiest memories is of 1996, when we had a conference in Newcastle, County Down at the Slieve Donard hotel. I recommend it to everyone. They should go there, too, before they die.
We also stayed in Kilkeel. We decided to make a holiday of it - we had gone across there and the union had paid, so we thought we might as well stay. We visited a place called the silent valley. If there is a more appropriately named place on this earth, I do not know what it is. It is for those who want real solitude. We could see the town below us, but we could not hear a thing. I would recommend it to anyone. It is an absolutely fantastic place.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the lakes in Ireland and the giant's causeway. That is one of Ireland's most visited places. So it should be, and so should other places like it - but the greatest reason to go to Northern Ireland is the people. They are genuine people, hospitable and warm. It does not matter what part of the country they come from; all of them make people feel welcome. Like me, and like some other people in the House, they come from a tradition of hard times and hard work. They have the attitude, "We don't have very much, but we'll share it with you." That is one of the greatest reasons to go there.
The place is now completely different from how it was 20 years ago - thanks in no small part to the people sitting in this room. Northern Ireland is vibrant, buzzing and alive. It has a positive future and our Government will play a major role in that future. There are new opportunities. There is now what I would call the "terrorist trail" in Northern Ireland - going round and viewing the murals. For people who have never been, that is probably one of the things that they most want to see, but there is so much more than that, and I hope that people will tap into it.
Last week that well-known entrepreneur, my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn), organised a tour of the historic pubs of Belfast for us the night before the sitting of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. The event was purely investigatory - nothing else - but it was really interesting. That sort of trip has become an opportunity for people working in the tourist industry in Belfast, and shows visitors a whole new side of the place. The other good thing is that, as we were waiting for the plane at Newcastle airport at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we noticed that the traffic was two-way. Geordies were going to Belfast and Belfast people were coming across to Newcastle. That is good for our country and for working together, and there is now a lot of hope.
The Committee is conducting an investigation into organised crime, and last week we split into two groups. Some of us flew to Crossmaglen, which is the only way for security staff to get in there. It was worrying to arrive by helicopter, walk out of the front door of the police station, look down the street at a beautiful village square and know that the people in the station would almost certainly not dare to go out there unattended. The good news, however, is that watchtowers are coming down and last year, for first time in 26 years, the police started patrols, albeit in armoured vehicles, from the road to Newtownhamilton, so in a sense things are improving.
After the Committee produces its current report we will begin an investigation into tourism. We hope that what we come out with will promote the good news and builds on the advice, information and evidence that we have seen. We want to do justice to the situation, and as part of that, we are going to Northern Ireland on 12 July to look at cultural activities that many of us have never been involved in before.
Dr. William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP): Hear, hear.
Mr. Anderson: I am looking forward to that - and I hope that I can get a hat big enough to wear.
To a certain extent, I have been involved in Irish politics for a long time, and I am not naive enough to believe that what has happened this week is anything more than a tentative start. Colleagues, both those in this Chamber and others in Northern Ireland, have got together to move forward, I hope, but we cannot move forward on terrorism, the peace process or anything else unless we are clear about three things. In our democratic society, there is no room for terrorists, criminals or wreckers. We do not want any of those people. We want to work together and, by using the tourism angle, we have a chance to build a new future not only for the people of Northern Ireland, but for the people of the whole United Kingdom. I hope that the Government play their part in a big way, and that we will be led in this work by the people of Northern Ireland.
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