Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): First, I apologise to the House for having to leave earlier.
The question that we must ask ourselves is: why are we here? We might all have different reasons, but I think that the underlying reason is that we want to make Northern Ireland the same as every other part of the UK. We want people there to have the same experiences as other people in this country.
I come from Sunderland, which is similar to Belfast, although I know that Belfast is not the same as the rest of Northern Ireland. Sunderland was built on ships; for many years, we were the biggest shipbuilding town in the world. It was built on hard work, and the people there played hard and worked hard. It was a town with poor housing in some areas, and poor educational achievements. Unemployment was endemic, and the population was made up of people from different religions and races.
However, Sunderland was never a town where people killed each other, blew each other up, shot at the police or killed troops on the street. I want my town and Belfast to have the same future, even though they have had very different pasts. I am not saying that Belfast should become the second Sunderland - especially as Niall Quinn and Roy Keane are trying to make Sunderland the second Dublin.
We should grasp with both hands the chance that this debate offers. I am not a Johnny-come-lately to this discussion: those who have been involved in it in the year and a half since I came to the House will know that I have a long, proud record of representing people in Northern Ireland as a lay official of the Unison trade union.
Unison had a chequered history in Northern Ireland. Some of its partner unions did not support or organise there, while others did. Some people did not believe that representatives from Great Britain should have any say in the day-to-day workings of the union in Northern Ireland. As a result, for the first two years that I was involved over there, we spent a lot of time talking to each other about what we would do to try to make the union work in Northern Ireland.
Thankfully, the union did work over there. It worked because people worked together and ignored what was happening around them, although that is not to say that they did not care about what was happening outside. They developed an agenda that is non-partisan. If something is wrong it should be challenged: if people do not have jobs, if they have bad housing or are being mistreated at work, or if children do not have good schools to go to, that should be challenged and put right. Our agenda does not take sides on the constitutional position, and we have refused to be drawn into the argument about whether there should be a united Ireland, or whether Ireland should never be united. We chose instead to do the work that the union always does: protecting the working people in their day-to-day lives.
The union supported civil rights issues on all sides and worked with the often ignored ethnic minority community in Northern Ireland. We argued with past Governments - including a Labour Government - for better terms and conditions and against the privatisation of jobs. We acted as a catalyst for people to come together. We shared experiences with those in other parts of these islands and the Republic of Ireland about developing a way to devolution and self-determination.
My union put peace and stability on the Labour party agenda. Before the Labour party came to power, we funded the work of the shadow Northern Ireland Office, because we believed that that was in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland and the members of the union. We promoted the equality agenda and we condemned attacks on innocent people at home and at work. We did what many hon. Members present did: we did our best, standing up for people and defending them.
The union engaged with various political parties. One of my proudest moments was in 1996 when we organised a seminar in Newcastle, County Down, just five days after the bombing at Canary Wharf. The seminar was attended by representatives of almost every political party. It was one of the first times that we got together in one room, and it was a great success. An even greater success, for me, was my return to the same venue last month, as a member of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, under the leadership of the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). The difference in the area is palpable, and the House and the nation should be proud of the changes that we have made in the past 10 years. We still have a lot of work to do, but we should congratulate ourselves on what we have done.
When we were in Northern Ireland, we went to Belfast. People were having a discussion about the removal of murals. The argument was not, "If you remove that mural, it is an attack on my culture and my past." The argument was whether removing the murals would have an impact on tourism. That shows again how the mindset has been changed in Northern Ireland as a result of the work that we have all done and should keep on doing.
My union welcomed the Good Friday agreement back in 1998 as the best deal on offer. Clearly, some people did not agree with that, but the union stood up for the brave people who stood against the communities that they came from. They took a lot of personal flak, but they said, "We believe this is the way forward for the people of this Province." The process has been neither happy nor straightforward - we have talked about the problems tonight - but things have got better.
I can remember when Belfast was almost a no-go area for people from Great Britain. The first time I went to Northern Ireland, I drove from Newcastle to Stranraer, and the last thing I did was fill up with petrol so that when I got off at Larne I did not have to stop at the border. Thankfully, that mentality no longer exists. The truth is that Northern Ireland is a place that people from all over the world, especially from this island, should go to, enjoy and respect.
There is much more for us to do. As an advocate of devolution, I wish that the opportunities that are being given to Northern Ireland through the Bill and previous work had been given to the people of the North-East of England. If they had, we might have had devolution and been able to look after our people better. We must accept our responsibilities in this House. We have to do what we can for the people of Northern Ireland with the chance that we have got. I understand the issues that people have raised today; they are serious, genuine issues, but the underlying process must be to move forward. The local politicians and politicians in this House have shown that they can do that, and we should be proud of what they have done.
The Bill lays the foundation for that to carry on. The people of Northern Ireland will be represented by their people. Northern Ireland politicians will be directly accountable to their people in a way that at this moment they are not, because they cannot deliver the things that people deserve and rightly expect. Northern Ireland Members will have the right to talk about transport, culture, arts, leisure and planning matters - issues that are now decided by Ministers and civil servants, who clearly do not have the same interest or faith in the people. Therefore, the Bill should be supported.
One thing that kept me going through the debates when devolution broke down was that there had been some successes. I believe that those successes were achieved because the politicians were nearer to the people. The people were telling the politicians, "We elect you; this is what we want you to do." People responded to that and should be allowed to do so again in the positive way that they did during the short period from 1998 onwards.
The time has come for us to re-engage with that accountability. We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland and Great Britain to make that move forward. Any structural or ideological objections need to be sorted out and removed. I hope that that can be done in a timely way, but not so as it slows down the process until it yet again goes into reverse. The fact is that sometimes the best that we can achieve is not always what we want, but it is the best. The agreement and the Bill should be embraced by the politicians and the people of Northern Ireland, and should be implemented and pursued positively and progressively.
I urge the political representatives of all parties to use this opportunity on behalf of their people, their communities and their cultures to accept that with this power comes a massive responsibility - a responsibility not to allow centuries of hatred and bigotry to get in the way of delivering for their people; a responsibility not to use the limits and restrictions in the legislation in a partisan way in order to further party political goals; and a responsibility to the rest of us in this Parliament and on this island to ensure that the faith that we place in them is not misplaced and not abused.
This is a good day for democracy; it is a good day for my Government, for a succession of Ministers and for our Prime Minister, who has stood firm and led from the front in this debate for more than a decade. It is a good day for all the people in this House, in Northern Ireland and beyond who have refused to accept the rule of the gun over the rule of law. We should praise and congratulate those people. It is a good day for those who have said that terrorism will never ever succeed. Above all, it could be a good day for the great people of Northern Ireland - if we have the bottle to get this right.
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