Every imported question, contribution and motion, with its classification. Unflagged, uncertain and not-yet-analysed records are all included so the analysis can be checked independently.
Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. We have debated the issue of high streets several times in the Chamber. I want to concentrate on that and look at it and the wider business around it. The reason for commissioning reports is to gather evidence, look at best practice, enable, deliver and bring through change…
Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. We have been long aware of the pressures on our local businesses across many sectors, including childcare, which underpins all sectors. The Labour Government's announcement in October about the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions and the rate of the…
I beg to move Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Local businesses across our region are suffering. They struggle to pay their bills and face relentless pressure from online competition and falling footfall on our high streets. Now they are being hit again, this time by a steep rise in employer's National…
I thank the Member for giving way. I know that he likes to see himself as a modern-day Nostradamus, but most of the rest of us in the Chamber are self-aware enough to know that none of us can predict the future. The Member may be right in his analysis that Farage will sweep the board and become Prime Minister, but it…
OK. Let me just say this: we all had to sign in. After we became MLAs, because of the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act, we all had to designate as "Unionist", "Nationalist" or "Other". I designate as "Nationalist" and "Social Democrat". I am also proudly pro-European. I am proud to be…
Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank everybody who participated in a lively and important debate. It is an important debate. I turn to what Mr Tennyson just said, which was, I think, that we could have had this debate over 100 years ago and that it revealed only that one group of people is unionist,…
Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. In the five years since the UK left the EU and almost a decade since the referendum, we still have no sign of a single, solitary benefit of Brexit. We are still waiting on even a glimpse of the "sunlit uplands" that were promised by the grifters who promoted Brexit in the first…
When I became an MLA, I, like every MLA in the House, was required, under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, to designate as unionist, nationalist or other. I have no difficulty in being honest about a view that I have every right to hold, as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement. In fact, I have a responsibility to…
The only aspect of the motion that I welcome is the public falling out that we have seen between the SDLP and the nationalist and republican Alliance about who can beat their chest the most and say that they are biggest Europhiles in Stormont. By all means, the comedy is good and the crack is good, and I hope that…
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to what has been an interesting and exciting debate. I wholeheartedly push back on the notion that discussing the constitutional question is inherently negative. It is being perceived today as something that, by its nature, is problematic or controversial: I could not disagree…
I do not know where that part of your speech came from, but it is interesting that the DUP has caught up now. In 1998, the DUP did not agree with any of what you have just said. Your party did not vote for it. You campaigned against peace. You did not want to see an agreement. It is good to see that you have caught up.
Well, well, well: the rigorous implementers have well and truly fallen out with themselves. Barnier's "Brady Bunch", who all went down to Dublin together to try to impose the current sanctions here in Northern Ireland, have now fallen out because, unfortunately, the Alliance Party, through wilful ignorance or…
FlaggedConstitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereigntyCriteria met: Identity framing, Dog-whistle messaging.
The UK has announced just today that it will invest significantly in defending that neighbourhood. Does he agree that the Irish state needs to step up and do the same for its neighbours?
In the surreal world of Stormont, I rise to speak after a speech that included references to Mystic Meg, thrush and dandruff. I will try my best to continue. I do not have long to speak, so I will get straight to the point. Our place is in Europe. The motion from the Opposition is important, because it offers us a…
I appreciate the Member's taking the intervention. It is a good-spirited debate. My argument is that — I think that lots of people agree with this — in the context of a new Ireland back inside the European Union, a whole range of other benefits, including economic benefits, will be unlocked. That sounds like a grand…
I will start off by addressing some of the points made so far. When I was chatting with — he has just disappeared — the leader of the Opposition about the figures for Germany's GDP and pointed out that the figures were from 2010, the Alliance economy spokesman suggested that they were skewed, in some way, by the…
The recent reset of EU-UK relations is a positive step forward in rebuilding the bridges that were damaged by Brexit. In a time of global economic uncertainty, it is reassuring to see the removal of barriers between us and our largest trading partner, the EU. The deal promises fewer checks and less red tape for the…
I thank the Member for giving way. There is a lot of thoughtful stuff in his remarks, but he said that the motion reduced the Good Friday Agreement to constitutional outcomes, but is the agreement not all about respecting constitutional aspirations, including his own?