Jim Allister

Thank you for your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was absent from the House for some time to attend a Delegated Legislation Committee. It is a privilege to speak in the debate, because it is the ultimate manifestation of involvement in our democratic process. The policy paper that goes with the Bill says: “The right to participate in our democracy is a defining aspect of our national identity”. What that speaks to is equal citizenship: that every citizen, no matter from where, who is on the electoral register in the United Kingdom should be able to have the same right to elect those who make their laws, whether that is for a council, a devolved institution—if they have one—or the Parliament of this United Kingdom. Those who make our laws, whoever they are, should be subject to the right of every citizen to elect them. What I bring to the debate is the situation in Northern Ireland. That is how it used to be—until 2021, my constituents had the equal right to elect, whether at council, Stormont or Westminster, those who were making their laws—but under what we now call the Windsor framework, in Northern Ireland we are denied the right to elect those who make laws in 300 areas of law. Those laws are not made in this place and they are not made in Stormont. They are made in a foreign Parliament, elected by no one from the United Kingdom. That takes me back to that founding, underlying principle: the right to participate in our democracy is a defining aspect of our national identity. New clause 122 and amendment 152 bring that matter to the House’s attention by suggesting that unless and until there is an equality impact assessment in respect of the whole United Kingdom’s participation in all aspects of democracy, the Bill should not have effect. Let me put it to the House like this. The Bill proposes that a 16-year-old in Cardiff, London or Edinburgh who has paid no tax and who has never served their country has full franchise on all aspects of law—they can elect everyone who makes rules governing their lives—but a 67-year-old veteran in Northern Ireland who has paid tax all his life and who has served his country, or any other citizen, is denied that right to elect those who make his or her laws in over 300 areas of law. That is the inequity that I respectfully suggest the House needs to face up to.