The first item of business is the election of the Speaker. Section 39(1) of the Northern Ireland Act provides:

"Each Assembly shall as its first business elect from among its members a Presiding Officer and deputies."

Therefore, the Assembly cannot conduct any further business until a Speaker and at least two Deputy Speakers have been elected. Members should be clear: without the election of a Speaker and two Deputy Speakers, no further business can proceed.

I advise Members that the election of a Speaker will be conducted under the procedures set out in Standing Order 4. Further to Standing Order 4(2), I am the Acting Speaker today for the purpose of electing a Speaker. My sole responsibility is to preside over the election of a new Speaker. I will not take any points of order that do not relate to that specific matter.

I will begin by asking for nominations. Any Member may rise to propose that another Member be elected as Speaker. I will then ask for the proposal to be seconded by another Member, as required by Standing Order 14. I will then verify that the Member seconded is willing to accept the nomination. After that, I will ask for further proposals and follow the same procedure for each. When it appears that there are no further proposals, I will make it clear that the time for proposals has passed. If Members indicate that they wish to speak, a debate relevant to the election may then take place, during which Members will have up to five minutes to speak.

At the conclusion of the debate or the conclusion of the nominations, if there are no requests to speak, I shall put the Question that the Member first proposed shall be Speaker of the Assembly. The vote will be on a cross-community basis. If the proposal is not carried, I shall put the Question in relation to the next nominee and so on until all nominations are exhausted. Once a Speaker is elected, all other nominations will fall automatically.

Do I have any proposals for the office of Speaker of the Assembly?

On behalf of the Democratic Unionist Party, I nominate Edwin Poots.

Do we have a seconder for that proposal?

Seconded, Mr Acting Speaker.

Mr Poots, are you happy to accept the nomination?

I am.

On behalf of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, I nominate Patsy McGlone for the office of Speaker.

Do we have a seconder for that?

I second that.

Mr McGlone, are you happy to accept the nomination?

Glacaim leis an ainmniúchán. I accept.

Are there any other nominations?

On behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party, I nominate Dr Steve Aiken.

Does that nomination have a seconder?

Seconded.

Dr Aiken, are you happy to accept that nomination?

I am happy to accept that nomination.

Are there any other nominations?

The time for proposals has expired. A number of Members have indicated that they wish to speak. I remind Members that they may speak only once in the course of the debate. Members have up to five minutes in which to speak.

I will just say at the outset how good it is to be back in the Chamber doing the business that people elected us to do.

If you will indulge me, I will take the opportunity to say a few words of thanks to my friend and colleague Alex Maskey for the fantastic job that he has done as Speaker of the Assembly. When Michelle O'Neill nominated Alex four years ago, she said that she did so in the knowledge that he would carry out his role with determined professionalism, treating all with impartiality and respect. He has certainly lived up to that. His decision to retire from front-line politics is a huge loss to this institution. When I have spoken to Assembly staff over the past number of days, they have been glowing in their genuine appreciation for his steadying presence and guidance during the difficult and uncertain period that we have just come through.

Nowhere will Alex's loss be more keenly felt than by his colleagues in Sinn Féin and by the party as a whole. Alex was a trailblazer for our party. He was the first Sinn Féin member of Belfast City Council and the first republican mayor in the history of Belfast. He has been a constant presence over the decades, whether it was the Good Friday Agreement negotiations or the many subsequent rounds of negotiations. Alex was always there and always a key figure, bringing experience, maturity, a fierce commitment to equality and a tireless determination to make politics work for everyone. That has been the hallmark of an incredible and unique career in the service of people whom, I know, Alex was honoured to represent.

I grew up looking up to Alex and watching him and others guide our society towards peace and equality. My younger self could not have comprehended that, one day, I would have the privilege of standing here, wishing him well as he takes a step back from the front line of political life. My mind would have been just as blown to think that I would have the opportunity to work with Alex and the even greater honour of calling him a friend.

Your retirement is well earned, Alex. I am sure that I speak on behalf of everyone in the Chamber when I say go raibh míle, míle maith agat. I wish you, Liz and the rest of your family every happiness in the years ahead.

In that same spirit, I wish a big ádh mór —

[Translation: good luck]

— to whomever the new Speaker is to be. It is always a challenging role that they undertake. I say on behalf of the team that they have all of our good wishes for what will be a challenging time ahead as they steer us through the many debates and issues that we will have to go through.

Today marks a new chapter for the Assembly, but it is also the end of an era, as Alex Maskey finally gets to retire after 26 years in the Assembly and four years as Speaker. During that time, he has shown leadership in extending the hand of friendship to those from different backgrounds. As has been said, he was the first Sinn Féin councillor in Belfast since the 1920s. He went on to become the first Sinn Féin Lord Mayor, which indeed created headlines, but the act of choosing the opening of the Presbyterian general assembly as his first public duty marked him as someone different. Laying a wreath for remembrance is seen now as a normal act, but for a member of Sinn Féin to do so in 2002 was a big event, as were his dealings with the royal family following the passing of the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. From handling official condolences to meeting the new King and Queen at Hillsborough, it was clear that Alex Maskey was prepared to represent the office of Speaker with impartiality and integrity.

Many of our young citizens across Northern Ireland will remember him fondly for different reasons. Left with no MLAs to fill this Building, he seized the opportunity to use this space to develop the Northern Ireland Youth Assembly and the Disability Assembly, providing an opportunity for voices not often heard in the Chamber. On behalf of the Alliance Party, I wish him a very happy retirement, although, if he misses sparring in the Chamber too much, perhaps he could return to his boxing roots. In the 75 fights that he competed in, he lost, I believe, only four. Perhaps we won a few more political fights than he did, but we will leave that to the history books and the writers to decide. One thing that we can be sure about is that history will remember him as a fair and impartial Speaker who steered the Chamber through many difficult and momentous occasions.

The Alliance Party is happy to support all of the nominations that have been made today for the position of Speaker, as we have done through all of the recalls that the Assembly has had.

I stand primarily to support the nomination of our candidate for Speaker, Dr Steve Aiken, an exceptional candidate who would be fair and robust. If he gets cross-community support, he will add value to what we have in the House and on the Floor.

It would be remiss of me, as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, not to look to the outgoing Speaker, Alex Maskey, and thank him for all that he has done. It has been a difficult stint, and his retirement has been long in coming; I suppose that it is one of the longest. I have engaged extensively with him, certainly around the death and funeral of Her Majesty The Queen and the coronation of King Charles. I thanked him then and thank him now for all that he did in that regard. I thank you as you move on, and I wish you all the best.

I also wish the best to whomever takes over as Speaker when the election happens. Of course, it will be Dr Steve Aiken, but I can thank him personally later. I thank you, Mr Acting Speaker, for all that you have done as well. It is not easy to be thrust in there periodically and have to go through this process.

As for where we stand now, we have had two years of having no Executive or Assembly, and we have all been frustrated in some shape or form. Everybody, from all corners of the Chamber, has been frustrated, but, despite all of that frustration, the people who have suffered most are the people of Northern Ireland. They have really suffered, and, in our frustrations, we must remember that as we look forward. We have a Herculean task before us, and we have to improve the lives of the people. We can do that by making Northern Ireland a working part of the United Kingdom.

We need to focus on people and everything that goes with that, regardless of their religion, sexual orientation or which community background they come from. We can do that by focusing on things like the economy, because the economy will drive our infrastructure to make people more connected. It will help us with our health service and education. It will help to build houses and create jobs so that our young people wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose and go to bed at night with a sense of fulfilment .The economy connects people to everything that goes on in Northern Ireland. That is what I am looking for going forward, but this is no panacea. Some of the challenges ahead are monumental, and we will meet them only if we support each other. There are opponents in here, and I get that we will have divisions and arguments, but we can all move in one direction, and that is to improve the lives of the people who live here, work here and visit here. I set out now, as we go forward, regardless of who the Speaker or the Ministers will be, that the Ulster Unionist Party will work with you to make this place the best place that it can be for the people who live here.

I am pleased that we have reached the stage where we have a stable and sustainable basis on which to elect a Speaker and have the institutions back up and running. Two years ago, to the very date, I resigned. Something had to bring matters to a head, which is why my leader acted decisively at that time. Having secured the necessary progress across a wide range of issues, we are here at this point today.

I am glad that we have got to this stage. It has been a long road to get here. I hope, as the Assembly starts out in a renewed effort to deliver for the people, that we never again end up in a position where unionists are discarded, others in the House do not listen to the concerns expressed by the unionist people and every unionist elected Member of this place feels that changes have taken place without our consent.

That has been the journey that we have had to go on, often, regrettably, without the support of many people in the House who often made issues more difficult for us to reach the point that we have got to today. However, through determination, Jeffrey Donaldson has led us to this stage, and I am proud of the work that he has put in to get us to that point, not for the DUP but for Northern Ireland and the people of Northern Ireland.

As we step forward, let us do it in a manner that we can work together in genuine cooperation. We have the right person now to be the Speaker of the Assembly in Edwin Poots, someone whom I have known for a very long time. At 16 years of age, when I joined the party, it was Edwin who was there. I worked for him for one day a week when I was 17 years of age, so I have known him for a long time. I have always known him to act with absolute integrity in everything that he does, and Members can rest assured that there will never be anything that will cause them concern in how Edwin Poots discharges his duties as the Speaker of the Assembly. Elected here in 1998, he is one of only two left and still standing. He was elected previously in the 1996 Forum and was a councillor in 1997, but he is not the first Poots to have been elected to this Assembly. His father, the late Charlie Poots, was elected to Stormont in 1973 for what was the old North Down constituency. I know that his family are immensely proud of how Edwin Poots has continued to carry on the legacy that his father left him and of the character that was instilled in him in that family.

Today is an important day for Edwin, but I have to say that I will miss him on these Benches. I will miss him in the room upstairs where we meet and discuss how we will deal with business, but it is a new challenge for him and a new opportunity, and I know that he will embrace that. I am delighted to speak in favour of my good friend and colleague Edwin Poots, and I know that he will do incredibly well in the position of Speaker in the Assembly.

I call Mr Matthew O'Toole.

Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. Before I get on to moving the nomination of my friend Patsy McGlone, let me first pay tribute to you. You are a very experienced retailer, and you have had to do quite a lot of minding the shop in this place over the past while. You have done it with good grace and competence.

As others have done, I would like to pay real, sincere tribute to Alex Maskey, the outgoing Speaker. Alex was a fine Speaker who had a brilliant record of acting with impartiality, robustness and fairness in the Chair. As others have said, as a republican, he made real progress in his outreach around cross-community work. Just last year, he and I had a somewhat surreal moment chatting to one another in Hillsborough Castle while we were waiting for the new King to arrive. I think that he and I were both slightly nonplussed by being there, but Alex, as always, stood up to the moment and did himself and his party proud. He has now been on the longest farewell tour since Springsteen, and I hope that he enjoys a retirement now that the tour is coming to an end.

This is now the sixth or seventh time that I have moved a nomination for Patsy McGlone, and I am proud to do so today. Notwithstanding the quality of the other candidates, I am sure — many others will agree with me — that Patsy McGlone is the most qualified candidate to be Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He is the most experienced Chair that we have. He has been an elected representative for more than 30 years, proudly serving the people of Mid Ulster in south Derry and east Tyrone. He has been a Member of the Assembly for more than 21 years. He has done that role with diligence, commitment to cross-community politics and commitment to the kind of progressive, pro-reconciliation values that have always marked my party out. He would be the first fluent Gaeilgeoir to take a seat in the Speaker's Chair of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Given that we are now in a Chamber that, for the first time, can do simultaneous translation for Irish speakers and given that the Irish-speaking community is moving forward and expanding into new communities and new speakers in a way that we are all excited about, it would mark a really profound moment to elect Patsy, a fluent Gaeilgeoir, to the Chair.

I say that notwithstanding the quality of the other candidates. We will not be supporting them; we will be supporting Patsy. However, whoever is elected to the Chair, we look forward to working with them positively.

This is a day of glee and gloating for republicanism as the DUP leadership returns, after its seismic climbdown, to implement the Union-dismantling protocol. Despite all the fake news and attempts to spin defeat as victory, this is a climbdown of monumental proportions. It is quite clear that not one word of the protocol has changed — not one word. Northern Ireland remains under the EU's customs code, which decrees GB to be a foreign country. That is of momentous constitutional significance in itself. We continue to be ruled, in significant part, by foreign laws. In annex 2 of the protocol, all 287 of those EU laws remain in place in perpetuity, beyond the reach of the Stormont brake, and therefore under the supervision of the European Court of Justice.

We still have an Irish Sea border. If the Irish Sea border was gone, we would be dismantling, not continuing to build, border posts, yet millions of pounds are being spent in that pursuit. Under EU legislation, Northern Ireland is still determined as EU territory. None of that has changed.

On article 6, despite the weasel attempts in the Donaldson deal to diminish its importance, it is still in suspension and, with it, so is one of the twin pillars of this Union. Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom is not restored. We are still constitutionally a condominium, ruled in part by UK laws and in part by foreign laws that we do not make, and all of that with a partitioning border down the Irish Sea.

It is little wonder that this morning, in 'The Belfast Telegraph', Sam McBride described the deal as "the Windsor Framework in drag". That is exactly what it is. The Windsor framework was not good enough to bring the DUP back to vote in a Speaker, nor is this deal, and to roll over now and become protocol implementers is beyond comprehension. I accept that there are many in the DUP — some of them are on the Benches today — who are very unhappy with this course of action and agree with many of the things that I am saying, and I urge them to continue to stand strong. I suggest that the moment that we vote to elect a Speaker, that is a vote to proceed to implement the protocol. That is a step that should not be taken.

Of course, as it turns out, there were many for whom opposition to the protocol was just bluff and bluster, and none more than Mr Poots. This is the man who told us that there had to be seismic changes to the protocol. It turns out that, for Mr Poots, seismic means the promise — not even the delivery — of the reduction of green-lane physical checks from 5% to zero. That is not even in the legislation that was passed this week. For Mr Poots, that is seismic. Wow. To everyone else, it is closer to infinitesimal.

So, from Mr Seismic to Mr Speaker: oh, the irresistible lure of office for those whose principles are expendable. For Mr Poots, the speakership is the fruit of the poison tree, and no good can come of it.

Mr Acting Speaker, I wish both you and the outgoing Speaker well on your retirement. The Speaker is my colleague in West Belfast; I wish you both well.

After two years of divisive posturing from the DUP, working-class people are in no mood for the cynical fanfare that surrounds Stormont's resurrection. If I was a member of the DUP sitting here today, I would be utterly embarrassed by the entire debacle. You should be embarrassed that striking public-sector workers have forced you back to work, that you have delivered next to nothing on the protocol and that you have blatantly lied to the base you claim to represent. You put your political interests before workers' pay, public services and the day-to-day struggles that face working-class communities, and you have been found out.

Over the past few days, I have been on picket lines with striking education and transport workers, who are out because the return of Stormont does not guarantee the pay rise that they need and deserve. They need to be paid now, and all workers need to be ready to challenge the new Executive to deliver their demands. People Before Profit has been consistent in calling for the DUP to end its boycott, but it would be remiss of me not to outline our firm opposition to the latest Tory/DUP pact. It can be described as a Tory love letter to the DUP. It is couched in the language of the DUP. It is meant as a reward for its divisive antics, and the Tories are signaling that the DUP was justified in holding people to ransom for two years, that the concerns of unionism should be elevated above everything else and that the feelings of hard-line loyalists, including paramilitaries, are there to be pandered to.

More importantly, the deal contains absolutely nothing that will tackle the issues facing our communities, including poverty, pay, growing inequalities, hard-up schools or our collapsing NHS. In fact, the deal signifies the exact opposite. In addition, there is talk of water charges and raised rates. The deal also recommits to the devolution of corporation tax, which parties here have been itching to slash for years. Establishment parties that have heralded the changes of a new Executive must think that the public has collective amnesia. They think that their spin, which is lapped up and flung out by the media, will make us forget the failures of previous Administrations. They think that the talk of a new dawn will hide the old divisive and regressive politics at its very core. We remember that the DUP, Sinn Féin and Alliance implemented welfare reform in a previous bid to slash corporation tax, punishing the poor and the vulnerable to give handouts to the rich. Shameful.

Workers will remember that those parties cut their pay and gutted public services when Stormont last sat. The people who are languishing on health waiting lists will remember who inflicted those cuts and who opened the door to the slow privatisation of our NHS. Those waiting on a home will remember who refused to build homes and handed land to private, wealthy developers. The communities around Lough Neagh and in the Sperrins and elsewhere will remember who incentivised the destruction of our environment and poisoned our waterways. Therefore, our message is that there should be no honeymoon period for the new Executive, and trade unionists must get ready, as they were this morning, to breathe down the neck of this Administration.

While the unionist establishment continues to wrangle over the protocol, unionism remains in terminal decline. The Tories have copper-fastened the Stormont brake, enshrining the communal veto and reinforcing the system of sectarianism that has afflicted the Stormont institutions for years. The instability that that will cause will shake not only the foundations of Stormont but the foundation of the northern state itself. Despite what the Tories have outlined in the deal, the democratic aspiration for a united Ireland will not be stymied by imperial diktat. It is for the people of Ireland to decide. People Before Profit will continue to fight for a socialist path to a united Ireland that sees all people from all backgrounds in its spoils and the politics of sectarianism left in the past.

The Tory/DUP love-letter deal is not just about strengthening the Union, it is about strengthening its militaristic aims. It will attempt to incorporate the North further into British military defence systems as the Tories beat the drum of war louder and louder.

Therefore, the new Executive will have a question to answer: will they roll over as the Tories drag us into war in Europe and the Middle East, or will they really stand for peace on the global stage? People have to know that the mass Palestine solidarity movement that has exploded across the world and on this island and will not tolerate the North having any part to play —

Will the Member bring his remarks to a conclusion, please?

— in funding the apartheid state in Israel. More on that later.

I call Mr Mike Nesbitt.

[Pause.]

I call Mr Mike Nesbitt.

Sorry, Mr Acting Speaker, I did not hear you there.

I just want to say a few words in praise of the outgoing Speaker. When I came here in 2011 as a rookie Ulster Unionist, I encountered a well-seasoned republican in Mr Maskey, and I quickly came to realise, to my surprise, that we could work together harmoniously, much more so than in our previous encounters as interviewee and interviewer at Ulster Television. Mr Maskey used to come in, particularly on a Thursday night, for the politics, and I remember that, one night, the editor whispered in my earpiece, "If you push him any harder, he might deck you"

[Laughter.]

But he never did.

Here, we served together on the Committee for the Office of First Minister and deputy First Minister, scrutinising the work of the Executive Office. It is a matter of record that, over the past nearly 26 years, that was the only Committee that ever single-handedly put legislation through the House. That was the Northern Ireland Public Service Ombudsman Bill, which became an Act. It took a long time. As Chair, I had the pleasure as of steering the last few passages. It was not without its challenges to republican ideology, but Mr Maskey took a practical and pragmatic view that the prize was worth paying a little price for and that the price did not compromise his principles. I very much appreciate what you did, Mr Maskey, in steering the Sinn Féin group through that Committee.

I think that we all can agree on what Mr Maskey did in that Chair: the neutrality, the friendliness and the professionalism. Of course, we do not see a lot of the work of the Speaker, which includes meeting and greeting and promoting this institution. A little while ago, I was asked by the Northern Ireland Centre of Competitiveness whether I would entertain a worldwide global president whom they were flying into Belfast in the hope of attracting an annual conference. They were to come up here one Friday morning, and I sent a message to Mr Maskey, "Could you join us at 11 o'clock for a cup of coffee in the Members' Bar?" The answer came back straight away: "No, I will not. You come here, and I will entertain you in the Speaker's Office". That is what he did, and it was a much more impressive greeting than I could have offered upstairs. Not only did we spend a lot of time chatting in the Speaker's Office but, when I said that I was now taking this worldwide president on a tour of the Building, Mr Maskey came with us. At one point, we left Mr Maskey and the president in the Senate Chamber where they spent over 15 minutes, as he charmed her into agreeing to bring that conference to Northern Ireland. That is the sort of thing that Mr Maskey has been doing for the past three years, which we have not seen, but it has been incredibly important for this institution, particularly at a time when, in the court of public opinion, we do not always necessarily score a straight 10.

Mr Maskey, I thank you, and I wish you every success and happiness as you open the next chapter.

I finish, Mr Acting Speaker, by expressing regret that Mr Allister would not take an intervention. For those wondering what I was going to say, it was simply this: if his analysis is correct, why has he ended his boycott of this Building?

Members, since no other Members have indicated that they wish to speak, I intend now to put the Question.

Question put, That Mr Edwin Poots be Speaker of this Assembly. The Assembly divided:

Members, I noticed, during our previous proceedings, that, at this point, everybody feels the need to fall silent; in fact, you can still communicate.

[Laughter.]

<SPAN STYLE="font-style:italic;"> Ayes 67; Noes 9

AYES

NATIONALIST:

Dr Archibald, Mr Baker, Mr Boylan, Ms Brogan, Mr Delargy, Ms Dillon, Ms Dolan, Ms Ennis, Ms Ferguson, Ms Flynn, Mr Gildernew, Ms Hargey, Mr Kelly, Ms Kimmins, Mr McAleer, Mr McGuigan, Mr McHugh, Ms Á Murphy, Mr C Murphy, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr O'Dowd, Mrs O'Neill, Miss Reilly, Mr Sheehan, Ms Sheerin

UNIONIST:

Mr Bradley, Mr Brett, Mr Brooks, Ms Brownlee, Mr K Buchanan, Mr T Buchanan, Mr Buckley, Ms Bunting, Mrs Cameron, Mrs Dodds, Mr Dunne, Mr Easton, Mrs Erskine, Ms Forsythe, Mr Frew, Mr Givan, Mr Harvey, Mr Irwin, Mr Kingston, Mrs Little-Pengelly, Mr Lyons, Mr Middleton, Mr Poots, Mr Robinson, Ms Sugden

OTHER:

Ms Armstrong, Mr Blair, Ms Bradshaw, Mr Brown, Mr Dickson, Mr Donnelly, Ms Eastwood, Ms Egan, Mr Honeyford, Mrs Long, Ms McAllister, Mr McReynolds, Mr Mathison, Mr Muir, Ms Mulholland, Ms Nicholl, Mr Tennyson

Tellers for the Ayes: Mr Brooks, Ms Forsythe

NOES

NATIONALIST:

Mr Durkan, Ms Hunter, Mr McCrossan, Mr McGlone, Mr McGrath, Ms McLaughlin, Mr McNulty, Mr O'Toole

UNIONIST:

Mr Allister

Tellers for the Noes: Mr McCrossan, Mr McGrath

Question accordingly agreed to. Resolved (with cross-community support): That Mr Edwin Poots be Speaker of this Assembly.

I formally declare that Mr Edwin Poots has been elected as Speaker, and I invite him to take the Chair.

(Mr Speaker [Mr Poots] in the Chair)

First of all, I thank Mr Alan Chambers, who has presided over the election of a Speaker for the seventh time. Anybody who knows anything about their Bible will know that seven is the number of perfection, so we actually got it right this time. You will not have a perfect Speaker, I can assure you, but you will have one who will do their best to ensure the smooth running of the House with impartiality and integrity.

I want to acknowledge the contribution of our outgoing Speaker, Mr Maskey. Mr Maskey came to this place in 1998, and Mr Kelly and I are still here from 1998. We were the three last people standing.

When I came here, I was a relatively young person in my early thirties; those gentlemen were more middle-aged.

[Laughter.]

Nonetheless, Mr Maskey and I engaged in many a boxing match in the Chamber and in Committees over the years, but we came to an understanding of each other, and it ended up that we were able to work together progressively on many issues. In his contribution as Speaker, he conducted that role with complete fairness and impartiality. I commend him for the work that he did as Speaker over the past four years, sometimes in difficult and trying circumstances, but, nonetheless, conducted with professionalism. I wish him well as he retires, and I hope that he has a healthy and happy retirement.

I recognise that, as I move into the office of Speaker, it is a very different role from the one that I have held. In many ways, I am one of those people who has always been up for the battle and the fight and ready to get in there for the challenge. Now, I have to calm it all down, so it is quite a challenge for me, I have to say, as

[Laughter]

a bit of a poacher turned gamekeeper, but, hopefully, that will all go well. I look forward to working with all of you in the Assembly. Considerable progress has been made over the past number of months, and I am absolutely delighted that we have been able to get the Assembly up and running again, because there is so much to do out there for the public. I trust that we will all put our shoulders to the wheel to do that to the best of our ability. I truly hope that the Assembly is never suspended again and that it will move forward together in the best interests of everyone in Northern Ireland. We are mindful of the huge range of issues that is out there. I will seek to be a facilitator to an Executive that, I sincerely hope, will really drive things forward. Therefore, our focus will be on getting down to business and getting down to it quickly. I commend the Executive to, next week, get on with making really important decisions, because that needs to happen.

In that context, to all who voted for me, and those who did not, thank you for your participation today. I look forward to working with all of you over the next number of years, God giving us health to do so.

A number of Members have indicated that they wish to respond. I remind Members that they may speak only once in the course of the debate. Members have up to three minutes in which to speak.

Mr Speaker, it strikes me immediately, of course, that I am the first to address you in the post. It is with pleasure that I extend to you congratulations and very good wishes on behalf of those of us on the Alliance Party Benches and that I do so on a day on which we make progress in this place — the progress that the people of Northern Ireland have wanted, waited for and needed for the past two years. Reflecting on your previous comments, Mr Speaker, I cannot help making a comparison with our previous exchanges in this place, when you were in your role as Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, and I was here in my role as party spokesperson. Of course, we disagreed once or twice — a week

[Laughter]

— either at plenary Question Time or in the Committee. I am making lighthearted comments, Mr Speaker, because I also want to say to the House and publicly that, in truth, in that role, you were always available and accessible to members of the Committee, whatever their politics or the disagreement at hand, and it was appreciated. I have no doubt that you will bring those characteristics of approachability, accessibility and good working relations to the role of Speaker and add to that your knowledge of this place, first of all, and your publicly declared support for devolution and the success of the Assembly.

I will close on two points. First, if you do not mind, I will add to the comments made earlier about the previous Speaker, Alex Maskey. I put on record what a pleasure it was for me to work with him on the Assembly Commission.

I have no doubt that you will have the same good and positive working relationships with all Members. It is my and our sincere wish that you have the full support of Members across the Assembly to conduct business here properly and to make progress on the legislation and the delivery that the people whom we represent are waiting for and deserve.

Although we did not vote for you, Mr Speaker, we are delighted to see you in the Chair. Many congratulations. It is now, after six or seven times of asking, an immense relief to all of us to finally elect a new Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Like Mr Blair, I have had, over the last few years, many political differences with you, the new Speaker, but there has always been an acknowledgement of your seriousness, your commitment to Northern Ireland and, indeed, your pragmatism when it comes to the issues that face us. I hope that you bring those same qualities to the Chair.

Might I say something, with a little special pleading, if you will permit me? Given that it looks as though — we do not yet know — our party will be the only one in opposition, I gently point out to you, Mr Speaker, that there are eight of us-uns and 80 of them-uns, so give us a fair crack of the whip when you are in the Chair. I repeat my congratulations, Mr Speaker. Notwithstanding the fact that we supported another candidate today, we are very pleased to see you in the Chair. We wish you well.

Thanks very much for giving way. As the other candidate, I add my congratulations to the Speaker or, as I know him, Edwin. He and I go back a number of years to our time in local government and local government organisations. I like to think that, over that time, we built a respect and, indeed, a friendship with each other, where we could sit down and talk politics readily and respectfully and achieve solutions. I know that that ability to achieve solutions and, hopefully, bring people together in a conducive atmosphere, as we face into a new future with a new Assembly, will be the incentive to move this place forward, act in the best interests of all our people and work for all our people together. Congratulations to you, Mr Speaker — Edwin, as I know you.

That was a very indulgent intervention that you allowed, Mr Speaker.

[Laughter.]

I will not say anything more. All the best in the role.

Mr Speaker, as a Member, I respect the office of Speaker, and, accordingly, since you now fill it, I wish you well in that regard. To the disappointment of the protocol implementers, I will be here as a thorn in their side, as I have had to be in the past. When it comes to that, Mr Speaker, I will probably test your patience and certainly test your impartiality, but, when I test you, just remember that it was 1,000 TUV transfers that elected you to the House on the fifth count in South Belfast.

I now formally congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on being successfully elected to the position that you hold. I trust that you will give all Members of the House the latitude that you always wished a Speaker would give you when you were a Member and that, when the boundaries are tested, you will be forgiving. I have no doubt that you will do that to all of us in equal measure, not showing any favouritism to this side of the House.

It is worth putting on the record my disappointment at the very personal and bitter contribution from Mr Allister. He is an angry man, and I can understand why: he has achieved absolutely nothing — nothing — in order to have the institutions restored. In his contribution, he was again incapable of responding to the challenge by my party leader to provide any evidence of what he has achieved, because it is nothing.

[Interruption.]

I understand why he is angry and shouting at me. His political career has been marked by failure. Even in the DUP, he was a poor substitute for the late Dr Paisley. He cost us votes when he was our candidate for Europe. When he stood to be a candidate for Westminster, he failed again, to Ian Paisley. By his own test — we measure him against his test — for the election to the Assembly, he said that it would be a failure if he returned on his own, and he is here on his own. His test, which he set, he failed because he is a political failure, a dead-end unionist, when we in the Democratic Unionist Party are on the front foot leading for unionism, and we will build the unionist community, not divide it like the Member for North Antrim.

I wish you well on your election as Speaker. At the umpteenth time of trying, we have eventually passed that hurdle. While today is a monumental day, a historic day and a day of change, we will have little time for patting ourselves on the back or bickering among ourselves, because the public have an expectation that we will get on with the job and deliver for them. We know there are big challenges ahead of us. We are up for that challenge. That will involve lively debates, but it will also involve us working together to achieve all the things that our electorate wants us to achieve.

I wish you well in adjudicating those debates. I am sure you will do so with impartiality and with a tone of respect. We will certainly be up for reflecting that, and I hope that it is reflected across the Chamber. Once again, congratulations and best of luck for the time ahead.

I thank all the Members who have spoken.