Mr Hugh Delargy: On behalf of the Committee of Selection, Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank you sincerely for the consideration you have given to this difficulty, and I want to assure you that the Committee of Selection will pay the most respectful attention to your guidance.
Mr Hugh Delargy: It is late. Therefore, the House will not be privileged to hear the wonderful speech that I prepared. Instead, speaking slightly at a tangent to the Bill, I should like to address a few words with respect and good will to all hon. Members, whether pro- or anti-abortionists. To the first group I suggest that if anyone objects to this or, indeed, any amending Bill to the 1967 Abortion Act, he...
Mr Hugh Delargy: Will my right hon. Friend bear two matters in mind? First, does he appreciate that it will require little effort to introduce legislation of this sort, because in a previous Parliament similar legislation passed all its stages in this House and was defeated in the Lords, and then came the General Election and we had to start the process all over again? Secondly, will he bear in mind that all...
Mr Hugh Delargy: He lost the next election there.
Mr Hugh Delargy: And the strikes played their part.
Mr Hugh Delargy: You will be relieved to hear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I do not propose to speak for more than a few minutes. The Secretary of State will be equally relieved to hear that I have no solution whatever to offer of the Ulster problem. In fact, I had no intention of speaking in the debate or even of listening to it until about lunchtime today. I consider that at this moment speeches made about...
Mr Hugh Delargy: I regret to say that I do not know. I am not as well acquainted with Stormont as the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Hugh Delargy: During my time in the House of Commons—I think that I have been a Member for longer than anyone present in the Chamber tonight—I cannot remember hearing any Member from Northern Ireland asking that these questions be answered.
Mr Hugh Delargy: I do not remember one of them. I have said this time and again. I have written it many times. I have never previously been corrected on this point. We were told that it was the affair of Stormont and not of this House, in spite of the fact that the Government of Ireland Act said quite specifically that ultimately the responsibility for Northern Ireland rested here. Therefore, the two main...
Mr Hugh Delargy: I do not wish to be deflected from what I am saying about Sunningdale. I am not discussing at present what the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border did on other occasions. If the hon. Gentleman would care to have a word with me after the debate, I should be quite agreeable to that, but I shall not be drawn away from what I am now saying. The Sunningdale Agreement was accepted by the...
Mr Hugh Delargy: The miners' strike was an industrial strike. I cannot see the parallel between the strike of the miners in Britain and this strike in Northern Ireland, the leaders of which said was called on account of the Sunningdale Agreement. They wanted to smash the Sunningdale Agreement and they were not in favour of power sharing.
Mr Hugh Delargy: I am sorry that I have spoken for longer than I had intended. I am not very optimistic about the Convention—not after Sunningdale—and I have never been optimistic about Northern Ireland. When my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) said that he originally thought that British troops were going to Northern Ireland as part of a fire brigade operation lasting three or four...
Mr Hugh Delargy: I remember once saying in this House that the only question one was allowed to ask on Northern Ireland was about the position in Harland and Wolff. We are back where we started. When my right hon. Friend is carrying out the rescue operation and having consultations with management, shop stewards and others, will he look into the disgraceful discrimination in employment practised in Harland...
Mr Hugh Delargy: I shall be brief for two excellent reasons. My first reason is that the clause of my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins) is so well drafted and is so obviously necessary that I am sure all hon. Members must be in agreement with it. Secondly, speeches have already been made to add to the excellence of his case. I refer particularly to the speech of my honourable neighbour, the...
Mr Hugh Delargy: It is so difficult to remember constituency changes. I seem to remember that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) came from a seaport at one time which was made immortal in Treasure Island. However, he now represents somewhere else, and I am not so familiar with the geography. It was a terrible disaster which occurred in Flixborough and it attracted the attention of...
Mr Hugh Delargy: I have great respect for the hon. and gallant Gentleman, as he knows, but he referred to the voting by the Ulster Unionists on the 1973 Act. I am speaking strictly from memory but does he not agree that he was in a minority of Ulster Unionists who voted against it?
Mr Hugh Delargy: I agree with my hon. Friend. I ask the Secretary of State to say how many barricades were removed by the RUC.
Mr Hugh Delargy: How many barricades were removed by the RUC?
Mr Hugh Delargy: How many?
Mr Hugh Delargy: How many?