Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Lady is nothing if not persistent. She quizzed me extensively about that matter at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday. As I said to her then, we have received the Chief Constable’s recommendations and are considering them across Government. She is right to say that we are stepping up no-deal planning, as the Prime Minister stated. It is also worth saying that the deal agreed by the Cabinet at Chequers is one that works for the whole United Kingdom. It is very important, from a Union point of view, that we have a deal with the European Union that ensures that our red lines for Northern Ireland of no hard border on the island of Ireland and no border on the Irish sea are adhered to.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Is the Secretary of State confirming effectively to the House that the financial shortfall identified by the Chief Constable will now be met by additional resources, as required by the Chief Constable when he met the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee?

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Gentleman is also persistent in his questioning. As I said last Wednesday in front of the Select Committee, we have received the Chief Constable’s report and are looking at it.

The emergency powers under section 59 of the 1998 Act are intended to be used only in the absence of more orthodox legal authority. I do not consider those emergency powers to be appropriate for managing Northern Ireland finances for a second financial year.

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[Karen Bradley]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we examine all such points. If he wishes to write to me specifically on the instances he has learned about, I will be more than happy to have officials in my Department speak to those in the NICS to establish what has happened. We are very clear where the money needs to be spent. It was agreed in the confidence and supply arrangement, and we are taking the steps that we need to take to ensure the money is spent as intended.

I want to be very clear that this Bill is not legislating for the £410 million. That was approved by Parliament for release as part of the UK Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) (No.2) Bill, while this Bill gives the NICS the authority to allocate that funding. More detail on funding allocations is contained in the supporting Command Paper. Just to be clear, we are following on from the estimates process on which we voted in the Chamber last week. On Tuesday evening, we voted to make sure that the Northern Ireland block grant was properly allocated. Today, we are in effect carrying out the estimates process that would normally be done at Stormont. In the absence of Stormont, we are dealing with this through primary legislation here.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate what the Secretary of State is saying, and yes, by and large, that is exactly what is happening, but it is not quite as benign as that. The Secretary of State has personally signed off a change in the budget by which £100 million has been taken from capital spend to revenue spend. Civil servants are of course very delighted about that, because some of it will go towards redundancy packages for them, but that is not the point. The Secretary of State has taken the decision on advice, so why does she not take the other decisions that are necessary to make Northern Ireland function?

[Karen Bradley]

I said that the hon. Gentleman was persistent. The decision to allocate spending from the capital budget to the revenue budget was taken to make sure that the budget balanced. It was taken after consultation with all the main parties in Northern Ireland, which all understood that that decision was taken to ensure that the budget balanced and that additional revenue raising from the people of Northern Ireland was not required.

Let me turn to the second important issue to which I would like to draw the attention of the House. As well as placing all Northern Ireland Audit Office audits and value for money reports and the associated departmental responses in the Libraries of both Houses—to be accessible and visible to all interested Members and Committees—I will also write to the main Northern Ireland political parties to highlight the publication of the reports and encourage them to engage with the findings. This is as robust a process as is possible, but the best form of overall accountability and scrutiny of Northern Ireland public finances would of course be that undertaken by a fully functioning Executive and a sitting Assembly in Northern Ireland.

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[Tony Lloyd]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State, but there is a difficult question about the capacity of the Northern Ireland civil service to make decisions. The Court ruled in the case of a controversial planning decision that is no longer deemed to be legitimate unless there is a further appeal by whomsoever, but this goes way beyond that case, as Northern Ireland Members have said. We need certainty about how money can be spent, what budgetary headings in the Bill can be transformed into practical decisions and whether the civil service has the capacity to make those decisions.

This is not an abstract, theoretical game. It will be a day-to-day game with the possibility of judicial review taking place on any and every occasion. We need certainty. In the mini-budget in March, the Secretary of State talked about seeking legal advice on how the money can be spent, but we need early certainty on the public record so that civil servants know what their capacity is. Beyond civil servants, we need certainty so that the people of Northern Ireland know how their money can be spent, because difficult and time-sensitive issues are looming.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has mentioned the north-south connector on many occasions. The decision in principle has already been taken, so in one sense that ought to be a relatively easy decision, but providing the moneys to make the connector work requires decision making by individuals or a structure that cannot subsequently be challenged in the courts. That is enormously important.

I join the hon. Members for North Down (Lady Hermon) and for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) in their challenge to the Secretary of State on the role of the PSNI. All other things being equal, our country will leave the European Union on 29 March. In her statement earlier, the Prime Minister said that a range of possibilities were being considered, including a no deal outcome. The PSNI Chief Constable has made it clear that that no deal outcome would require further staffing—a serious increase in numbers. I can assure the Secretary of State that that is time-sensitive because it is not possible, even between now and the end of March, to recruit and train 300 new members of the PSNI. It is important to recognise that. It is time-sensitive and, actually, the time is already long overdue.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate what the shadow Secretary of State has put on the record. It is important in terms of the lack of numbers. Under the Patten recommendation, police are down by 1,000, which needs to be rectified. He is right that it will take time. What worries me most—I hope that he agrees—is that, in the top team of the PSNI, six of the nine senior officers are currently on temporary contracts because the Policing Board is not functioning. That needs to be solved immediately for the good governance of policing in Northern Ireland.

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[Ian Paisley]

The point that the right hon. Gentleman is making is compounded by the fact that each month, the Police Service of Northern Ireland loses 50 officers for the very reason that he identified. For a force the size of the PSNI, that loss is hugely significant, because we are not getting in the experienced officers we need with the skills to deal with the issues. Does he agree with the point that the Chief Constable made to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee earlier this month, which was that nationalists and nationalist leaders in Northern Ireland have to step up to the plate and encourage their community to join the police and to see it as a career for all the community?

[Sir Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. If we are going to have a community police force, and we created the PSNI for that reason—we abolished the RUC and created the PSNI—it has to be a force of all the people. For that reason, I completely agree that politicians on the nationalist side have to step up to the plate. Let us be honest about it: there are Catholics serving in the PSNI, but they are continually under threat.

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[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the Bill tonight because it secures the money we voted to Departments to keep them running until the end of July and assures them that the full funding will be available until the end of the financial year.

We accept, however, that this is not a satisfactory arrangement. Issues such as budget allocations, how the money is spent and the monitoring of how it is spent all require detailed examination by politicians—that is how we get the accountability that should attach to any budget—but we can see from attendance tonight that there is no massive interest in the House. Indeed, there is a certain irony. For the past year, sitting in the Chamber, I have seen Member after Member stand up and say how concerned he or she is about the Brexit negotiations and the impact that Brexit would have on Northern Ireland, the impact that it would have on the Good Friday agreement, and the impact that it would have on community relations and the people of Northern Ireland. However, when it comes to the budget for the people of Northern Ireland, they are nowhere to be seen. I do not think that that irony is lost on the people of Northern Ireland. The pseudo-concern that we have heard from the Labour party during the Brexit debate represents little more than an opportunity to score political points and, conveniently, to use Northern Ireland as a means of arguing against the referendum result and the people who wanted to take us out of the European Union.

[Ian Paisley]

Labour Members who are so interested in whether there should be a hard or a soft border could have put on record their concern about the number of officers who have been recruited to the Northern Ireland border service and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to deal with these issues, and how those officers have been recruited, but hark! I hear nothing from the Labour Benches.

[Sammy Wilson]

There are plenty of other aspects of the budget that could have been related to the concerns that Labour Members have been expressing. In that regard, Scottish National party Members are no different—they too have expressed great concerns.—and the same applies to the Liberal Democrats, who are nowhere to be seen. At least some Labour Members are present, but none of the rest has turned up.

This is not a satisfactory arrangement. I think I should use some of my speech to talk about how we got here, why we are here, and who is responsible for the fact that our budget is being dealt with in this way in the House of Commons.

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[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is one of the things that has apparently fallen into a black hole, because there has been no real explanation why the position has shifted from the situation under the previous Labour Government, when we had direct rule as a consequence of the collapse of politics in Northern Ireland. Under the current state of affairs, we effectively have direct rule, or at least direct rule-style decisions from this place, yet MPs and Assembly Members do not have the capacity to scrutinise decisions. That cannot be allowed to continue, but it has continued for over 18 months.

Over those 18 months, there has been extraordinary and spectacular inactivity on the Government’s part either to provide a greater degree of accountability or to try to bring about the restoration of the institutions in Northern Ireland. It seems as though pushing things down the road and kicking the can into the distance have been the Government’s preferred modus operandi, which is not good for the people of Northern Ireland or for governance across the whole UK.

[Ian Paisley]

I was always taught that the purpose of the study of history was to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. One of the mistakes made in the 1950s and ’60s was that this place became disinterested in what was happening on the ground in Northern Ireland, and we know what happened then. If we do not learn from the past, we will, through the disinterest of this place, repeat what happened then.

[Owen Smith]

That is a good point well made, and it applies not only to Northern Ireland, although it is particularly important there. Post devolution, the different constituent parts of the United Kingdom are becoming strangers, and there is all too often insufficient understanding of, or interest in, the differences in policy and practice between the different parts, which is not good for our democracy. That is potentially not good for peace or for the prosperity of the people of Northern Ireland—people who have suffered more than most in our country.

There is another lesson of the past that we must learn. It is a more recent lesson from the previous Labour Government, and former Prime Minister Tony Blair deployed the phrase on many occasions. In Northern Ireland, we have to keep the bicycle moving forwards, otherwise it falls over. In recent months, the bicycle seems to be in serious danger of being left on its side on the roadside, because there is no sense of forward momentum in the peace process. There is no sense that the Government have a concerted plan to get things up and running.

We have repeatedly called on the Prime Minister to get more stuck into the talks in Northern Ireland. I think that she is planning to go there next week, and I know that there is a British-Irish intergovernmental conference coming up, but such things have been called for endlessly over the best part of two years, and this is too little, too late. We may well be reaching the point where something starts to go wrong, because the truth is that just as the gaps between the political parties are growing wider, so too are decisions being left unmade.

We have already heard about the need for health reform. I cannot remember how many years ago the Bengoa report came out, but we have seen no movement towards its implementation. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), the Opposition spokesman, mentioned some of the pressing matters that desperately need to be dealt with, such as the Hart inquiry into historical institutional abuse. There are people who suffered horrendously at the hands of others in institutions and who are desperate to see justice and compensation. All parties agree that that is their right, but there has been no movement on that. There has also been no movement on the issue of pensions for victims, but there is a significant degree of agreement across political parties and across the House about how to take things forward. What about the legacy issues—not just the legacy inquests, but how we deal with the legacy of the troubles? Again, there is significant agreement in this House and across Stormont on how that should be taken forward, but we are not seeing the fruits of that agreement.

The problem with all that is that we run the risk that the apathy in Northern Ireland that many people have talked about will harden into cynicism. On this side of the Irish sea, it hardens into long-standing disinterest. That cannot be allowed to happen. I say to the Minister, the Conservative Front-Bench team and, indeed, to my own Front-Bench team that one of the lessons of history we need to learn is that if we have what is in effect direct rule, we cannot afford to be, as the right hon. Member for East Antrim put it, squeamish about calling it direct rule.

Even those of us in this place who are devolutionists must accept that enough will be enough at some point. What will we do if something goes wrong in Northern Ireland? What if there is a problem with safeguarding in a school? What if there is a crisis in the health service in Northern Ireland? What if a problem such as we have seen in Derry/Londonderry over recent days and hours expands into something more problematic? Who will the people of Northern Ireland hold to account? Who will they turn to for answers? Who will we ask questions of, to satisfy ourselves that the right decisions are being taken? The truth is that the Minister cannot answer those questions, because David Stirling and the civil servants in Northern Ireland are the only people holding the baby and carrying the can. That is not fair to them, and it is not good governance.

Not only am I a devolutionist, but I also served as an adviser under the previous Labour Government in the period when we called a spade a spade and realised that, in the absence of the political talks delivering the restoration of the institutions, we needed direct rule and to call it direct rule. My direct challenge to the Minister is to tell us why the Government are so concerned about acknowledging the situation. I would understand it if he were to stand up and say, “We think that would make it much more difficult to bring about the institutions.” I would understand if he stood there and said, “We think it would deeply damage relations with the Government of the Republic.” However, I suspect that he is not prepared to accept either of those things.

I suspect that the Minister is not prepared to say that we are going to see, as a corollary of introducing direct rule, lots and lots of BIIGCs, because that will not please some Members. However, I think we had 25 BIIGCs when the Assembly was last in abeyance. That would be the corollary, and it would be absolutely the right thing to do to ensure that the co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement—the UK Government and the Irish Republic’s Government—had a say in things. I do not understand why the Government are so loth to call a spade a spade, to acknowledge that we have direct rule by stealth and to get on with putting in place either direct rule or a plan to get us out of the twilight zone in which we currently reside. It is not good for governance; it is not good for the people of Northern Ireland; and, to put it plainly, it is not sustainable.

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[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

At the outset, I wish to take a moment to pay tribute to the life of one of my constituents, Mr William Dunlop, who sadly perished on Saturday in a motorcycle race. He was an immensely talented athlete who had won more than 108 races during his short career as a motorcycle racer. He had achieved four podium finishes at the TT course on the Isle of Man and had won several races in various of Northern Ireland’s most exciting road races. He hails from Ballymoney and from the Dunlop family; his uncle Joey was a world-renowned motorcycle racer and his father Robert perished a few years ago in front of William’s very eyes at a motorcycle race in the constituency of East Londonderry.

William Dunlop was a gentleman. He was a young man who had a young partner and a child on the way —another bouncing baby to enjoy. Unfortunately, he perished so tragically at the Skerries road race in north Dublin on Saturday evening. It puts into perspective the extinction that lies at one end of motorcycle sport and the ecstasy at the other. Over the same weekend, a colleague of his from County Antrim, Johnny Rea, was successful and has now won, in effect, four world motorcycle championships—this is the largest record and probably will never be achieved again. I want to take this moment to pay tribute to William Dunlop and to his family, as constituents of mine, for the great way in which they have handled this set of tragic circumstances. I hope that Members will take a moment to reflect on that in the days ahead, as the funeral occurs in Northern Ireland.

Turning to the matter before us, it is not sustainable to continue on the road that we are on. Northern Ireland requires effective and good government. I understand the challenges: if we introduce direct rule, it will bring about unintended consequences. There will be things the Government will end up doing that we will not like and there will be things the Labour party will introduce, as amendments, that we will not like. Those unintended consequences are a reality check, saying to us that we must get on with the restoration of devolution, which we all want. Alternatively, in the absence of even talks to achieve that, the Secretary of State and her Northern Ireland team have a duty to get on with the delivery of good government, and that means ministerial decisions. They can call it anything they like. We are not going to be squeamish about what it is called, but, in effect, the Secretary of State needs to take direct ministerial rule into Northern Ireland and start effectively governing.

We are told every day by the Government and by many others that they are committed to “the Belfast agreement being implemented in full.” We hear in the Brexit negotiations, and on devolution and the settlement in Northern Ireland, that the Belfast agreement must be implemented in full. But the fact is that it has broken; it is not being implemented in full. As we so eloquently heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly), one side has decided to break the Belfast agreement and single-handedly to stop the Northern Ireland Assembly, which is an integral part of that agreement, operating. If one part of it is not being implemented, the entire agreement is in jeopardy and we need to have ministerial decisions taken, and taken effectively. I call on the Secretary of State again to step up and make sure that these decisions are taken.

Some points have been made strongly tonight by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) about Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin want all these things done in Northern Ireland, and their Members come to Westminster and they lobby on the Terraces, but they are not prepared to take their seats in here and argue their case. It reminds me of the poem from 1791:

“We’re bought and sold for English gold—

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!”

Sinn Féin are acting in a roguish way. We have to face up to that, as do the public, and deal with that roguish element. We must almost embarrass them into taking on the role that they are elected for.

I have challenged the Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and again here tonight about the budget and how it is allocated. If she is able to reapportion £100 million from one section of the budget to another in order to make it balance its books, she is therefore able to take other decisions. I encourage her to do so, because those decisions are crucial for the good governance of Northern Ireland, which is one of her key priorities. We have mentioned issues to do with policing tonight, and I will not repeat them; suffice it to say that we need decisions taken immediately on policing.

On 15 May, our Northern Ireland Affairs Committee unanimously agreed a report about policing. Its members agreed the following:

“We recommend that the Secretary of State amends the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 to ensure that the Policing Board can exercise its statutory functions now”.

That was in May! We need the Secretary of State to introduce this immediately and to ensure that the Policing Board becomes functional and is therefore allowed to deal with the budgetary pressures, the recruitment issues and all the key needs of the PSNI.

Our report, which was on “Devolution and democracy in Northern Ireland—dealing with the deficit”, reads as a catalogue of shame. We should put some of that catalogue on the record, because Members have talked tonight about where decisions ought to be taken. Our report strenuously lists those issues, Department by Department. It sets out the fact that the industrial strategy consultation was completed in April 2017 but there is no Executive in place to consider it. The report on the small business rates relief was completed in 2016 during a consultation exercise, yet it has not been published because there is no Minister to publish it. The consultation on the apprenticeship levy closed on 23 December 2016, but funding has not been redirected into skills training. That is around £80 million from last year that has not been directed into the proper training and skills development that is critical so that Northern Ireland can rebalance its economy, and that is because a Minister is required to take that decision.

The Licensing and Registration of Clubs (Amendment) Bill was left at the Committee stage when the stumps were pulled on the Northern Ireland Assembly. That issue needs a budgetary decision and a Minister to take that decision. On the minimum unit price of alcohol, again, a Northern Ireland Minister is required to take that decision and introduce something that everyone else in the United Kingdom is enjoying, which is proper controls on that issue.

Our draft tourism strategy, developed by Tourism Northern Ireland, was presented to the Department of the Economy. We need a Minister in place and a budget in place to implement that strategy. A proposal was made to cut tourism VAT specifically in Northern Ireland to deal with the heavy competition that we face from the Republic of Ireland. The UK Government launched the consultation, and the implementation should then be in the hands of the devolved Government. It has not been implemented in Northern Ireland.

The development of Kilkeel harbour is a massive infrastructure project, but the lack of a Minister has caused the plans for the harbour to be halted. Yet we are about to try to take advantage of Brexit and the opportunities it offers for our fishing fleet when we are an independent seafaring nation. That project has run into the sand until we have a Minister to allocate around £450,000 to take it to the next stage.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I wrote recently to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs about the food processing grant scheme in Northern Ireland. The scheme has been of significant benefit to food producers in other parts of the United Kingdom, but has not yet been implemented in Northern Ireland. The permanent secretary and his team responded by saying:

“At this point in time, DAERA has no plans to launch the proposed scheme in the absence of a Minister. ”

That is yet another example of our biggest industry in Northern Ireland being disadvantaged by there being no decisions as a result of Sinn Féin’s boycott of Stormont.

[Ian Paisley]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Our key industry is agri-food products. We produce the best, tastiest and most traceable food on these islands. It is a multibillion-pound industry. Because it is traceable, it offers our kingdom food security. The issue that my right hon. Friend has put his finger on is explained clearly in the budget statement that we got from the Minister. The Northern Ireland budget for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs is almost going to double this year, from £39 million in 2017-18 to £77 million in 2018-19, but none of the critical decisions, one of which was highlighted by my right hon. Friend, can actually be processed. Money is set aside for agri-food development, but those decisions cannot be processed because there is no Minister in place to take the key decisions.

This is a catalogue of shame and there is no one here to cry about it. A few weeks ago, we were hauled over the coals by certain Members for social policy issues, yet here we are discussing issues of poverty, employment and people’s livelihoods, and I do not hear a murmur, yet it is a catalogue of shame.

I shall go on, because the catalogue is atrocious. The York Street interchange was a key issue that we put on the confidence and supply budget, and we are setting aside around £400 million to £500 million to develop it. That project is paused owing to a legal challenge. A substantial scheme that would usually have ministerial accountability and then be allowed to proceed cannot actually go ahead. That is critical, because it shows that a paralysis is developing in the Departments. We are going to end up with government by judicial review. In fact, we are going to have governance stopped by the people running the courts. I respect judges and I respect lawyers, but they are not elected to stop the process of government. The people have elected Members to this House and they expect the Government in this House to take these key decisions.

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the north-south interconnector. Planning permission was granted following an independent report prepared by the Planning Appeals Commission. That decision was made by the civil service in the absence of a Minister because it was in the public interest, but it has not been implemented because it needs the next step, in which the Minister actually signs off the decision. That project has now been paused. Many Members from various parties have talked about maintenance projects and capital spending projects for schools and hospitals. The report says, time after time, of a host of capital projects, that no Minister is able to sign the project off. It says:

“In absence of Minister, zero-based approach taken”

and that no capital funding will be assumed for capital projects, even the priority ones.

The A5 project is a huge road network scheme in the west of the Province. The project has been paused owing to a legal challenge, and a substantial scheme that would usually have ministerial accountability is not going to take place until a Minister is in place. The next phase of the school enhancement programme for the next four years is delayed because there is no Minister. This is what the civil servants are telling us. Ten school building schemes are currently at the design or feasibility stage, but they have all been paused until a Minister is in place to take the next decision. This cannot go on. This is a catalogue of shame.

I notice that the chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), is present; since he led us through the process and we published the report on 15 May, that section is now twice as thick, with other decisions backing up. Last month, the chief of police brought one of those decisions to us, along with all the issues related to policing. I asked why we have not had the legal aid improvements or changes that are being enjoyed by other citizens throughout the United Kingdom. Once again, those matters were consulted on in Northern Ireland and a report has been brought forward, but it cannot be signed off and implemented because we do not have a Minister to take the decision.

On community pharmacies and setting the tariff for drugs in Northern Ireland, I know that the Secretary of State would solve that issue for us at the drop of a hat, and she could solve it for us, but it is not going to be done because there is no Minister willing to step up to the plate and make the decisions. I could take hours going through the report and putting these matters on the record. I call on the Government to get on with it and start governing.

Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I am most grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for selecting the amendments. I want to say at once to our colleagues from Northern Ireland that I deliberately did not speak on Second Reading. They had some very important issues to raise on the budget and on decision making, but I hope they will understand that when it comes to this particular matter there is a UK issue at stake. Several hundred thousand British soldiers served in Northern Ireland throughout the troubles. The situation we are now confronted with raises issues that, while they are important to communities in Northern Ireland, go way beyond Northern Ireland.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

At the outset of this debate, I hope the right hon. Gentleman knows that Members on the Democratic Unionist party Benches absolutely salute the courage, the dedication and the record of servicemen from across all of the United Kingdom who gave of their time, their duty and, for too many, their lives in defence of Ulster. We salute them, sir, tonight.

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I am most grateful for that, and in particular for the tone in which it was expressed.

This is not just a UK issue, but it is a long-running UK issue. I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friends who have continued to raise it before the House: my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who originally promoted a Bill on the subject, and many others who served in the Province and who have contributed to debates on this issue. Through this Bill we are quite rightly giving large sums of money—hundreds of millions of pounds—to the Northern Ireland Departments, including the judicial Departments, for

“historical investigations and other legacy costs”.

I submit to the Committee that Parliament, even if there were no other concerns, would have every right to debate those sums, but there are other concerns here, which have been well articulated already in this Parliament.

Investigations under way in Northern Ireland are putting servicemen, servicewomen and police officers, whose duty it was to protect the public, almost on a par with terrorists who were content to murder and to maim. There cannot and should not be any moral equivalence between the two. It is now worse than that, however. We are now, through practice in Northern Ireland, discriminating against members of the security forces. Let me put it very simply: can it be morally right that a terrorist suspected of involvement in some of the worst atrocities, such as murdering four troopers in Hyde park and slaughtering their horses, should be given a letter of comfort guaranteeing immunity from prosecution, when those who have served the state to protect our people, in cases that have already been investigated, concluded and dismissed, are now seeing those cases reopened 30, 40 or more years after the event?

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

May I just say that the European Commission has agreed, in the joint report it signed in December, that there will be no hard border—no physical infrastructure on the border? It is also incumbent on us to make sure that the details of the Belfast agreement are met, which means ensuring that there is not a hard border.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Are any conversations going on with the taskforce with regards to the extension of the article 50 period? If so, will the Minister reiterate that that would be rejected totally and out of hand?

[Mr Vara]

As I said earlier, we will not be giving an ongoing commentary on all our meetings. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have the implementation period until the end of December 2020, and then the backstop agreement, but only if that is required under specific circumstances, and no more.

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[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend asks about expanding Heathrow and the impact it is going to have on regional airports, so may I just tell her one anecdote? When we made our first announcement about the in principle decision on the third runway at Heathrow, I went down to Cornwall and visited Newquay. People there were very pleased and welcomed the announcement, because of the ability it was going to give them to improve their local economy and expand their tourist industry, in particular.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Q13. Today, 123,000 individuals will visit community pharmacies across Northern Ireland. As the Prime Minister knows, the pharmacies are the front door and shop window of the health service, so telling them that the best way to solve their problem when they have a shortfall of more than £20 million is to write to a defunct Assembly is not an answer to their problem. What is she able to do for community pharmacists across Ulster today?

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise the value of community pharmacies. I think everybody across this House recognises the valuable work they do in communities, and indeed we have recognised it with our £100 million contribution to a health transformation fund. We have done and will continue to do what we can in the absence of an Executive to protect the delivery of vital public services. The Secretary of State’s budget for 2018-19 addresses the key pressures across public services, including the Northern Ireland health service, and she will be bringing forward legislation to put the budget position on a legal footing. I know that she will be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss this issue further.

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

Absolutely. Indeed, this is in line with respecting the work that has been done in the Northern Ireland Assembly, when it was constituted, on abortion rights. Working parties had started to look at the kind of medical regulation that might be required. Because there is no Assembly at the moment, those rules cannot be taken forward. However, even if there was an Assembly, OAPA—unless these provisions are repealed—would define that conversation.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady will of course know that when the Assembly debated this matter in 2016, it totally rejected the proposals she is making to the House. Does she agree with me that removing sections 58 and 59 means there would be no regulatory framework whatsoever in Northern Ireland to govern legal abortions. A massive hole would be left in the law in Northern Ireland, and there would be no right for medical practitioners to exercise their conscientious objections.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because it is helpful for people to understand how the DUP interprets the situation. I obviously interpret it differently. I look to what happened in the Assembly, when the DUP argued that the idea, in relation to fatal foetal abnormality, required proper consideration—the DUP did not reject it—and, indeed, set up a working party, which has just issued a report on how conditions leading to access to a medical abortion may occur. I therefore do not think that the idea that this was rejected out of hand by the Assembly is fair.

I would gently highlight to the hon. Gentleman that there have been two Assembly elections since then, so there is no guarantee that the view of the Assembly would be the same as the view in 2016. The argument he is making is precisely for the Northern Ireland Assembly, or indeed for the civil servants, to fill the gap, rather than against the gap being created, by repealing this UK legislation.

Let me be clear to other Members in the Chamber who may have heard the suggestion that there would not be any safeguards—

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[Ian Paisley]

Is the Secretary of State travelling to the point in her speech at which she acknowledges that what we are debating is not about Northern Ireland, because what is in front of us is a proposal that would fundamentally change forever the rules governing abortion across the whole United Kingdom? That should not be done in the heat of the moment following something that happened in a foreign jurisdiction—the Republic of Ireland.

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is important to note that the proposals that we are debating would have an implication for the whole United Kingdom, but I will restrict my remarks to Northern Ireland, if he will forgive me.

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[Tony Lloyd]

l am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman has just undermined the “no precondition” point made by the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley. However, I think that in that context it would be very helpful if the Secretary of State now said to all the parties in the Assembly, “Let us get around the table and discuss abortion law reform.” If this issue matters, it must transcend some of the other issues that have caused blockage in the recent past. That, I know, is a challenge for Northern Ireland Members, in this Westminster Parliament as well as in the Assembly, but it is a challenge that politicians must take up. We must see the Assembly up and running: that is fundamental.

I mentioned the case that is before the Supreme Court, and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West was absolutely right to ask the question that she put to the Secretary of State. I cannot anticipate how the Supreme Court will respond to the case, but it turns on the question of whether it is compatible with our obligations under the European convention on human rights for women who are bearing children as a result of rape or incest, or children with fatal foetal abnormalities or extreme malformations, not to have access to legal, safe abortion in Northern Ireland. Depending on the direction the Supreme Court takes in its decision, I think the Secretary of State and her Cabinet colleagues will have to consider very seriously how we could begin to address that at the Westminster level; it will be a Westminster issue, not a Stormont issue.

[Ian Paisley]

Does that not identify a huge flaw in this entire debate? Some 98% of all abortions carried out in the United Kingdom are carried out on pregnancies that could continue to full term. They are not inconvenient—or rather, they are not foetal abnormality cases or crisis pregnancies. They are unwanted pregnancies, and the provision that the hon. Gentleman is now saying should be introduced to Northern Ireland is not about the minority of difficult cases; it is about opening up termination of life to all. That is the fatal flaw in his argument, because that was rejected out of hand by all the parties in Northern Ireland.

[Tony Lloyd]

I am sorry, but I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that he was not listening to anything that I said. What I have said has been very clear: in the case of the Westminster Parliament having to respond to the Supreme Court, that would be in a very limited and restricted number of cases that are very clearly defined. I also said that it would be incumbent on the Stormont Assembly to legislate for the situation in Northern Ireland, and it would be up to the Assembly to decide the limitations on the law and its impact in Northern Ireland.

Devolution and Democracy

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I add to the record our commendation to the Committee Chairman for doing a splendid piece of work. He has brought together some very difficult issues into a single report that was unanimously agreed by the Committee. It was incredibly difficult work. The Committee endorses several political actions with regard to how committees should function in the current Assembly, even though it has broken down. It endorses the re-establishment of the Policing Board and states that we need ministerial decisions as quickly as possible. Those recommendations, carried unanimously by the Committee, should be implemented immediately. I hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister hear that loudly and allow for normal functions to continue.

I understand that the judgment by Justice Keegan, as mentioned on page 25 of our report, will be referred to the High Court on 25 June. Is the hon. Gentleman confident that we will get a quick, urgent decision from the bench, so that we will know whether direct rule will be implemented speedily or whether we will go back into the state of flux of negotiations?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. The report is strengthened by the fact that it was unanimously passed by our Committee, despite the fact that it was wide-ranging and contained some extremely difficult material. That is a tribute to the Committee, and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman.

I believe that the Keegan judgment is probably the start of a process and that there will be similar ones in the months ahead. I think that it should serve as a catalyst to Ministers to think about the framework to which I have referred and focus their attention on how they can start to make those crucial decisions to deal with annex 1 in the report, and the list is growing by the day. The hon. Gentleman has a particular interest in the judgment that has been made, but there will be more, I am sure, across Northern Ireland. Although I would not want to comment specifically on this one, I am confident that there will be several similar judgments ahead, and we need a strategy from the Government for dealing with them; it is clear that civil servants cannot make judgments of that sort because in our system those decisions are reserved to Ministers.

Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

Before the Secretary of State intervenes, let me quote her own words to her. She has said that the Government have responsibilities to

“provide better outcomes for victims and survivors—the people who suffered most during the troubles.”—[Official Report, 20 February 2018; Vol. 636, c. 33.]

She has an opportunity to make good on those words and legislate, and I hope she is going to tell us right now that she will do so.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am at a loss to understand what the point being made has to do with the RHI or rates in Northern Ireland.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) is speaking to the Second Reading, and I am sure he is consistent and will ensure he sticks to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Murrison]

The straight answer to the hon. Lady’s question is no, I have not formed a view on that. The absence of the institutions at Stormont is most definitely acting to reduce confidence in Northern Ireland as a place to invest. Indeed, the hon. Lady will recall our discussion of the electricity market earlier. All I can say—it has been repeated at length in this place and will continue to be—is that the solution is clear, and it is the restoration of the Executive and the Assembly.

[Ian Paisley]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has said he is not aware of any negative impact. The facts speak for themselves: Invest Northern Ireland has had its highest year of inward investment ever and unemployment is at an all-time low. It appears that, no matter how many people in Northern Ireland froth themselves up into a lather about how negative everything is, Northern Ireland continues to go forward because of the drive and thrift of good, hard-working people there.

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman has made that point time and again, and he is right to do so. I think the question was to do with the RHI, and I suspect that it has had a fairly small impact on the picture that he paints, and rightly so. He makes a good point, and it is worth emphasising, that we in this place have a duty, in the absence of an Executive and an Assembly that should be doing this, to big up Northern Ireland as a destination for FDI and for a place in which to grow jobs and prosperity. He is absolutely right to say that the picture has been transformed in recent years in Northern Ireland. I think it is true to say also that the restoration of the Executive would do wonders for that continuing picture. We must do everything in our power to ensure that that Executive is up and running without any further delay. I commend the Secretary of State for all her hard work in that respect. With that in mind, I shall end my remarks.

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[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I will make a few points about the Bill and pose a couple of questions to the Secretary of State. The well-made points of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) will ring around Northern Ireland tonight, as questions certainly need to be answered.

Will the Secretary of State let us know what provision the Bill makes to consult the representative body of RHI owners? That is particularly important, as such a provision was previously included in the Northern Ireland arrangements. Although there have been court cases and all sorts of other activity, there has not yet been a meaningful consultation, and it would be useful if one were to take place. I encourage the Secretary of State to make provision for a consultation. It would be time well spent, and would help people who have put money into the scheme for all the right reasons, but now find themselves getting the rather shoddy end of the stick.

On the calculations that appear in the schedule to the Bill, will the Secretary of State let us know whether the Government intend to examine the payment caps as prices alter during the year ahead? I would be happy to write to the Secretary of State’s ministerial team to ask them to examine the payments and accept that just putting them on a long finger is not the right answer. The payments have to be calculated in a way that gives at least some profit to the people who have invested in the scheme. Many of my colleagues and I are now receiving numerous calls from our constituents who invested in good faith, took up a Government offer and did not abuse that offer, but are now being turned over financially as a result of the scheme. That is not at all acceptable.

There are also issues to do with how the whole matter is reported publicly. Indeed, hon. Members have mentioned some public reports and the ongoing inquiry, and we look forward to seeing the inquiry’s conclusions. However, it was publicly reported in our newspapers on 16 March—I was in the United States of America, so I did not have the opportunity to speak in the House on this matter—that Teri Clifton of Ofgem, who gave evidence to the inquiry, said that she recalled an interesting telephone call between myself and herself. The chairman of the inquiry, Sir Patrick Coghlin, suggested to her that that was a very “intimidating” call. I take complete exception to that, not because of name-calling or accusations, but because of the facts.

The facts are that Teri Clifton alleged that I was part of a conference telephone call in November 2015 with a Mr and Mrs McNaughton, and representatives from Moy Park, Action Renewables and FG Plumbing and Heating. No such call took place. It is a lie to suggest that such a call took place. I was not involved in any conference call. Importantly, I understand—I have an email about this that I am happy to share with the Library so that it is on record for the House—that on 21 March 2016, my constituents, a company called Action Renewables and a company called FG Plumbing and Heating did make a call to Teri Clifton. I was not involved in that call and neither was the company, Moy Park. Whatever happened in that telephone conversation was frankly none of my business, as I was not involved in it.

This witness should be ashamed of herself for standing up and telling the press, or an inquiry, a calumny of the highest order—that a Member of Parliament was involved in a conference call when they were not. She should be brought back to the inquiry, put through the wringer and asked why she lied to an inquiry about such a matter. Importantly, the chairman of the inquiry, who put words in the mouth of a witness, should apologise to me personally for his conduct and his actions, as I do not take this at all well. I am happy to stand by and defend actions that I take, which is why I am an elected Member of this place, but I will not be lied about by Teri Clifton, the chairman of an inquiry, or newspapers in Northern Ireland. The chairman of the inquiry said the next day that we should not sensationalise matters, after he had gone out of his way to sensationalise matters about me. I take complete insult at his conduct and actions, and look forward to his apology.

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee for that point. As I said earlier, the forward-looking expenditure is merely to approve, in the way we would do in the normal Budget process in this House, 45% of spending. We have done exactly the same allocations as in the previous year to enable the moneys to be spent, but the Bill does not give decision-making power to say how the money should be spent; it merely gives approval for money to be spent by those Departments so that they can continue to function. I appreciate that it is not an entirely satisfactory situation, but it is what is required to enable the Departments to continue to function and provide public services. In summer we will of course come through with the full budget process, which I hope will be done by a restored Executive at Stormont. If not, it will have to be done in this House.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State will know my interest in making sure that it is the perpetrator who pays and is punished, not the taxpayer. Will she ensure that if there is not an Assembly in six months’ time, it will be the institutions that perpetrated those false and indeed horrible, pernicious attacks on innocent individuals that are made to pay, and that it will not be the taxpayer picking up the bill?

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Gentleman’s comments indicate to the House that there is perhaps not universal support for every recommendation from the Hart inquiry. That is why it is important that we have a restored Executive in Stormont that can make the decisions about those recommendations and enable justice to be delivered.

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[Owen Smith]

That is precisely right; that is the point that I was coming on to. I was going to say that this is a poor substitute for a proper budget process. What we do not have today is any real insight into how the money will be spent, or where the priorities lie beyond those broad headings. We have had some confusion around HIA funding today. Clearly, there is an implication that 45% of the money for the HIA is available to the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to deal with in this coming year, so some clarity on that would be helpful. I will come on to the HIA in a little more detail later. This is a poor substitute. I think that we can all see that we should have better scrutiny, transparency and accountability, but we can only have that if we get the Executive back up and running, because this place cannot properly form a substitute for Stormont.

All this places Northern Ireland’s excellent, hard-working and diligent civil servants in a very invidious position. They are taking responsibility for providing services and are making increasingly autonomous decisions about services without really having a political master to serve, or a political backstop to watch their back if there is a crisis in any of the services that they are providing. We can all see that that is not a situation that we would wish to place civil servants in, and it is not a situation that can continue ad infinitum. I know that the Secretary of State is mindful of that, and I hope that it is one of the things that will spur the Department on to redouble its efforts in this matter—and indeed spur the parties on to try to find the wherewithal to build trust between one another, because they, too, will be effectively leaving those civil servants to carry the can unless we are able to get an Executive back up and running.

Three areas of public expenditure are not included in the budget today or are only referred to obliquely in the case of the HIA that could be included in the budget and could have been dealt with more fully today and in the coming months. The first is the HIA inquiry conducted by Sir Anthony Hart that several right hon. and hon. Members have already mentioned today. The inquiry reported before the Executive collapsed, recommending that the hundreds of men and women who survived historical abuse in some 20 institutions in Northern Ireland should be commemorated and, crucially, compensated for the abuse that they experienced.

[Ian Paisley]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that his taxpaying constituents in Pontypridd, mine in North Antrim and those of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) should pay the compensation, or does he believe that the institutions that carried out the abuse should be made to pay the compensation, given the vast amounts of money that some of those institutions possess?

[Owen Smith]

It will be for the Government and, I hope, for the Executive to make a determination about the balance of payment. My view is that both will have to bear some costs. Some of the Church institutions that were involved will have to bear some of the cost, as happened in the Irish Republic. I think that the costs will be borne by the taxpayers where state-run institutions are involved. The reality is that we all have to recognise—I know that the hon. Gentleman does—that the abuse suffered by those individuals was heinous, and a way must be found for them to be properly compensated. This impasse in Northern Ireland cannot get in the way of that; we need to move forward. In fact, I have a particular question on this matter for the Secretary of State that she might want to listen to.

When I listened to David Sterling, the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs just a month or so ago, my impression was that he is preparing legislation in respect of the HIA. He said explicitly that if there is no Executive in place—he implied by the summer, as that is when the legislation will be ready—he will ask the Secretary of State to introduce legislation in Westminster to give effect to the recommendations of the Hart inquiry. The Secretary of State left a gap at the end of addressing that question, so I just want to be sure that she will introduce such legislation, notwithstanding the fact that we would, of course, like Stormont to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

No, there are 500 civilian victims. As the hon. Gentleman says, there are separate provisions regarding injured soldiers. The reality is that many of the 500 have received some form of stipend or financial compensation, but for many that money has long since run out. The loss of earnings over a protracted period has left significant hardship as the daily reality for many men and women in Northern Ireland. This is another area where we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Notwithstanding the difficulties, the Secretary of State in particular right now should be thinking about how we provide for those people.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s genuine concern about this issue. Is he equally concerned about the military covenant and its full implementation in Northern Ireland? Will he be pushing the Secretary of State to ensure that that occurs?

[Owen Smith]

Of course, that is another very important issue. It is not necessarily related to the substance of this Bill, which is largely about financial measures, but I am sure that the Secretary of State has heard the hon. Gentleman’s point. I will be continuing to talk about the military covenant and its importance to all communities in Northern Ireland.

On pensions, the Secretary of State should know that some of the victims, particularly those represented by the WAVE group, will be here to listen to our proceedings tomorrow. I urge her to show leadership and find the resources to provide them with the amount of money that they need. It will be a tiny amount of money for the state in the grand scheme of things—£2 million to £3 million a year—but it will be a lifesaver for individuals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

I am extremely pleased to hear that, because the city deal is a huge opportunity for Belfast and, if it works well, could be a huge opportunity for other parts of Northern Ireland in future.

Not having a budget set for this financial year has a huge impact, but I am greatly concerned that we do not have a budget for the next financial year, because we have heard time and time again how difficult things have been for the charities sector, public services and businesses. This constant uncertainty, a bit like the uncertainty around Brexit, is just not feasible for the long term.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s point, and of course I agree with it, but we should not be totally pessimistic. Unemployment is the lowest it has ever been in Northern Ireland, at 3.9%. Exports are up and we have had drives to promote the economy in other areas, and we are not the only region of the world that from time to time does not have a stable Government. Indeed, Germany did not have a Government for several months earlier this year.

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, although I have heard him say himself that we want some certainty and a direction of travel, because this is not just about setting the budget. This is about scrutinising how that money will be spent. The civil servants in Northern Ireland are doing a fantastic job—we have all put on record today our thanks for their dedication and hard work—but we need political decisions about how that money is allocated and political scrutiny of how it is spent.

I therefore agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) that there is a sense that Northern Ireland is treading water or standing still. That reduction in unemployment and creation of jobs, and the great place that Northern Ireland is, is down to the hard work of people in the councils—the elected members at council level—who are continuing despite there not being an Assembly or Executive, and the civil servants, yet so much more could be achieved if there was an Executive in place.

I have three asks of Ministers. I do not want to be a pessimist—I hope I do not sound too pessimistic—but I honestly do not think there is a realistic possibility of the Assembly being reformed in just the next few months. As this is budget-setting time for most authorities across the United Kingdom, serious consideration needs to be given to the impact of not having a long-term budget for the next financial year. My first ask is: if there are Members who will not get back round the table and restore the Assembly, could an Assembly be restored with those who are willing to do that? As is the case in this place, if MLAs choose not to get round the table, that is a personal decision for them.

Secondly, is there a possibility of setting a budget for the next financial year, not just the first few months, so that public sector bodies such as the PSNI, charities such as Addiction NI and communities that desperately need to know the direction of travel for their funding can have some certainty? As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said, that budget could be set and abandoned if an Assembly came back into being. My third ask is: could the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee be given some task-and-finish authority to scrutinise current spending? Without any scrutiny whatever, are we really sure that the money is being spent in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland?

I welcome this much-needed Bill, but there is still a huge amount of work to do. I want to put on record my congratulations and thanks to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who is doing so much to try to make progress happen. These are difficult circumstances. None of us wants to be passing this Bill, which is a necessity, but there is still so much more work to be done.

[Sammy Wilson]

(East Antrim) (DUP): Let me start by making it clear that this is a technical debate, although the misconceptions that we have heard from some speakers in the Chamber today are not uncommon. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) and I will remember, from when we were in the Northern Ireland Assembly and from our work at the Department of Finance, this budget debate very often degenerated into people coming forward with all the things they wanted to spend money on, when in fact it was nothing to do with setting the budget.

The shadow Secretary of State fell into that misconception. I do not want to go through all his mistakes. He talked about this being a pretty poor way of dealing with the budget, yet we are not actually dealing with the budget; this would have been an essential step even had it been in the Northern Ireland Assembly. He also talked about the general headings in the Bill and how they had not changed. As was pointed out to him, unless we change the remit of a Department, we would not change those headings of expenditure—although there are significant points that the Secretary of State will need to address in future.

This debate is really about, first, how Departments spent their money last year. As the figures show, some spent more than was originally allocated and some spent significantly less. For example, the Department for the Executive spent more than a third less than it was originally allocated, although I note that this year it will be allocated the same amount that it was given last year, even though it underspent by a third. Maybe the Secretary of State can tell us why that decision was made, when the underspend was so high. This debate looks back at the past, at what was allocated, what was spent and what additional money had to be given to some Departments—for example, health and education. Where did that money come from? It came from some of the Departments that underspent. That additional expenditure—or that reduction in expenditure—has to be authorised, which is what this Bill does.

This debate also looks forward, because a budget has been set for Northern Ireland—the Secretary of State did that a couple of weeks ago. Each Department knows its expenditure limits for the next year, but until a budget Bill goes through, which will take some time, Departments have to have the legal authority to spend. That is the reason why 45% of the budget is allocated in this Bill. Departments can spend with confidence, because they know that the money is available to them, and they know the limits within which they have to spend it.

It is important that we understand what we are actually debating today. This is not about, “Well, you should have given more money to the Department of Education” or “The Department of Education should be spending money on this” or “The historical enquiries team should have more money allocated to them.” The Members who raised those issues have illustrated an important point, which the Secretary of State needs to address: simply giving Departments information about the money they will have available to them next year does not give them the ability to spend that money, because there are some things civil servants will need direction about.

The Secretary of State has taken the first step—namely, setting the departmental spending limit, giving us the budget statement and now bringing through this Bill authorising last year’s expenditure, which is historical, and giving some money to start off next year—but the big, important political question is when, in the absence of the Assembly, she will give permanent secretaries more power or have Ministers take responsibility for spending the money that is allocated.

I could bore the House with that this afternoon, but let me take just one example: the Department for the Economy, which will get roughly £1 billion next year. Some of that will be spent on air access. If we want to authorise new routes, that will require a ministerial decision—no civil servant is going to do that.

Another thing that is listed is “development including regulatory reform” and “mineral and petroleum licensing”. We are sitting on one of the most lucrative goldmines not just in Europe but in the world. There are issues around that, but those will not be resolved by civil servants. The Exchequer will be able to get vast amounts of revenue from that development. There are hundreds of jobs in the west of the Province, where rural employment is difficult to obtain. However, in terms of making decisions about that, it is not enough just to say to the Department for the Economy, “There is £1 billion.” Decisions have to be made. Direction has to be given about the development of regulations and about decisions where controversies are going to arise.

Another issue is assistance to the gas and electricity industries, which is particularly relevant in my constituency. Indeed, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee looked at the issue recently. As a result of the auction, Kilroot power station is likely to close. That major coal power station supplies, on occasion, 45% of the power to Northern Ireland. A decision has to be made, because the regulator wants the station kept open for three years, but there is no guarantee that it will sell 1 kW of electricity. Quite rightly, the owners are saying, “We are not going to keep it open for three years if we are not guaranteed any sales.” A decision is going to have to be made by a Minister—it is that important. What do we do?

There is also the issue of investment in tele- communications infrastructure. This is not included in the Bill, but £150 million has been allocated for broadband infrastructure in Northern Ireland. However, again, the policy decisions required to spend that money will require ministerial direction.

On Tourism Ireland, we provide 60% or 40% of the budget for that cross-border body. Yet, if someone goes into the international airport, what is that body advertising? Is it advertising and promoting tourism in Northern Ireland? Not a bit of it. It is advertising tourism in the Irish Republic. There needs to be a ministerial decision: do we continue to spend such an amount of money on a cross-border body such as that, when it is actually to the detriment of Northern Ireland?

[Ian Paisley]

Is my right hon. Friend saying that the Secretary of State should make those ministerial decisions or that she should appoint other Ministers under her from here to make them?

[Sammy Wilson]

I am just picking at random from one Department, and I could do the same with every other Department. When it comes to spending the money, the Secretary of State has two options, or a combination of both. It can either be made clear to civil servants that they have the power to make decisions—I do not think that that is a particularly good way of doing things—or there is a mechanism whereby decisions about the spending of the money can be made politically, and that will require intervention. Otherwise, we will find that Departments receive the money and continue to spend it as they are doing at present, without any policy development and without considering the changes that have occurred in Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I understand that the Under-Secretary will be replying to many of the points made in this debate. I want to add to the list of his replies that will be vital going forward.

Since being appointed, and in looking at the budget and how we got to this point, the Minister has also created an expectation. He has been very diligent, going round Northern Ireland, visiting with Invest Northern Ireland, visiting the Police Service of Northern Ireland and many other groups, along with the Secretary of State, making the case, listening to needs and, I suppose, creating an expectation that those needs will rightly be addressed. Of course, and to echo everything said by every other Member, we would far rather those expectations were addressed by a functioning Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. However, at some point we have to smell the coffee and recognise that that is not the case at the present time and, realistically speaking, probably will not be for the remainder of this year. If that is so, and given that between now and June the Minister will have to look at the next budget and how we deal with incoming expenditure and setting targets, it is important that he turn his mind to certain matters,.

I want to focus on one part of the portfolio that I carry responsibility for in this House, and that is sport. We have a very successful sport tourism portfolio. Indeed, Northern Ireland golf tourism is about to really take off in the coming year, and that has been started in the last week by the success of Rory McIlroy, who set a particular standard of achievement in the Arnold Palmer cup.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

When my hon. Friend speaks of smelling the coffee and the importance to our economy of driving things forward, he will be aware that one of Northern Ireland’s many success stories in the past 14 months is the Pure Roast Coffee company in my constituency, which has struck a deal to supply coffee across China, so there is good news and we should welcome it.

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[Ian Paisley]

It is good that we, as the country that I think drinks the most tea per head of population, are now exporting coffee, and to the largest market in the world.

We are going to have an influx of golf tourists coming to Northern Ireland for the Irish Open, and indeed the Open in 2019. The organisation—the Royal and Ancient—but more importantly the golf clubs in Northern Ireland, in particular Royal Portrush golf club, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), will need certainty about the finance for them and for those tournaments. Will the Minister ensure immediately, so that there is no delay, that those organisations get certainty and clarity about financial expenditure for golf tourism? This is going to be the single largest shop window for Northern Ireland—a very positive shop window—and the expenditure therefore needs to be properly underwritten by the Government.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we have a number of excellent ambassadors for golf in Northern Ireland? They include our very own Rory McIlroy—congratulations to him. With him back on form, as demonstrated at the weekend, and winning across the world, this is the perfect time to maximise golf tourism in Northern Ireland.

[Ian Paisley]

We always used to mention the triumvirate of Rory, Darren and Graeme, but now there are so many good golfers in Northern Ireland that we do not want to get into naming them all, because we might offend one by leaving them out. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we have a great golf ambassador in Rory, and there are many others.

[Lady Hermon]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is coming to the line in his speech about how Rory McIlroy trained in the Holywood golf club, and put Holywood on the map as a constituent of mine. I am sure that tourists will come to see where he trained to become so successful.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

We are in danger of getting stuck in the bunker, and that is not where I want to be. Come on, Mr Paisley!

[Ian Paisley]

I will put the sand wedge away and move to another discipline, if you don’t mind, Mr Deputy Speaker.

In their wisdom, the last Executive, before they were put out of existence by the untimely resignation of the then Deputy First Minister, kindly appointed me to be the independent chairman of the Northern Ireland taskforce on motorsport. A number of significant motorsport events occur annually in Northern Ireland. Significantly, the North West 200 will require financial certainty from the Minister before June, and I would like to make sure that he is able to give that certainty and that he talks to the relevant Department—the Department for Communities—to indicate that proper finance will be put in place for the largest outdoor sporting event not only in Northern Ireland but in the entire island of Ireland. The race attracts over 100,000 people annually to the triangle of Portrush, Portstewart and Coleraine. It is very significant for sport in Northern Ireland and, indeed, for community relations. Motorsport is one of those things that attracts all people, of all classes and creeds. It is also something that Northern Ireland excels at, and we require certainty in terms of the provision of support to allow the race to go ahead. The Armagh road race in my constituency and the Ulster grand prix, which straddles the constituencies of South Antrim and Lagan Valley, also require certainty before the August timetable. I ask the Minister of State to look into that to ensure that the Department is properly told by him that funding must be put in place.

Looking forward to 2021 and the youth Commonwealth games, plans are already being put in place, and it is essential that the organisers are given certainty so that they can market Northern Ireland around the world as a destination and the location of those games. That will not happen in the six months before the games; it has to happen years in advance. I ask the Minister to put his mind to making sure that the Department is put on notice that he will be breathing down its neck to ensure that proper resources are put in place for these important showcase events for Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

I hope that the hon. Lady will appreciate that there are no Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly. It would be for them to give instructions to permanent secretaries, not Ministers in Westminster, so I cannot give her the assurance she seeks. It is a devolved matter.

I am grateful for the support of the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). She spoke of the delay in the Bill coming forward. I hope that she will appreciate that we were very keen to get the devolved Assembly up and running again—only recently there were intensive talks to try and progress matters—and that we therefore left this to the last minute. We had hoped not to have to take the decisions we are taking today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) raised several issues. The Secretary of State’s budget statement on 8 March gives financial clarity to Northern Ireland Departments and reflects the feedback from the Northern Ireland civil service budget consultation and advice from the Northern Ireland civil service on where key pressures lay, such as health and education. It is a balanced budget that provides a secure basis for protecting and preserving public services.

My hon. Friend also mentioned city deals. She will be aware that work is ongoing on these deals. Councils, the Northern Ireland civil service, the Northern Ireland Office, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Her Majesty’s Treasury are all involved in charting the way forward, but she and the House will appreciate that we need the devolved Assembly, because it has a huge contribution to make to progressing those city deals.

My hon. Friend referred to the apprenticeship levy. The Northern Ireland Administration have been allocated their share of the apprenticeship levy, so it is available to the Northern Ireland civil service for allocating. In line with the devolution settlement, however, it is not for the UK Government to dictate how Northern Ireland’s share is spent. Apprenticeships are a devolved matter. That is another issue that highlights the need for a devolved Assembly to be up and running.

The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) spoke in his customary manner and with his customary passion. It was good that he helped to clarify the purpose of the Bill, given that there has been some misunderstanding among Members. The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) also made a passionate speech, which he normally delivers. He spoke of the way forward for the devolved Assembly from his own perspective, but also recognised the need for crucial decisions to be made, as, indeed, we are making them today.

The hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) spoke of her personal experience, and it was certainly beneficial to the House to hear that. She, too, spoke of the need for decisions to be made and gave the example of the special needs sector in education. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan), again, spoke of the lack of decisions, giving examples relating to education and health. He also highlighted the additional funds from the confidence and supply agreement, and it is important to remember that those will benefit all the people of Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reinforced the need for decisions to be made.

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) asked two specific questions, about golf tourism and the youth Commonwealth games. I appreciate the vital importance of golf tourism to the economy, as, I think, does the House, but I am going to give him the answer that he does not want: that, along with the youth Commonwealth games, is a matter for the devolved Assembly, which is another reason why it is so important to try to get the Assembly up and running.

[Ian Paisley]

I wholeheartedly agree that, yes, in the best case in the world that is a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly, but let us have a reality check. The Northern Ireland Assembly has gone for now. We would love to have it back, but the Minister needs to start preparing an emergency plan that will give certainty about the funding of events in the future. That does not detract from our desire to see the Assembly restored as soon as possible. I just hope that the Minister will take this message to his officials. I hope that he will say to them, “Please give certainty to these organisations in relation to sport and our games bids.”

[Mr Vara]

I take on board what the hon. Gentleman has said, but he will appreciate that, as I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, the Bill is technical and specific. I hope he will forgive me if I stick to the terms of the Bill, but I hear loud and clear what he has said.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) spoke of the coffee business in his constituency. I hope that he will be pleased to know that last Thursday I was at Borough market in London supporting some 14 Northern Ireland businesses dealing with food and drink. They all seemed to be doing very well and to have made contacts with traders here who are happy to take goods from them in the future and sell them in London. That was a very productive event, and I greatly enjoyed it.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) asked a specific question about the Departments (Northern Ireland) Order 1999. Article 4(3) provides that decisions may be made by senior officials. Permanent secretaries consider legal authority for decisions every day in line with legislation. It is a technical issue, but I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman some comfort.

Draft Transparency of Donations and Loans etc. (Northern Ireland political parties) order 2018

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 General Committees

[Owen Smith]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I can very easily describe the money as shady. The Constitutional Research Council is not a body that has on its books access to the best part of half a million pounds’ worth of resources. It is not a body that has made political donations other than one other self-declared donation of £6,500 to an hon. Member who campaigned for Brexit. It is not a body about which we have transparency—the person who is responsible for running the CRC has not said where the money has come from, and it has refused to reveal who its donors are. That may be its right under the nature of its unincorporated association, but I think it is shady. Given the suspicion that the DUP was used as a vehicle to channel money that could not be deployed elsewhere during the Brexit campaign, these are the right sort of questions that anybody who is interested in transparency in this House ought to be asking.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, no matter what he proposes, the information that has already been made public voluntarily is no different to what the registered interest would be; that the transparency he seeks is already there; and that he could not ask for any more information than has already been revealed? Unless he is proposing a change—

[Mr Bradshaw]

Why not backdate it then?

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

As my right hon. Friend says from a sedentary position, why not backdate it then? Why not accept the view that is now uniformly held by all other political parties in Northern Ireland save the DUP? The hon. Member for North Antrim is right that the DUP revealed—I think it was voluntary—that the Constitutional Research Council made the donation, which would be in line with the legislation. However, he does not want any more scrutiny on that money because there are serious questions about where the CRC got the money from. If it was not from Richard Cook, the man in charge of the organisation, who was it from? Can the hon. Gentleman tell us?

[Ian Paisley]

Once again, is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would change the law and get the Electoral Commission to do that with all donations to all parties? What has been put out voluntarily is more than the Electoral Commission likes to be revealed. The name of the donor and the amount of the donation are available, and the Electoral Commission has the address and other such details. The hon. Gentleman is making a specific difference between this donation and any other donation made to any other political party, including his own. He has accepted that nothing else would be revealed under the changes that he has suggested.

[Owen Smith]

In that case, I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman or any DUP Member should object to this measure being backdated to 2014. If there is nothing to hide, everybody should simply get on with revealing it and he can agree on that point.

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right that it would have to apply across the board for all political donations. Séamus Magee, formerly the head of the Northern Ireland Electoral Commission, tweeted:

“Every party in Northern Ireland understood that the publication of political donations over £7,500 was to be retrospective to Jan 2014.”

I presume that anybody who made a donation in Northern Ireland after January 2014 did so in full knowledge of the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014, which made it clear that their donations would be revealed if the Secretary of State were to pass an order in this place, which he could have done in January 2014.

[Ian Paisley]

If that is the case, why did Labour members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee subsequently vote to block that? Why did they support not revealing that information?

[Owen Smith]

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but the Labour party’s view is that this measure should be retrospective and should be backdated to 2014. We agree with the head of the Northern Ireland Electoral Commission that it is deeply disappointing that the Government are choosing not to do that. In truth, the issue is important beyond Northern Ireland, not least because the money was used to prosecute the Brexit campaign outwith Northern Ireland, and because it speaks to a broader issue of transparency and honesty in our politics.

Politics has come into malodorous disrepute in recent years, and all new generations of politicians bear the onus and have the responsibility to clean it up and bring us back into good repute. Unfortunately, this affair stinks. It stinks because the Government have chosen to come up with a date of July 2017 that deliberately excludes from publication the DUP donation—the largest donation and biggest item of political campaigning expenditure in the history of Northern Ireland politics. There must be a very simple reason for that if the Government are genuine about wanting further transparency and are honest about feeling that Northern Ireland needs to be brought into line with the rest of the UK. It will not have escaped the notice of people across the country that it is deeply ironic that the DUP, which only last week was protesting that Northern Ireland had to be absolutely in line with the rest of the UK, is unable to accept that Northern Ireland should be in line with the rest of the UK on this issue. The DUP wants special dispensation and special status for Northern Ireland on political donations.

That irony will not have escaped people. What must equally not escape people is that we need to move into a new era of openness and transparency. That is why Labour will be voting against the draft order and asking the Government to go away and think again or, if not, to justify why they have come up with the arbitrary date of July 2017, which precludes publication of important public information.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bradshaw]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. As some Members may know, I have spent a lot of the past few months working on trying to expose dark money in British politics, and the role it may have played in the past and may be playing now. I am delighted that those on my own Front Bench and indeed those in the Scottish National party will vote against the order and I would like to explain why they have for my full support.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd has already given a comprehensive outline of some of the background to the main donation that is the subject of concern, I hope, to this Committee. What he omitted to mention is that as well as the £282,000 spent on adverts in the Metro newspapers on the mainland of the United Kingdom in the referendum, £32,000 was also spent with the Canadian data company AggregateIQ, which has been linked to Donald Trump’s billionaire backer Robert Mercer, and the data company Cambridge Analytica, which is being investigated by our Information Commissioner and which has been forced to hand over emails under subpoena from the special counsel investigation under Robert Mueller looking into Russian subversion in the United States. This is a very serious matter that I hope would concern all hon. Members present.

My hon. Friend also referred to the original source of this donation: the Constitutional Research Council and its one-man-band owner or runner, Mr Cook. The Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland fined Mr Cook and his organisation £6,000 in August this year for

“failing to comply with electoral law.”

It was one of the biggest fines ever imposed by the Electoral Commission but because of the current rules, which the Government is not backdating with today’s reform, the Electoral Commission is not allowed to say why that fine was imposed or which law was broken. That is a completely unacceptable state of affairs. The only conclusion that any reasonable person can draw is that the DUP was used, with its knowledge, by the CRC to funnel money to the leave campaign in a way that to this day keeps the source of that money secret. By refusing to make this provision retrospective, the Government are effectively complicit in covering that up. Whatever your views on Brexit, Mr Hosie, the people of Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole deserve to have confidence in the transparency and integrity of our electoral and party funding system.

As we have already heard, the political parties in Northern Ireland—with the exception of the DUP—civil society in Northern Ireland, and the Electoral Commission all believe that transparency should be made retrospective to 2014, and that was their original understanding.

[Ian Paisley]

I am interested in right hon. Gentleman’s points. I wonder whether in his inquiry and examination today he will let us know whether he has done any investigation into the £13 million that Sinn Féin has deployed in elections in Northern Ireland.

[Mr Bradshaw]

My main concern in all of this is to try to uncover the dark money that played a role in the referendum campaign. If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence that he would like to send me in that respect, I would be grateful to receive it. If he wants that to be made public and transparent as well, let us backdate this to 2014. I do not understand why, if the DUP has nothing to hide, it is are being so defensive about this. If the Government have nothing to hide, why not have full transparency back to 2014?

[Ian Paisley]

rose—

[Mr Bradshaw]

The hon. Gentleman is not even a member of the Committee, so I will make progress if he does not mind. Naomi Long, the leader of the Alliance party in Northern Ireland and the politician who secured this change to the law, with the support at the time of all the Northern Ireland parties, has said:

“The successful amendment ensured that all donations dating back to the commencement date of the legislation (January 2014) can be published once the exemption is lifted.

All the parties have been advised by the Electoral Commission that this is the case and guidance was issued to ensure that all donors from that date would be advised that any anonymity would be merely temporary.”

Again, that was the understanding of the parties at the time, so why have the Government changed their mind? Why would the independent and highly respected Electoral Commission set its face so strongly against what the Government are trying to do today? The only conclusion I can reach is that the Commission knows something about that period between 2014 and 2017 that it believes to be strongly in the public interest to disclose but is prevented from doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. It was all going so well: my hon. Friend the Minister set out very clearly, with characteristic calm, the position around which all the parties in Northern Ireland had levitated and thought, based on common sense, was the right approach. Everyone in this place, whether we are speaking on the Floor of the House or in Committee, always need to remember—and it is a sadness that we have to remember—that when we are dealing with matters in Northern Ireland and about Northern Irish politics, the additional calls for sensitivity and diplomacy in our language are ever heightened.

It would be marvellous—I am sure the whole Committee would rejoice, as I would—if we could arrive at a time where we could deal with issues of politics in Northern Ireland in exactly the same way as we deal with them in Dorset or in your part of Scotland, Mr Hosie, or in Norwich or any other constituency. As it is, we are not in that position yet.

It has always been understood by shadow Ministers, of whichever stripe, that they have a special responsibility to try, while making a political point, to straddle the divide and make sure that those sensitivities are respected. It is unfortunate that the hon. Member for Pontypridd, who usually fulfils that role with such gusto and class, has singularly failed to do so today. I asked him a direct question on two occasions, which he neglected to answer. It was either a flip-flop or politicisation, because the hon. Gentleman’s delineation of the chronology does not bear any scrutiny.

I took note of what the hon. Gentleman said. First, he referred to January, and then he moved to February, where the nature of the donation made to the Democratic Unionists became apparent. That is all frightfully interesting, save for the fact that, when he got to the middle of July, when all this brouhaha was supposedly at its height, the hon. Gentleman was still referring to the Secretary of State’s decision as the best decision. If only the hon. Gentleman had left it at that point, I think he would have commanded the support of the Committee.

As I said in my second interjection on the hon. Gentleman, I rise in this debate as a Catholic Unionist who was on the remain side. It would seem to me that this money, wherever it came from, was not particularly wisely spent. I do not want to go down that particular road, but if I heard correctly it was spent on a wraparound on a free newspaper handed out to commuters in metropolitan areas that predominantly voted to remain part of the European Union, so the mastering of the dark arts of persuasion to vote leave appears to have backfired.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making about transparency. However, is it his understanding, as it is mine, that if the Labour party, along with the Scottish National party, votes against this instrument, it will vote against transparency and publication in some cases?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman makes a strong and pertinent point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

That was a lovely long intervention, so that is the hon. Gentleman’s lot—I will not take another one from him. I will explain exactly those points.

I remind the House that the Conservative manifesto for the 2017 election in Northern Ireland pledged to increase transparency. We are delivering on that. The Labour party is choosing not to. That is amazing.

We wrote to the parties in January. This year, Northern Ireland parties have engaged in two elections and in sustained political talks, so to offer the position in January, to seek views and then to take action from July is a reasonable approach. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already explained that he thinks that it is not right or fair to impose retrospective regulations or conditions on people who donated in good faith with the rules as they were set at the time.

[Ian Paisley]

Will the Minister confirm that this vote is take it or leave it—that if the Government lose, there will be no publication?

[Chloe Smith]

Indeed, that is the case. If Members were to vote against tonight’s order, they would vote against transparency. It is as simple as that. That is what we are dealing with here. Let us not forget what we have been through to get here.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point, and for drawing attention to the incident that took place in Enniskillen 30 years ago, when 12 people lost their lives in an appalling bombing. I was in Enniskillen yesterday, as I had been on Wednesday, to remember and to mark the 30th anniversary of that appalling incident. I know full well the pain, the hurt and the suffering that many people still feel. Yes, many look for justice still to this day, and it is a matter of great regret that no one has yet been brought to justice for that appalling incident. I also note the equally strong feelings among many for reconciliation and the need for us to continue to work to bring communities together.

The right hon. Gentleman highlights the issues around the Stormont House legacy institutions. I want to progress that through to a public consultation, as it is the most effective way in which we can seek real focus on how to move forward and see those legacy institutions come into effect. I am not able today to confirm the timing of the publication of that consultation, but I want to get on with it. I know that the victim groups want that, and I take the point that the right hon. Gentleman has made very clearly and firmly.

Turning to the Bill, as I set out for the House a fortnight ago, it is now nine months since there has been a properly functioning Executive and Assembly. Despite the tireless efforts over the past 11 weeks—the most recent phase of the talks—the parties have not yet reached an agreement that would enable a sustainable Executive to be formed. In bringing the parties together for this most recent phase of the political talks, I have sought to help both the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Féin to bridge the gap on a small number of outstanding matters, including language and culture, as well as on issues in relation to the continuing sustainability of the Executive. In doing so, I have worked closely with the Irish Government in accordance with the well-established three-stranded approach. I remain prepared to bring forth legislation that would allow for an Executive to be formed should the parties reach an agreement.

My strong preference would be for a restored Executive in Northern Ireland to take forward its own budget, so I am introducing this measure today with the utmost reluctance and only because there is no other choice available. Let me be clear: the passage of legislation to set a budget should not be a barrier to negotiations continuing. However, the ongoing lack of agreement has had tangible consequences for people and public services in Northern Ireland, for, without an Executive, there has been no budget, and without a budget, civil servants have been without political direction to take decisions on spending and public services in Northern Ireland.

I want to pay particular tribute to all those who have been engaged in the civil service seeking to manage the current events. The Northern Ireland civil service has demonstrated the utmost professionalism in protecting and preserving public services throughout these difficult times, and I wish to put on record my recognition of the work it has been doing.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I echo the Secretary of State’s comments on the civil service and the role it plays. Will he make it clear from the Dispatch Box tonight who the head of the Northern Ireland civil service will be accountable to in political terms after this decision is taken?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the accountability gap we have at present. At this time, the Northern Ireland civil service is effectively having to act based on its assessment of the political priorities of the outgoing Executive. There is no direct accountability. I will come on to certain steps I intend to take to seek to surface some of the issues, such as how any reports from the Northern Ireland Audit Office could be brought to the attention of this House. Ultimately, what we want is an Executive in place able to provide that accountability, and we do not want a move to any other alternatives because of all the issues that will bring about. There is an issue here, therefore, as the hon. Gentleman rightly points out.

[Ian Paisley]

The Secretary of State is well known for being generous in giving way, and I thank him. He has highlighted the central issue: on taking this decision, there will be no political accountability in Northern Ireland either to a non-functioning Executive or, importantly, to him and his ministerial team in Northern Ireland. That is not sustainable for any period of time. There must be political accountability, and he must move urgently to appoint Ministers and take political control.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman is referring to in terms of a connection between the Labour party and Sinn Féin—that is certainly not something I recognise, and it is certainly not a connection I speak to. I am not blaming the Secretary of State, and I am certainly not blaming hard-working civil servants, for making these decisions. I am merely pointing out, as the hon. Gentleman did, that decisions have been taken, not by Ministers and not by the Secretary of State, but by civil servants, and we have no means of questioning those civil servants or holding them accountable for those decisions.

A further decision—it is not included in the fine print, but I understand it is on the stocks in Northern Ireland—involves closing four out of the eight children’s outdoor education centres there. That is an important decision for the children of Northern Ireland, and it is apparently to be made by civil servants in the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly. The question for the Secretary of State is, does he support that decision to cut outdoor education centres? If he does not, is he at least lobbying David Sterling and his colleagues in the Northern Ireland civil service to tell them that he is not in favour of it?

The Secretary of State talked earlier about SAVIA and the need quickly to bring forward changes and interim payments for the victims in the historical institutional abuse inquiry. Is he lobbying David Sterling to say he should get on with that and find the money for those people, who have joined us today in the Gallery? If the Secretary of State is absolving himself of responsibility for these decisions, or if he is accurately presenting the fact that he does not have responsibility for them at present, what is he doing to influence the decision making that is taking place?

I gently put it to the Secretary of State that people in Northern Ireland will not accept it as entirely credible that Northern Ireland Office Ministers have no influence over these decisions, especially in this twilight zone. In the invent of a major economic or security crisis in Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State would, of course, expect to be held accountable for helping to solve it—Northern Ireland Ministers would not be responsible for that. I hope that the Secretary of State would recognise that. I also hope that he would recognise that, in this curious period we are in, he will need to step up to the plate and take more responsibility.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman is making the point that commenced this debate: from tonight, there is effectively no political accountability for the head of the Northern Ireland civil service. No matter how good or objective he is, he is not answerable to the Northern Ireland Assembly or the Northern Ireland Executive. More importantly, from tonight, he is not answerable to this place or to the Secretary of State. That is not tenable for any more than a few days, let alone weeks or months. I urge the shadow Secretary of State to join in urging that we appoint Ministers urgently from this place and get on with administering Northern Ireland and accounting for it properly.

[Owen Smith]

I accept the point the hon. Gentleman makes—that the NICS is currently effectively unaccountable is an unarguable fact—but I do not share his view that the remedy is instantly to bring in direct rule Ministers. The answer we have to seek, in keeping with the guiding light for us all in this process—the Good Friday/ Belfast agreement—is to get devolution back up and running. That has to be the key focus of the Secretary of State and us all, because he is right that direct rule will be a massive backward step for Northern Ireland. Some parties may be more sanguine about the prospect of direct rule Ministers stepping in in Northern Ireland, but I am not. We in the Labour party are not sanguine about that, and we think it would be a hugely retrograde step. Experience tells us that as soon as we have direct rule Ministers back in Stormont, it will be the devil’s own job to get them out, and we will want to get them out, because the hon. Gentleman will want Northern Ireland’s local politicians to take local decisions.

[Owen Smith]

I would not put it exactly like that, but my hon. Friend is right to say that we are in untried, untested waters. We will need to see that the letter and the spirit of the Good Friday agreement are preserved, however we take forward the talks process, and that means, crucially, that a way must be found for those north-south institutions, and for east-west institutions, to work. That may require a greater role for the Assembly than we have had in previous periods of direct rule. We may need to be imaginative about that, and I hope that the Secretary of State is thinking about that.

[Ian Paisley]

The shadow Secretary of State knows my personal commitment to devolution. I would love to see it working, but at some point we have to stand up and say, “The emperor has no clothes.” That is essentially what is happening in Northern Ireland. The worst thing this Parliament can allow to happen in Ulster is for a sense of drift to take hold. Leadership has to be respected. A firm grip has to be taken of the situation, and it must be taken by Her Majesty’s Government. I urge the shadow Secretary of State to urge that that happens quickly.

[Owen Smith]

I am encouraged to hear the hon. Gentleman remind the House of his support for devolution. I remind the House that the DUP has always strongly supported devolution, even in periods when some in Unionism were less keen on the prospect of devolution. History is important in all this.

The question for us, therefore, is how we see devolution restored, and there is a question here for the Secretary of State. It is not a matter of blame but a statement of fact that we are almost 11 months on from the collapse of the Northern Ireland institutions: 11 months of dialogue, largely behind closed doors, between the two largest parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP, which has come to nought; 11 months, effectively, of banging our heads against a brick wall and failing to make substantive progress. The Secretary of State will tell us we have made progress, but people in Northern Ireland want to know where it is, because it has not been spelled out to them—or to me—at any point over the past 11 months. It is clear that what we have been doing repeatedly over those 11 months has not being working, and there is no reason for us to assume that it will be 12th time lucky.

The question for the Secretary of State, therefore, is what is he going to do differently—not what is he going to do the same as he has been doing for the past 11 months —to take this process forward? My colleagues and I would like to urge him to do some specific things and to consider some extra ways in which he can take the process forward. We do so built on the experience we have with our proud record of helping to facilitate breakthroughs in devolution, including the establishment, of course, of the Good Friday agreement and all the institutions that stem from it.

I urge the Secretary of State, first, to set out a road map for how he is going to get the institutions back up and running and how he is going to provide us with some clarity on the steps he plans to take over the next few months. Keeping us in the dark and, out of thin air, having a series of meetings behind closed doors between the two parties is not working and is not delivering a breakthrough.

Secondly, and most importantly perhaps, will the Secretary of State consider the prospect of an independent chair to come in to help to give new energy and impetus to the talks? Labour Members know that that was incredibly important as a vehicle for taking things forward. Indeed, I think that it is true to say that without Senator George Mitchell, in particular, we might not have seen the Good Friday/Belfast agreement—that is how important independent eyes have been in this process. If he is not prepared to learn from the experience of George Mitchell and others, such as my right hon. Friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, why not? Why are we not considering that step, because it has worked in the past and should be considered in the future?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I have had the opportunity to make a number of interventions throughout this evening’s debate, so I will make only some short remarks now.

I cast Members’ minds back to the middle of the last couple of decades, when we were going through the negotiation process. At that point, my party made it clear that it was reluctant to go into a particular government until certain demands were met. There were previous times before that when other Unionist parties made similar claims and drew similar red lines. The then Government party and the then Secretary of State, who is now in the other place, made it clear that a certain train was departing a certain station, and that if the Democratic Unionist party and other Unionist parties were not on board, that train would depart without them. Not only would it depart without them, but government would then happen without them and they would be left sitting on their hands. In Lloyd George blackmail mode, that was what was held out to people in Northern Ireland, and it was clearly meant that that was going to happen.

The interesting thing at the moment is that there does not seem to be the belief on Sinn Féin’s side that the Government are actually prepared to follow through with such an offer. If the train is leaving the station, Sinn Féin should be on board and it should play its role. If it is not prepared to be on board, the train should depart without it and we should be allowed to govern without it.

The Government do not want that to be the case; they do not want it to be on the agenda. They want everyone to be singing and on board the same little train going forward. Well, if the members of one party are blocking progress, they cannot be allowed to pull the safety cord on that train, bring things to a halt and say that nothing else happens without them.

It is incumbent on the Government to recognise that if they are not prepared to let the train of devolution go forward without Sinn Féin’s participation on its terms and its terms only, it is about time that they stepped in and allowed devolution without Sinn Féin or had direct rule. Tonight, we are standing at that point. Will it be direct rule, or will it be devolution without Sinn Féin’s active participation? I do not think the Government have the guts to go for the latter choice, and I think they are now timidly being pushed towards direct rule.

I said in one of my interventions that it is essential that we do not have drift in Northern Ireland, because there is a certain type of Irishman who will fill the vacuum. We saw a bit of that yesterday in Omagh, and we have seen a bit of it today in Londonderry. Certain people will try to fill the vacuum with violence, and that is not acceptable.

The Government have to move, and move expeditiously. They cannot allow themselves to be seen to be pussyfooting or taking this issue quietly and slowly. They have to make sure that they take strides with determination to implement this budget measure and then, within a matter of weeks, move to the next phase of direct rule. That will mean preparation and money being spent on preparing the Northern Ireland Office to have new Ministers drawn into it from this place and from the Government side of the House to help govern Northern Ireland.

The decisions my constituents want taken with regard to healthcare, education and infrastructure will require ministerial direction and ministerial determination. It is unacceptable that we have a situation, starting tonight, where, no matter how nice a gentleman he is, the head of the Northern Ireland civil service will be completely unanswerable and unaccountable to anyone in this democracy. That situation is not acceptable, and we cannot let it run for weeks on end. It has to end immediately, and the Secretary of State needs to take determined steps to see that that is the case.

When the Secretary of State spoke tonight, he made it clear that civil servants will act within certain boundaries, but they do not have to do that. If they made a decision the Secretary of State did not like, he would have to take the head of the civil service to court. That situation is unacceptable, and it cannot be allowed to continue or even to get off the ground. We need to make that very clear.

The decisions that are coming up are coming up rapidly. Police pay, police recruitment and police retention are key issues we hear about every day and will require political direction. On other issues, Northern Ireland wants to be an events location. Next year, a major golf tournament is coming to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). The year after that, there is the British open. Decisions will have to be made in January next year to let those events go ahead without any problem.

We will also have our Milk cup, or SuperCup, football tournament, and events to do with the North West 200. All the decisions on the finance of those events, and all the decisions to do with whether we have the Red Bull air races taking place in Northern Ireland, will have to be made in January. That will require political direction and political determination. Those decisions will not be taken by a civil servant; in fact, civil servants will be reluctant to go anywhere near those issues and to start making those decisions, because they might be too controversial for them.

As the independent chairman of the Northern Ireland taskforce on motorsport, I want to know, and I ask each week, what will happen to the needs of motorsport in Northern Ireland. It is a huge industry generating tens of millions of pounds for the local economy in many parts of our country, yet we do not have political decisions being made about how moneys will be allocated to events and events funding in Northern Ireland.

It is perverse in many ways that with tonight’s decision we will be having more British rule in Northern Ireland—and with no more of an Irish dimension. The fact of the matter is that Sinn Féin has brought about a situation where it now appears to be in a worse place, as an ideology, than it was in 1997 and in 1985. While Unionism was on the back foot and being pushed out of its sense of place and sense of nationhood, we now have Sinn Féin putting its community in a very difficult situation.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is supremely ironic that the decisions taken over the past few weeks and months by the party of “Brits out” has resulted tonight in “Brits in”?

[Ian Paisley]

I agree that it is a case of “Brits in”, but of course the British have never left, and could never be bombed out, bullied out, pushed out or got out, because it is our land—our country—and we are staying there, so I never really subscribed to the view that we were “out” in the first place.

The call to have an Irish dimension as part of this process has fallen on deaf ears. There is no role in the new mechanism that we are now in—this “twilight zone”, as it has been called—for the Irish dimension. That has left nationalists and republicans bereft of any sort of foothold in the process going forward. That is entirely their fault. We live in a divided community. We have a society that is split and we have to try to heal it. We can do that only when we have responsible politicians on the side of Sinn Féin, the SDLP and others coming forward and being prepared to lead their community away from the abyss that they have taken it to. It is sad that they have decided to do that, but they have done it and it is their responsibility.

My party is up for devolution. We put an awful lot of effort into it. I know the sacrifice that was made by many people in my party and many people on these Benches. I know the personal sacrifice that was made by my father to get devolution up and running. It saddens me that it is coming to an end, but I shed no tears for it when I see the mess that some people would try to make of it. If people want to squander it and make a mess of it, let us bring it to an end and finish it. Let us have direct rule and get on with governing our people in a sensible way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

This Government have committed £25 million of funding to support the Northern Ireland Executive’s tackling paramilitarism programme. However, I return to the point that this reminds us why we need an Executive back up and running to keep people safe, on this most acute of issues.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Minister must be absolutely appalled by the report from the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on the response by the Government to Libyan Semtex being used to murder people in Northern Ireland and here in GB. Will she commit to meet my colleagues and me to discuss this report and get a fresh start on dealing with this crucial issue?

[Chloe Smith]

More broadly, this is a matter being taken forward by the Foreign Office, but I would be happy to meet, or indeed to arrange a meeting, with members of the Government to discuss the issues in more detail.