Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the Committee will see that I have a number of issues in Amendments 12 to 16. I have to say—I have said this to the Minister before—that I believe that this Bill, which was set out to be a relatively simple exercise, has now transformed itself into something totally different. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, described it as a Christmas tree, so I take the view that if people at the other end are entitled to put baubles on the Christmas tree, I can put tinsel on it. Let us be under no illusion. Once the dam is breached, people will flow through with their own ideas and are perfectly entitled to do it. I have chosen a number of things because I believe they are very important to the people of Northern Ireland. Most of them are not being addressed, yet people are in significant difficulty as a result.

I will start with Amendment 12. The RHI has proven to be one of the most significant developments in Northern Ireland in recent years. It was ostensibly the reason Sinn Féin collapsed the Executive in 2017. I have never believed that that was the only reason. Nevertheless, it is on paper as the reason. As we discovered when dealing with rates and the renewable heat incentive in March, many people are in great distress as a result.

After we had discussed things, the Minister promised that a unit would be established within the Department for the Economy to look at the individual circumstances of everybody who was at risk and at a loss as a result of the change in the premiums being paid for the use of the boilers. It appears to me that the department has taken an exceptionally narrow view of what that means and is confining itself to European Union rules stipulating that it could provide loans at commercial rates for up to six months and that would probably be as far as it could go. That is no use to the people.

In the debate earlier, before the dinner-break business, people referred to undertakings that the Government gave. In this particular case, the relevant Minister at the time appealed to the banks in writing for them to lend to people who were going to operate these boilers. The banks responded to the Minister, loaning money on the undertaking that the rights were being grandfathered and there was a 12% return. Some people got these boilers, calculated the income that they had received from them over the 20 years of the scheme, put that into business plans and perhaps went on to borrow money for other related projects, such as additional chicken houses and so on. They now find that the premiums they are in receipt of are a mere fraction of those they had put into their business plans and were promised by the Stormont Government at that time. They also find themselves in the bizarre situation that the Republic of Ireland is about to introduce a similar scheme for 15 years, while the scheme that exists here, which pre-dated the Northern Ireland version, will be continuing for its 20-year period. So the competitiveness for the person using one of those boilers in Northern Ireland compared with in the Republic or the rest of the United Kingdom is totally destroyed. I say to the Minister that this requires urgent action, and the action so far flagged up by the Department for the Economy is totally inadequate.

I come now to Amendment 13. We have all agreed that the welfare system was in urgent need of reform. It was unwieldy, far too complicated and, most important, it was not properly supporting people into work. Yet, instead of simplifying the overall benefits system, the reforms made it even more difficult, with new layers of complexity and added delay. In 2015, the local political parties in Northern Ireland agreed that a package of measures was required. This included support for people moving from DLA to PIP, or perhaps from DLA to nothing at all, as well as many other issues, such as additional support for the independent advice sector. One of the most important mitigations was in relation to the social sector size criteria. While we can all accept the principle behind families being allocated homes that most reflect their needs, the reality in Northern Ireland did not—and, shamefully, still does not—have the stock to reflect modern demand; in other words, there are insufficient homes for single people or small families.

If, as is so greatly feared, the current mitigations expire next March and nothing is there to replace them, many thousands of local families face the prospect of serious financial hardship. Let us take the bedroom tax alone: a massive 34,000 households would lose support valued at £22 million per annum. I repeat: this is not because people are refusing to downsize; it is because there are literally not the houses for people to downsize to. It is as simple as that. There have been talks between the parties of Northern Ireland in recent months on the issue of future mitigation. I am told that they have gone quite well so far, yet the Department for Communities in Belfast has repeatedly said that decisions on the provision of any future support from April next year can be a matter only for incoming Ministers. That is why I have tabled this amendment and put the realistic timeframe of December on it.

On Amendment 15, the Minister will be aware that we have a serious problem with suicide in Northern Ireland. It is at the highest level in the whole of the United Kingdom. Troubles-related issues may be part of it; indeed, I have no doubt that that is the case. But we are the only UK region without a current mental health strategy and our funding per capita for mental health services is far below the UK average. We have this very difficult situation, yet the Protect Life 2 strategy has been sitting on the shelf for over two years. We are talking about individual lives; primarily the victims are young men. I believe there is widespread support among the political parties in Belfast to see this strategy taken off the shelf. I think this was referred to last week by other colleagues here and that everybody is on the same hymn sheet. At the end of the day, however, the strategy is still sitting there, nothing is happening and, without it, the departments are not in a position to take decisions. The advice that the parties have been given by the Civil Service is correct: this requires a Minister to take a decision, and that is not happening.

Amendment 14 is about libel legislation in Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Black, has tabled a more specific amendment that will be dealt with later, so I shall not go into detail. Basically, we are on the same page, but I was looking to try to give some kind of kick-start to this. We have fallen far behind the rest of the country, and I support what the noble Lord will propose at a later stage.

On Amendment 16, I have described our situation with health time and time again. On Second Reading I referred to the latest report from the Nuffield Trust, backed up by Professor Deirdre Heenan of Ulster University, its co-author. The statistics are sobering. Upwards of 120,000 people out of a population of 1.8 million are waiting for more than a year for a consultant-led appointment. Every target is being missed: if the target is 95%, most of the percentages are in the low 60s. We are not close to other regions in the rest of the United Kingdom, and the capacity of the service to meet the demand from the public is simply not there.

We are flying in nurses from Great Britain. Their air fare is paid, their accommodation and meals are paid, and their hourly pay is grossly above that of the ordinary nurses on the wards. Although the agency nurses do a good job and we could not survive without them, this cannot be a sensible or economic way forward. When people are flying in and out, they are not in a position to open up a relationship with a patient or understand that patient. Moreover, different systems operate in different trusts. This is an inefficient and highly expensive way of providing a service.

In our earlier debates we talked about life. I did not get into the argument about abortion, although I have my own views on it—but we understand that the fundamental thing is a respect for life, and choices. Yet we know that the way in which the service is being delivered in part of our own country is at such a level that life is being affected. If a cancer patient waits weeks and months for an appointment, that directly affects their chances of survival. In diagnosis time is of the essence, as many noble Lords will know.

Our situation is out of control, and all the projections are that it is getting progressively worse. Every quarter the figures are worse than those for the quarter before. How many times do we have to learn that? The fact is that politics are being put before the welfare of hundreds of thousands of our citizens. None of us knows how often we shall have to depend on the health service. Not one of us in this Chamber knows how we shall be placed. Those figures represent mothers, fathers, sons and daughters; they are real people, and they are suffering because the service is not delivering.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I commend the noble Lord for consistently raising this subject, and for the passion with which he has done so. To support his case, does he agree that there is also a serious problem of lack of childcare, and the dreadful waiting times for children in the NHS in Northern Ireland?

[Lord Empey]

The noble Lord is correct. All our services are suffering, not through any lack of attention, or any attempt on anybody’s part not to provide a good service, but because people are overwhelmed. Decisions that were taken in the Treasury some years ago affecting the position of consultants’ pensions and other things are now impacting seriously on waiting lists because a lot of those consultants are absenting themselves. There is a perverse situation that the more work there is, the more they are making a liability for themselves. These are the sorts of things that are happening.

Leaving aside the politics of it—I do not want to see direct rule; I spent years of my life trying to see Stormont get going, accompanied by the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, and other Members who are in the House today, and we want to see it work—there is a humanitarian issue at the back of all this. People are hurting, and the longer the prevarication is allowed to persist, the greater the risk to individuals. The truth of the matter is that people will die on these waiting lists—we have to be honest about this—and collectively we are standing around watching this. I suspect that that is not a sustainable position for any of us to keep. It is in those circumstances that I beg to move.

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Moved by

[Lord Hain]

21: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause—
“Pension for victims and survivors of Troubles-related incidents
(1) The Secretary of State must make regulations to give effect to a pension for those severely injured through no fault of their own during the period known as the Northern Ireland Troubles, in line with advice requested by the Secretary of State and submitted in May 2019 from the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, and to provide that those who qualify for the pension should receive it back-dated to 23 December 2014, being the date of signing of the Stormont House Agreement.(2) Regulations under this section must be in force no later than 21 October 2019, subject to subsections (3) and (4).(3) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1)—(a) must be laid before both Houses of Parliament;(b) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.(4) If a Northern Ireland Executive is formed before the regulations under this section come into force, any regulations made under this section and any extant obligations arising under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect.”

[Lord Hain]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 21, which stands in my name and the names of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Bruce. I am grateful for their support.

I shall first speak briefly about the context which has dominated this debate. In 2007, when we negotiated the deal that brought Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness into power together, I said that I was the last direct-rule Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I now very much fear that that was wrong and that we are hurtling towards direct rule. I fear that greatly because the current situation has shown how difficult it is to get the Assembly up and running with a functioning Executive once it has been suspended. With direct rule, that becomes doubly difficult. I say to my friends in the DUP—and they are my friends, because I worked very closely with them as Secretary of State and have done so since—that I hope that they are taking note of what is happening in de facto parliamentary direct rule. A lot of things that are coming through are things they are not happy about. That is the consequence of the Assembly being suspended. It is not only one party—Sinn Féin—that is at fault. It is not only one party. Yes, it is at fault, and it is being uncompromising on some issues and details—but, I am afraid, so are my friends in the DUP. This is not just one party blocking the whole thing. I think there should be honesty about that. The consequences are here to be seen in issues that the DUP is deeply unhappy about.

In passing, I will say that, once again in the debates on this Bill, we are seeing the absence of a nationalist political voice in this House. Half the community does not have a political voice in your Lordships’ House. There is no modern Gerry Fitt, as it were. I know he was criticised by many of his followers for taking his seat here, but it was an important voice to hear. I know that will be agreed by unionist Members. I hope that, in considering future appointments to this House, the Government, perhaps in consultation with the independent Appointments Commission, will take note of that, because this cannot continue—especially if direct rule comes, as I very much fear it might.

I recognise that, as drafted, Amendment 21 is likely to require a money resolution in the House of Commons—or at least an amendment on Report to incorporate funding from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund, which I hope the Government will agree to. I have spoken many times in your Lordships’ House on the urgent need to provide a pension for those who were severely injured through no fault of their own—I repeat, “through no fault of their own”, which is written into the text—as a result of Troubles-related incidents.

I, and I know those who have been campaigning, especially in the WAVE Trauma Centre, which I commend, for the pension for nearly a decade, have been greatly heartened and encouraged by the wide cross-party support in this House for this proposal: from the former Secretaries of State the noble Lord, Lord King, and my noble friends Lord Reid and Lord Murphy; from former Victims’ Ministers who served in Northern Ireland, my noble friends Lord Browne and Lady Smith of Basildon; from the distinguished former chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack; from the noble Baroness, Lady Altman; from the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for the Liberal Democrats; and, from the Cross Benches, from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Bew. I am also grateful to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Duncan, who, to use a colloquialism, gets it. I thank him for the detailed conversations we have had on this, as well as for his support of and direct engagement with the severely injured victims. It has been much appreciated.

Now is the time for action. I urge the Government not to divide the House but to accept this amendment with not only a firm and binding commitment to legislate but with the timeframe attached to other measures coming from the other place and set out in my amendment. The date for this will be 21 October 2019, unless an Executive has been formed in Northern Ireland by then.

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[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My Lords, I believe I can give that positive response. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has given a great deal of leadership. A number of Members of your Lordships’ House have worked very hard on this matter, as have members of my team in the Northern Ireland Office. The noble Lord and I discussed earlier some technical improvements that need to be made, which I believe we can make tomorrow. The noble Lord has also raised the question of a money resolution and a consolidated fund. I believe we can address that.

I was privileged to meet a number of the survivors from the WAVE Trauma group. I recognise what they have been through. I thank the noble Lords here who have given that commitment to ensure that their voices have not been lost or forgotten. Every day we lose from here on in is one day too many. On that basis, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hain, will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hain]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very positive response and all those who have contributed to the debate, including the noble Lord, Lord McCrea. I am happy to withdraw this amendment and table a revised version tomorrow, which I hope will be acceptable to the whole House, including the Government.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.