Stormont House Agreement

Lord Shutt of Greetland Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

Perhaps I may first make clear to noble Lords that the additional funding is not £2 billion a year. It is £2 billion over a number of years in excess of five years. It is not £2 billion of additional money; it is £650 million of additional money over that period. The money beyond that is spending power associated with additional flexibilities granted for the Executive’s budget. The noble Lord asked about the efficiency of the public sector. The reforms that have taken place within the Civil Service and in the public sector generally in the rest of England, Scotland and Wales have not taken place to the same extent in Northern Ireland. Therefore, it is suffering from severe financial pressures. Those reforms need to take place. It is a condition of the additional funding that the Northern Ireland Executive embark on those reforms and we expect them to do that imminently.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kilclooney (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

There is time. I suggest we hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches and then the Cross Benches before we come back to the Labour Benches.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

I welcome the Statement. I trust we are moving forward and that deadline diplomacy has worked. As ever, it is sad that we have to consider so much about the past. In the 75 paragraphs in the Stormont House agreement, 40 refer to flags, parades and the past. I note that the agreement establishes six new bodies; namely, a commission on flags et cetera, an oral history archive, a mental trauma service, a historical investigations unit, an independent commission on information retrieval, and an implementation and reconciliation group. It would be splendid if these bodies took matters forward, but of course they do not come for free. The document suggests that £150 million will be available over five years to help with these new bodies. What will the total cost of the new bodies be?

In particular, I welcome paragraph 69 under the heading “Outstanding Commitments”, which makes it seem just an afterthought. It talks about,

“initiatives to facilitate and encourage shared and integrated education and housing”,

and matters such as social inclusion. If we are really to see integrated services in Northern Ireland, what cost savings does the Minister believe there will be? It will be interesting to note, on looking further into the past, the contrast between the costs that we may well have to expend and what can be achieved in the future if we are to see some real integration.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord refers to the issues related to the past. As was made clear in the Statement, issues associated with the past in Northern Ireland are really the biggest factor that has eluded previous agreements. If this set of bodies proposed here are established and are able to work effectively, clearly considerable progress will have been made. Noble Lords will have noted that there are measures built into this to monitor progress; significant effort is being made to make sure that progress is monitored on a regular basis.

The overall cost of establishing those bodies is not of course precisely known. The £150 million in the agreement is the UK Government’s contribution to that cost but, since those bodies touch upon devolved issues, it is entirely reasonable and totally expected that the Northern Ireland Executive will contribute to their cost. Present arrangements are not necessarily working very well and cost money—so this is not entirely new money.

The noble Lord referred to the costs of division. He knows from his considerable experience that various estimates of the costs of the divided society in Northern Ireland have been made. They are variable, but they all show significant cost to that society every year.