Northern Ireland Office

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I will also begin by congratulating the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), on making sure that we got this debate. It is clear that without her and the support of her Committee, we would not be discussing this incredibly important issue on the Floor of the House. I repeat the remarks made by the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson): the Select Committee in this Parliament has been exemplary and given us high quality analysis, which has benefited debate on both sides of the House.

We are here debating the estimate simply because the situation is becoming dire. As was said by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray)—I fear that my pronunciation may be slightly out—this is not an abstract matter; it is having a genuine impact on public services today and on the planning of public services for tomorrow. Uncertainty is building and—I am sorry to say this—there is no suggestion that it will be alleviated any time soon. In fact, as the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) mentioned, it appears that we are further from agreement now than we were at the start of the year, because there is disagreement within Sinn Féin on the proposals put forward.

That begs an important question for the Government: what will happen next? This is a debate about devolved issues, but I know that the Secretary of State and his officials from the Northern Ireland Office have been in talks with the Executive and their representatives. I very much hope that we will get an update on those talks. We must, however, ask what will happen if no agreement is forthcoming. As was said, we are now a quarter of the way through the financial year and there is no solution in sight. We cannot move to a position where overspend continues to be normalised, and it appears that the Executive are effectively saying, “We can’t solve this problem—we need more money.” That is not sustainable, and it cannot give anyone confidence in devolution as it is now. What is the Government’s plan if the current talks break down and we move into the summer without an agreed budget in Northern Ireland?

I have a number of points to ask the Secretary of State about while I have the opportunity—most significantly, they are about legacy. He may have detected from some of our previous debates that Opposition Members are not in favour of what the Government are doing. That said, we think strongly that if the Government are to press ahead with their plans, given that it is acknowledged that those plans will create an additional burden on public services in Northern Ireland, on the police and on the legacy institutions, the Government should be prepared to meet that financial cost.

It is not enough to say that £250 million is being made available. That £250 million was made available by a Conservative Government some time ago, and since it was granted inflation has probably degraded it to £200 million at most. It is clear that if the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is passed, it will increase the caseload of the ICRIR—the Legacy Commission, as it will become—but not increase the resources it has at its disposal, and it will increase the caseload that the PSNI is dealing with, but not increase the resources of the PSNI.

The danger is that we will see a bottleneck in the Legacy Commission and very slow processing of cases, and an additional drain on the resources of the PSNI that will take more people away from frontline policing. We know that frontline policing in Northern Ireland has about 1,000 fewer officers than were expected when New Decade, New Approach was signed. That is a clear and present danger that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill presents to financing in Northern Ireland, and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could explain the Government’s position.

I would also be interested to hear whether the Secretary of State has had any discussions with the heir presumptive to the Labour party leadership on the future of the troubles Bill, because the legislative timetable has obviously been pushed to the right again and it seems unlikely that we will have the legislation before the summer break. That being so, it will be a consideration for the next Prime Minister. Can the Secretary of State tell us what conversations he has had with the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) about this legislation, and whether the next Prime Minister, if that is what he is, is in favour of it?

In the negotiations that any Government have with the Executive in Northern Ireland, I believe there is a duty to make the case that the Northern Ireland Executive should be prepared to raise revenue on top of the budget settlements that the Treasury gives. After the last Budget, I was prepared to say that I thought the Northern Ireland Office had acquired a reasonably good settlement from the Treasury for Northern Ireland. The key now is that that money should be well spent. If the Northern Ireland Executive want to spend more, they should be prepared to raise revenue, but they should also be prepared to deliver their public services more efficiently and effectively. I hope that His Majesty’s Government will work with the institutions in Northern Ireland to help that to happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn]

I will reflect on that point. I do not know in what sense the right hon. Gentleman uses “remote”; if it is geographical, I agree with him entirely. I acknowledge that, as he said from experience, agreeing a budget is difficult in a power-sharing system. It is difficult. He told the House an interesting story about being faced with reductions in budget and it being possible to come together and agree one. All Governments have to deal with the financial and fiscal circumstances they find, but when we take office, we have a responsibility to fulfil the tasks that are in front of us, which include balancing the budget. He also made interesting points about conditionality. How do we ensure, in return for whatever support a Government give—we have seen a long history of lumps and bumps of money, restoration after collapse, and so on—a consistent, measurable path to balanced budgets year after year, and an end to boom and bust in times of crisis?

We have increased the additional security funding, which, from memory, I think was flat for about 10 years under the previous Government. This Government came in and decided to increase the additional security funding. The point has been raised in the Select Committee about the comparison with the counter-terrorism policing grant that is available in England and Wales. However, if we divide the grant by the population, we get £19.42 per head of funding; if we divide the additional security funding for Northern Ireland by the population of Northern Ireland, we get £19.61 per head. When people ask why Northern Ireland is not eligible for the counter-terrorism grant, the answer is that it is getting the same funding per head from the additional security funding. It is for the Chief Constable to decide how best to use that money.

Let me turn to legacy funding. The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar, speaking for the Opposition, is right that the sum was identified some time ago. It is actually £232 million, because £18 million of the £250 million has been set aside for part 4 of the legacy Act. In addition, the framework agreement, to be given effect by the troubles Bill, will enable the Irish Government to commit a further €25 million for legacy mechanisms. We are talking regularly to the ICRIR and the Treasury on a business case, but I say to the hon. Gentleman that the caseload faced by the legacy commission is entirely the product of the piece of legislation that the previous Government passed.

[Alex Burghart]

That’s why we funded it.

[Hilary Benn]

Well, it is entirely the result of that. The funding that was made available was the fixed sum to which I referred a moment ago. That is the first point.

Secondly, the Department of Justice had put aside a sum of around, from memory, £50 million when the inquests five-year plan was put in place. It thought it would have 50 cases. A number of those, of course, are now not going ahead, and the troubles Bill proposes to restore nine and to sift the rest. Thirdly, prior to the legacy Act’s coming into law, the PSNI had about 1,000 cases to investigate; had the legacy Act not been passed, it would have continued to have to investigate those and receive requests for disclosure.

The final point I would make on this issue—and I did make this point to the Select Committee when I was asked about it—is that we are looking in particular at schedule 4 to the Bill because Jon Boutcher makes the point that if there is a requirement to sift all the material to identify that which is of high security before handing over the files, that puts an obligation in place. We are looking at what we can do to ease some of the cost burdens, as hon. Members have said, as more people come to the Legacy Commission—and I hope more people will come forward.

I will turn now to a couple of other points.

[Alex Burghart]

I am pleased that the Government are looking at some sort of additional support for PSNI. I sense that the Secretary of State is about to move off legacy. I did ask him whether he had discussed the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill with the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) because, obviously, his view of the Bill will be critical for its future.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman invites me to speculate on discussions I may or may not have had, and I will kindly resist the request that he has just made for reasons that I am sure will have been obvious to him when he wrote that question into his speech.

The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and I have discussed the internal market many times before. He talks about the firms that have stopped shipping stuff to Northern Ireland. He will find many, many firms that have stopped shipping stuff to Europe for exactly the same reason: the decision to leave the European Union. It is from that that all the consequences have flowed.