Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th March 2019 Lords Chamber

I have sympathy with the overwhelming number of RHI applicants. They joined the scheme with perfectly honourable intentions and in good faith. They based their decisions on the formal advice provided at the time. They were entitled to expect the promised return on their investment and they have been badly let down. Together, the amendments represent a compromise that I hope your Lordships can unite around in the Division Lobby if the Minister does not feel able to embrace them at the Dispatch Box. RHI became a partisan issue at Stormont because the DUP and Sinn Féin Ministers failed to take proper responsibility for their actions when they had the opportunity to do so. It is very likely that similar battle lines will be redrawn when the inquiry team’s report is published. In the short term, it is essential that your Lordships act as one, accept these sensible additions to the Bill and invite the other place to think again. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for his powerfully persuasive speech, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, described it. This is a very complicated matter, as we all know. We are very happy to support his amendments.

We have been asked to pass the Bill virtually blind, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said. There has been no scrutiny whatever in the other place, and we know that this scheme was turned into a disaster by a mixture of incompetence and inappropriate political interference. Let us hope that this will be sorted out as soon as the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee gets down to business. Of course, I join in with all the praise for the Minister, whom we all greatly admire. We hope he will be able to consider this amendment and take it in, so that the other place has another chance to vote for it.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment, introduced so powerfully by my noble friend Lord Empey and supported so powerfully by my noble friend Lord Cormack and others. I expressed my general concern about the issue at Second Reading last week. By that time, I had received a few emails from deeply troubled farmers and small business men in Ulster. Since then, the trickle has become a flood of deeply worried people who accept that a reduction in grants is just and right, but seriously question the justice of the extent of the reductions to which they will be subject.

It is good news that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the other place—I sometimes wish we had an equivalent body in this House—under its highly respected chairman, Dr Andrew Murrison, will be conducting a full investigation. This has given comfort to those from Ulster who have been in touch with us. It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if that inquiry, which is now under way with, I understand, every intention of its rapid completion, should be pre-empted by decisions taken in advance of it.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is a personal friend of mine. He is also deeply respected on all sides of our House as a wise, well-informed, moderate voice for the people of Ulster, and we should particularly bear in mind that he speaks too as a former Energy Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive.

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[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I always like to be asked a question, and I turn my eye gently and think: I have no idea of the answer to that. I will, however, find out the answer and report back to the noble Lord in real time as soon as it is available.

The reason that I am putting this proposal before your Lordships’ House tonight is because it would be unfair to pretend that we can treat all those individuals as an average; we need to see each in their own terms, understand how their world fits together and how this invidious scheme has been constructed to their detriment. It is unfair of this or any Government to expect those acting in good faith to be penalised for that. We must also be cognisant of the draw on the public purse—there is no point pretending that there is a bottomless pit of money for our approach to this matter. The noble Lord and I have, however, had discussions about what moneys might be required.

It says here, “No to bringing back on Third Reading”. I am afraid, therefore, that the answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is no. I can, however, put on record that we will need to understand the timing of this to be able to deliver it—without the timing there is a risk it will drift into the long grass. I give an assurance that we will be able to—

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

While the Minister is looking at that for Third Reading, can he also indicate how much will probably need to be put aside for this independent review?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Baroness asks a question to which I once again do not have an adequate answer, but I think that it would be fair to say that appropriate funds must be set aside to address these issues. That might seem a vague assertion, but it need not be. I recognise that, where those hardships have been iterated and are evidence based, there should be support for the individuals concerned. I am afraid that I do not know what the overall sum would be; I know that the sum set aside under current arrangements is £4 million. Clearly, if there are to be adjustments to those arrangements, there will need to be adjustments to that figure, and I suspect that they would be in the upward and not the downward direction. As to the exact figure, I am afraid that I do not have that information. If I am to report back to the House in a Written Statement, I think that I will be able to put the figure to the House very clearly, because, by that stage, we would know exactly what this looked like.

I do not know whether that satisfies the noble Lord, who is sitting on the friendly Benches behind me, but I hope that it is. I hope that both he and the wider community recognise that we are seeking to ensure that we make progress.

A number of noble Lords have raised the issue about what happens with the grandfathering clause. The grandfathering clause of 1 April creates serious problems for us. Moving forward on that basis would mean that we were unable to ensure the functioning of the scheme full stop, let alone at any rate which noble Lords might wish to see or set. In addition, as we see the scheme moving forward, we need to make sure that it is fully compliant with the base of the law. We have also to recognise that expecting civil servants in Northern Ireland to act in a fashion which they know to be illegal is simply not possible nor a fair request of that service. It is for those reasons—and I am loath to say it—that we must move forward within the basic structure and parameters of the Bill but allow for the adjustments that I have outlined, which I believe will take us some way to address the genuine hardships which have been reflected to all here gathered.