Northern Ireland Finances

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

Again, I thank the hon. Lady—I feel that I may be thanking everyone for their good wishes—for her kindness. She asked about alternative approaches. I invite any parties with suggestions about how this could function and how we might have some form of Assembly functioning with scrutiny in Stormont, but I will have to take legal advice on everything that is proposed. If a suggestion gathers cross-party support, we would want to talk about that with others so we ensured that we could deliver something that everyone was confident would put us back on the route to devolution, not away from it. That is my key priority.

The hon. Lady also asked about the money for the confidence and supply arrangement. She will know that the agreement is on the internet, and is available for everyone to see and download. She should also recognise that these are important changes, particularly to infrastructure. The York Street interchange, for example, is something that anyone in Belfast will know is crying out for investment and change. That is why the Government want to make sure that money is spent on the things on which it needs to be spent, including health transformation, in line with the Bengoa recommendations.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend think that the allocations in the budget largely suggested by the Northern Irish civil service, which is pretty canny, would be very different if the same civil service was advising a Northern Irish Executive, which is obviously not working at the moment?

[Karen Bradley]

Clearly, my hon. and gallant Friend is right that those are conversations that the Northern Ireland civil service has had with the parties as well as with the UK Government. It has been incredibly professional in ensuring that it looks at both the decisions made by the Executive before they collapsed and their programme for government. It reflects the priorities of the UK Government in ensuring that health, education and policing are protected.