Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Emma Little Pengelly

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. That issue is under discussion. In the talks process, we are talking about a whole range of policies that could go into a programme for government, and one of those must be the reform of educational provision, particularly for those with special educational needs. I have been fighting very hard for that, and I think there is consensus across all the parties, but we need the Northern Ireland Assembly back to get that in place.

I speak to many teachers and, in particular, headteachers. Their budgets are under incredible pressure. I know that the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs has taken evidence on the issue, but it needs to be resolved. Schools are crying out for financial help. That is the type of issue that DUP Members of the Legislative Assembly, and MLAs right across Northern Ireland, want to talk about.

Often in Northern Ireland, particularly at this time of year, politicians get criticised for talking about flags and bonfires. I and the vast majority of people I know agree that those issues need to be addressed, but what we want to talk about and focus on is education, public services, affordable childcare and tackling health issues. At the moment, we are prevented from doing so meaningfully, because those issues are, on the whole, devolved and there is no Northern Ireland Assembly.

We do not have 30 hours’ free childcare in Northern Ireland. Just before the collapse of the Assembly, work was under way to introduce a comprehensive affordable childcare programme, but that does not help parents in Northern Ireland at the moment who cannot access the same support, tailored for Northern Ireland, that people get across the rest of the United Kingdom. These urgent issues are impacting on hard-working families, whose household budgets are really feeling the pressure.

On health, we have a GP crisis. I was not feeling that well last week and phoned up my GP. I was told that the waiting time for an appointment was two weeks. Frankly, I felt that by then I would hopefully be feeling okay. There is a GP crisis across Northern Ireland; we do not have enough of them, practices are under huge pressure, and waiting lists are growing. It is the same across the entire health service. We need decisions made on the budget, and health transformation that will fundamentally tackle our huge waiting lists. People come to my constituency surgeries and my constituency office with letters saying that it will be two or three years before they can access a pain clinic and get some help.

I want to challenge the idea that those issues do not relate to rights. These are fundamental rights. What about the person on a cancer waiting list? What about their fundamental right to life when, because there is no Northern Ireland Assembly, they are sitting on a waiting list and could well die before they get the intervention they require? This is rights denied—rights to basic public services. That is wrong, and it must be addressed. There is a party denying rights in Northern Ireland across health, education and fundamental support for ordinary human beings, and that party is Sinn Féin.

[Bob Stewart]

The hon. Lady is making a really good speech. What pressure is building up in Sinn Féin MLA areas? All the problems she outlines must be replicated there, so what pressure are Sinn Féin MLAs facing from their own constituents? It must be just as powerful as what is happening in South Belfast.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank the hon. Member for that contribution. I do not see what happens in Sinn Féin constituency offices, but I can only imagine that the issues of health, education, poverty and the need for basic public services are the same right across the community. It does not matter if you are Protestant, Catholic, nationalist, Unionist, new incomer or ethnic minority—the needs are the same. Everybody is suffering from Sinn Féin’s decision to continue to refuse to allow the Northern Ireland Assembly to be restored. I hope that they are hearing the message loud and clear: come to the table, come to a sensible and fair agreement, and get Stormont back up and working for the people of Northern Ireland.

There are a couple of other issues I want to touch on. I do not want to speak for too long, so I will go through them very quickly. There are some key pressure points. All political parties have heard representations in relation to the social security mitigation package. We put in place a number of mitigations in terms of welfare reform. The Northern Ireland Assembly agreed that the NIA budget would pay for that. If a decision is not made, upwards of 40,000 people will have bills coming through their doors or much-needed help withdrawn. The package requires legislation, and so, under the terms of the Bill, cannot be implemented by the permanent secretaries. If the legislation is not passed by September, 40,000-plus people will be considerably worse off. This is a real issue that will impact on real people in need.

I was very much involved in setting up the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry. I sat on the project board, along with Sinn Féin, when we worked on the legislation. I sat on the project board with Sinn Féin whenever we looked at implementation. We looked at inquiries across the world and one of the things we decided to do was put a date in the legislation for the inquiry to report. We did that because we did not want the inquiry to roll forward for years and years. We built in flexibility so that the chair of the inquiry could come back and request more time, but we knew, right from the passing of the initial legislation, the date the inquiry was due to report. I sat on the project board with Sinn Féin while we liaised throughout the duration of that inquiry. I think it was about two weeks before the report was due—the chairman of the inquiry had made it clear to all members of the project board, including Sinn Féin, that the report was on time—when Sinn Féin chose to collapse the Assembly.

There were two big outstanding issues: the budget for Northern Ireland and the HIA report. Before Sinn Féin collapsed the Assembly, I made the case to Sinn Féin. I said to the then Finance Minister, “Look, there are these two issues. You can choose to collapse the Assembly, we can’t stop you from doing that, but what is the necessity about time? We can take these two weeks and pass a budget to support public services. We can wait for the HIA inquiry to report.” It decided not to.

We have now moved on. This is not about the politics; we want and need those victims to get support. This issue requires legislation and that is being held up because there is no Northern Ireland Assembly.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Emma Little Pengelly

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

I will try to be relatively brief, because my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has made a fantastic speech in which he articulated many of the issues that I wanted to touch on. I am also conscious that my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is sitting behind me, is keen to speak and to have sufficient time to articulate his issues, and I do not want to disappoint him in that regard.

I want to talk about the specifics of this legislation. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East in thanking the team at the Northern Ireland Office and the ministerial team for all their work and for the help they have given to me and the Democratic Unionist party team to enable us to understand better the issues in the Bill. They also gave us the space to raise our concerns and issues, some of which I will touch on today.

As already articulated, this Bill is not a perfect solution. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is far from a perfect solution, because it is so limited in what it can actually do and in the powers that it gives to senior civil servants. The context of course is that that is also difficult and troubling, because giving such powers has at its heart a democratic deficit that goes to the centre of British constitutional democracy. I will touch on that again later, not least because it is almost unprecedented in decision making in any part of our United Kingdom.

Throughout the process, from the first suggestion of this approach, the ministerial team in the Northern Ireland Office will be aware that DUP Members have expressed disappointment over the ambition of the proposals. That disappointment arose not because the Secretary of State was keen to ensure that some decisions can happen in Northern Ireland, but because putting Northern Ireland back into a pre-Buick but post-collapse position is insufficient. The legislation gives only limited scope for decision making by senior civil servants, about which the Secretary of State was frank and clear, but I am grateful that there are some exceptions, although they are small, covering planning and big investment decisions when they are non-controversial and enjoy a broad consensus and when decisions are clearly in the public interest. I put it on the record again that I welcome the Secretary of State’s clarity that a decision like that on the transport hub, which is of regional significance and critical to Northern Ireland’s economy, can be made under the terms in the legislation.

However, I share the sentiments of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) that it is extremely disappointing that we are where we are. This is not where any of us want to be. I do not want to go into great detail, but it is worth reminding ourselves of how we have reached this point. My DUP colleagues have already articulated our frustration, because we want to get back into government to work and to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland. My colleagues who are Members of the Legislative Assembly were elected to do that job, but they cannot. They, like Members of every other party, are frustrated from entering the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive by one party, but one of the frustrating things about the process thus far has been the tendency by many to look at all the parties in Northern Ireland and say, “You’re all as bad as each other. You’re all holding back progress. Why don’t you just get on with it and get back into government?”

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I was here for most of the first part of the debate, but I had to be away to attend a Committee. I just want to agree with the hon. Lady. Only one party is stopping Stormont reconvening, and it is Sinn Féin. It is in Sinn Féin’s interest to screw up—I use that phrase advisedly—the whole idea of Northern Ireland being self-governing, and it will continue to do that. I suspect that we will still be here arguing like this next year. I wish that the situation were not like this, because Northern Ireland is a great place. One party—Sinn Féin—is ruining what should be happening.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank and agree with the hon. Gentleman.

I came in to work for and with Government back in 2007 on the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I was an adviser in the office of the First Minister, and I worked closely not only with our DUP team, but with the Sinn Féin team. Back in 2007, that was challenging, because the office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister is a joint office. Part of my job was to advise the First Minister and try to get agreement on a range of issues to be signed off by the Ministers in the relevant Department. What did that mean in practice? It meant that every letter and every policy—everything that went out of the Department—had to be agreed between the DUP and Sinn Féin. I was one of the people charged with seeking those agreements for ministerial sign off.

I say this today not because of any blind hatred or opposition to Sinn Féin, because we worked the system, and we worked it hard, to try to deliver on behalf of everyone in Northern Ireland. We had to make very difficult compromises, decisions and agreements to make devolution work in order to try to stabilise the peace.

It was therefore particularly disappointing when the collapse happened, and I recognise all those people across all parties, including Sinn Féin, with whom we worked to try to make Northern Ireland work. It is in that context that everyone here, including on the Labour Benches, should be clear about who is causing there to be no government in Northern Ireland today. We would go back into government tomorrow morning. We are willing to turn up, and we are not asking for anything. One party is saying to every other party in Northern Ireland, “You are not going into government unless we get our demands.” That is blackmailing not just the other parties in Northern Ireland but the people of Northern Ireland who want to see issues addressed such as health, health transformation, education, necessary infrastructure and the fantastic projects happening on the ground to foster good relations—those things cannot happen.

In the main, the Bill gives unaccountable senior civil servants the power to make some decisions, and it has been acknowledged that most of them will be routine, non-controversial, low-level decisions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) rightly said, the vast majority of the 200 decisions that have been listed are not controversial, but they cannot be taken under the terms of this Bill. That is why, right from the outset of this process, we expressed disappointment, because the time has now come that, if Sinn Féin will not move on and if they want to boycott the Northern Ireland Assembly, they should allow those who want to work to work. There need to be ministerial decisions on a whole range of important issues.

New clause 7 has received some coverage and has caused some controversy because of the two issues relating to Northern Ireland. I echo the comments of many on both sides of the House that we recognise these issues are of deep concern to many people in Northern Ireland. These issues are of deep concern to many people in my constituency. We have heard the experiences of women, particularly in relation to life-limiting conditions and fatal foetal abnormalities. We have listened to their stories and experiences, and they are incredibly difficult. I challenge anyone not to feel empathy for the very challenging circumstances in which those women find themselves.

I spoke on behalf of the DUP in the Northern Ireland Assembly just prior to the collapse on a report we commissioned, and I urged people to wait, to let us see the report and to approach the situation with compassion and care. That report has been received, and I honestly believe that, if the Northern Ireland Assembly were re-established, the report would be debated, considered and decided on where it rightly should be dealt with. The only thing holding that up is the lack of a Northern Ireland Assembly, and there would be no impediment to the Assembly getting back to work tomorrow if Sinn Féin dropped their red line.

Yes, there are some concerns about the Bill, and I conclude by addressing some specific issues for Northern Ireland. The historical institutional abuse inquiry has been mentioned, and I have frequently met victims and victims’ groups over the past seven to eight years. I have put on the record, and wish to say again, that we in the Democratic Unionist party are hugely sympathetic to what those people experienced, particularly as children, in those institutions. That is an example of an issue that needs to be addressed. A huge amount of work needs to happen on a possible redress scheme—a support scheme— and who would be eligible for it and what mechanism could be used to introduce it. But that can happen at the moment, in preparedness for a decision to be made; my understanding is that under the terms of this Bill and guidance that is the type of decision that cannot be made.

In the absence of such decisions, if there is no restoration of the Assembly, I urge the Secretary of State and her team: be a little braver, step up and make the decision to say, “It has gone on long enough.” Victims, those suffering, those in need and those sitting on waiting lists need decisions, and they need to be ministerial decisions. Although that needs to happen now and in a couple of months’ time, it needed to happen yesterday—it needed to happen a year ago. This is now urgent across such a wide range of issues.

Briefly, I wish to touch on the issue of the definition of a “victim”. I mentioned in an intervention that this week marks the 25th anniversary of the Shankill bomb, an incident that demonstrates so acutely the grotesque nature of the definition of “victim” in Northern Ireland. Under that definition, which is holding up issues such as the victim’s pension and other support, the nine innocent victims of that atrocity—that IRA act of terrorism—are gauged to be the same as the IRA bomber who blew himself up and killed himself planting that bomb on that day. That is grotesque and appalling. People right across all the political parties, here and in Northern Ireland, have a number of issues they are really concerned about and care deeply about. I recognise that many care deeply about the Irish language Act, but there are many other issues to address, such as the one I mentioned. What a wrong to turn around and say to the families of those who were murdered and injured on that day, “That bomber is treated the same under victims’ schemes and victim support as the people he went out to murder.”

Connected to that is the point relating to our veterans. We do need our covenant—we need full implementation of the covenant. Northern Ireland has 3% of the UK’s population, but we contribute 7% to the Army, which is vastly higher in terms of proportion across the United Kingdom, and we do deal with the legacy. When people come back, they have done their duty and have seen some terrible things, not because they chose to go there, but because that was their job and duty. We therefore have a responsibility to do what we can to support them. We need the full implementation of the armed forces covenant in Northern Ireland. We also need to address the issue of the disproportionate and grotesque attempts to pursue soldiers and police officers who did their duty, stood up to protect and were only there with a gun in that situation because they were placed there to protect people. We need to get that addressed urgently, and with that I will conclude.