Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I will not detain the House very long, because there are many voices from Northern Ireland—those directly elected by the people of Northern Ireland—who need to be heard and should quite rightly be heard. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) , who I think spoke for many when he said “Here we go again.” That must be the overwhelming sense of the people of Northern Ireland as well, who deserve so much better than they are being given.

I share the Minister’s frustration that it has come to this again, particularly when people are struggling to make ends meet and there is a cost of living crisis. People have to know, they have to be able to plan and they have to have a Government that plan. They need their Executive up and running as quickly as possible. The hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) made that all too real when he brought up the statistics and talked about the health crisis in Northern Ireland, because that is the consequence of being unable to make multi-year decisions about how Northern Ireland goes forward.

The SNP supports this Bill. We regret the circumstances that have brought us here today, but we accept that it is necessary. Nevertheless, it is hugely disappointing that it has come to this and that this place is acting in the stead of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Having Stormont back working properly as soon as possible is in the interest of all the people of Northern Ireland, because there is no substitute for local people making local decisions. Let us be frank, with all due respect to my DUP colleagues, nobody knows better day to day what the people of Northern Ireland want and need than the local MLAs who have been elected and whose job it is to deliver on those priorities.

The people of Northern Ireland need the politicians they elected to the Assembly back at work as quickly as possible. That is why this Budget should not be set here—but while there is no functioning Assembly, this Bill, as I say, is better than nothing and in the absence of Stormont, we will support it. It is essential that those hard-working public servants get what they need to allow them to do their job and that the people of Northern Ireland get what they need.

From a Scottish perspective, it is absurd that we now have trade barriers not just with our European partners, but within the UK itself. Having been promised the “best of both worlds” by the former Prime Minister, we now appear to have the worst of all worlds. I speak particularly as the Member for Argyll and Bute with our fishing industry. We can see across the water to Northern Ireland and the fishing communities there; we share the same waters and we fish for the same catch, but we have completely different regulatory systems.

My communities have been—excuse the pun—battered by a double whammy of Brexit, which was totally mismanaged, and the choice the UK made to turn a blind eye to the inevitable problems that would be caused by Brexit to Northern Ireland. That has led us to where we are now. The passing of this Bill goes nowhere near resolving those problems, but it is necessary, and on that basis we shall support it.