Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

It is deeply regrettable that we find ourselves in this situation once again. Sometimes, the Democratic Unionist party gets accused of not wanting to be in the Stormont and the Executive. To be clear to all Members across the House, we are a party of devolution and we want devolution restored in Northern Ireland. We want to take the decisions in the Stormont because budget decisions are best taken there. We know that, while our electorate want us to be back in the Stormont taking those decisions, they also clearly want us to ensure that cross-community consent is restored in that Assembly. That was the message on the doorsteps during the local government election. Although some will want to ignore that view, we will not.

Time is a precious commodity. Wasting time is not something I would indulge in—anyone who knows me will know that. There has been a criminal waste of time resolving issues with the protocol and the Windsor framework. Those issues could be quickly and easily resolved by the Government. Drift is not acceptable anymore. There was no drift when abortion laws were forced on the people of Northern Ireland. There was no drift just a few weeks ago when legislation on relationships and sexual education was forced on the people of Northern Ireland. There was no drift when Sinn Féin demands on Irish language legislation were introduced. When there is will from the Government to do something, they do it very quickly.

On a daily basis, economic harm is being caused to the people of Northern Ireland, with the continued placing of a border in the Irish sea resulting in Northern Ireland’s place in the UK being continually undermined. Businesses and industries are being impacted and competitiveness is being undermined, yet there is continued drift on the part of the Government. There is no urgency. Often, there is not even a recognition of the problems caused to businesses by the Windsor framework and the protocol. We hear much from colleagues about the idea that the Windsor framework has resolved all the issues.

I challenge all Members to speak not to the trade bodies, but to the businesses that are being impacted. Speak to the manufacturing industry, speak to the agriculture industry and speak to the horticulturalists in Northern Ireland who are still experiencing massive problems with the implementation of the protocol and, subsequently, the Windsor framework. What I want to see, on the back of this budget debate, is a change in attitude to addressing the most fundamental issues that are impacting Northern Ireland and keeping our Executive down.

Turning to the Bill, my first point is more general and has been made today several times. We welcome the Government’s commitment to look at this issue, but my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has been to the fore and most effective in pressing for a review of the Barnett formula. I believe that debate is gaining traction—it is becoming abundantly clear at our weekly Northern Ireland Affairs Committee meetings. I welcome the Secretary of State’s intervention today, but in truth we are again placing a sticking plaster over the financial needs of Northern Ireland, unlike our Welsh counterparts who enjoy a needs-based financial allocation. We can see clearly that this budget is about short-term financial decisions and is not based on the needs of the people of Northern Ireland, including the needs of the people in my constituency of Upper Bann. We want a restored Executive.

[Robin Millar]

The hon. Lady used the phrase “enjoying a needs-based allocation”. I would contest that. My concern is the risk that we end up in a spiral, with a kind of Top Trumps of deprivation. Who is the most deprived? They get the biggest sum. Does she not agree that there is a risk to attaching a purely needs-based assessment to allocations?

[Carla Lockhart]

The reality is that the Barnett formula across the United Kingdom, in all the different nations, is needs-based. It is important that we do not just give Northern Ireland an amount of money, but drill down to the actual needs. On whether that means tinkering around with what has worked and what has not worked in Wales, we are more than willing to enter into those conversations, and use the Welsh model as a baseline and improve on it. Hopefully, if we can make improvements in Northern Ireland, they can be transported to Wales as well.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a financial allocation made on a purely needs basis would provide the resources to start addressing some of those needs? For example, if there were a high number of people claiming unemployment benefit because they had mental health problems, money could go into the health service to deal with those problems and get them into work, or for people unemployed because they did not have skills, the money could be used on technical education to give them the skills so that they could get back into work. The vicious circle that has been spoken about could be addressed by having the resources to deal with that.

[Carla Lockhart]

Absolutely. I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention.

We want a restored Executive not only to have firm cross-community consensus, but to be able to transform and deliver services effectively. For that, we need financial equipping based on need. As my right hon. Friend has indicated, those needs are really to the fore. If I think of my constituency, I think of the educational underachievement and the health needs. Those are the things we need to drill down into and fund adequately; if we do not, Northern Ireland will continue to be short-changed.

The Northern Ireland Office has recently been seeking to provoke discussions around revenue-raising measures. There is no question but that we are up for those discussions, but we cannot escape the fact that the Treasury’s contribution to funding public services in Northern Ireland is going down rather than rising. Spending up to 2025, for example, will increase by 6% in England but only 3.6% in Northern Ireland.

I have a specific concern about the impact that the policing budget will have on communities. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) made a very helpful intervention on that subject: it was a stark reminder that the terrorist threat level in Northern Ireland is severe. In that context, we just cannot continue to ignore the concerns that the chief constable and the Police Federation have raised in relation to the capability of our police force.

Despite the commitments in New Decade, New Approach to grow our officer numbers to 7,500, the stark reality is that we are now on a trajectory towards 6,000, largely because of a failure to prioritise policing in our Province. The truth is that there is a risk of the headcount dropping further, unless the Government urgently deliver the financial firepower that local policing is crying out for. In an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), the Secretary of State made the point that that is on the Executive, but I would put the ball back into his court: it was an agreement in NDNA. When there was a language issue in NDNA, this Government very quickly helped and intervened, yet on the policing issue they have not gone far enough. The NIO claims to support the excellent work that the PSNI does. It needs to back up that claim and actually financially support it.

Similar challenges exist for health, education and roads. Time does not permit me to list the challenges that I am seeing daily in my busy constituency office, so I will draw my remarks to a close on the time issue. The time for the Government to act on funding for Northern Ireland is now. The time to act to review the Barnett formula is now. The time to take the necessary steps to restore cross-community consensus for devolution is now. It would be wholly unacceptable and utterly reckless if time were allowed to pass and we found ourselves passing another budget Bill in this place, as opposed to in Stormont.

Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I add my comments about the outgoing shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), and congratulate the incoming shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). I wish him all the best; he would be most welcome in the Upper Bann constituency—the premier constituency in Northern Ireland—in the coming weeks and months.

The stark reality of the debate tonight is that the budget given to Northern Ireland Departments is not enough for the effective delivery of services in Northern Ireland. Some £297 million is scheduled to be taken from our allocation this year and next. That is a huge chunk of the cake being taken away, from a cake that is already too small to satisfy the appetite or demands of our public services. I am being continually contacted, as I know are colleagues on these Benches, by constituents who are feeling the full effects of this harsh budget and the realities of our underfunded services: of health service waiting lists, crumbling school estates and scrapped road plans. While the physical infrastructure needs of our services are vast, so too is the even greater need of an even greater asset: our public sector workers. They ask for equality in pay, yet this Government refuse to give it. Some £575 million for public sector pay awards is needed, yet the cake is being cut and not made bigger to award people what they deserve.

The line that the Government cannot step in to deal with this matter does not wash with me or the public in Northern Ireland. If the Government want to do something, we see that they go and do it; we only have to look at the track record around the implementation of abortion in Northern Ireland against the will of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, or the relationships and sex education guidelines that have been foisted on the people of Northern Ireland without any consultation. Frankly, they are out of step with the values that the vast majority of parents want to instil in their children. The Government should not come at us with this line that “the Government cannot act”, when they can on other issues where there is very clear opposition in Northern Ireland.

When and if the Government want to do something, they do it, yet we see a lack of enthusiasm to deal with the issues that are keeping the doors of Stormont locked. We hear much from the Government that, if Stormont was back up and running, we could deal with the issues, yet they peddle false hope to those awaiting healthcare interventions and raise expectations among our public sector workforce about their deserved pay rises when there simply is not enough money to deliver such increases.

Our party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), has said time and again that this party deals in realities. Those are the political and constitutional reality created by the protocol and Windsor framework, the economic reality created by the same, and the public reality that Unionist people have withdrawn their consent for the devolved institutions until their concerns are dealt with and our place within our Union is restored. Sadly, there are those who seek to lay blame for all ills at my party’s feet, yet it is they who are exacerbating the situation by refusing to address the genuine concerns of the Unionist community and, indeed, the continued difficulties faced by many businesses as a result of the Windsor framework and the protocol.

We want a solution that brings a firm foundation for the restoration of Stormont. We want a solution that brings firm political and financial foundations, which will be the key to the impact that any new Executive will have. Underfunding cannot continue. We need transformational moneys and moneys based on the needs of our changing society. Next year—I will reiterate the figures that we have already heard—public spending in Northern Ireland will increase by 3.6%, but in England it will increase by 6%. How is that fair on my constituents in Upper Bann?

My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) made a significant contribution on the budget needs and the transformation of the Barnett formula to a needs-based formula. It is time for the Government to act. The people of Northern Ireland—people of this United Kingdom—deserve it. We in Northern Ireland deserve as much as those in England are getting. I implore the Government to do what is right and get a political and financial solution that will allow Stormont to be restored and got up and running, with decisions made in Stormont.