Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Claire Hanna Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

As the Secretary of State has said, tonight’s debate and the Bill are simply to allocate money, which we have already decided on in previous debates, to various Departments. Although I made a promise to the Minister of State when we discussed this on Thursday that we would try to stick to the debate on the budget and try not to wander into the Windsor framework, Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol, the issue of—

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

Another promise broken.

[Sammy Wilson]

The promise actually was broken by the Secretary of State. It was a two-sided promise: that would not be raised by Ministers, who would be sensitive to the issue, knowing what our answer to these issues are and, in turn, we would stick to the budget debate. That promise has not been kept, so it would be remiss of me not to make it clear, as has been made clear by my party leader in an intervention, that we want to see the Executive up and running, but there are rules for the working of the Executive. There are important safeguards for the Executive to work: the views of both communities have to be respected, accepted and reflected in the decisions made in the Executive and in the decisions made by the Executive.

As things stand, with the protocol and the framework, there will still be a requirement for foreign law to be imposed in Northern Ireland and for Ministers of a Unionist disposition to operate that system—a system that the Government, even in the Windsor framework discussions, indicated would lead to divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. A paltry safeguard of the Stormont brake was put in but, even if it worked, it still would not stop Northern Ireland becoming further away from the rest of the UK because of decisions made in this House about laws that would affect the United Kingdom, excluding Northern Ireland.

I have to say to the Secretary of State that, while that situation pertains, he cannot ignore the requirements of the law in Northern Ireland. The views of both communities must be reflected, accepted and implemented in the Executive and the Assembly. If that does not happen, they cannot function because we do not have the basis for agreement and for decisions being made.

It is debatable, of course, but we can talk about the Executive, up and running, being able to decide and resolve some of the issues that have been talked about here today. As I go through my speech, I point out that the Executive, its implementation and existence is not essential to deal with some of the fundamental issues that have given rise to the budget problems that Northern Ireland is facing.

I wish to make two points, the first of which is about the impact of the budget on services in Northern Ireland. Like the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), I do not want to go through every Department but, as this has been raised by two or three speakers already, one of the starkest indications of the budget problem we have in Northern Ireland is to be found in education. There will be a 2.8% reduction in education spending in Northern Ireland, while in England there will be a 6.5% increase. That will affect the aggregated schools budget: the amount of money that goes to individual schools. It will particularly affect youngsters with special educational needs because, of course, as has been said, the easiest things to cut are things like classroom assistants. Of course, spending on classroom assistants and support for people with special educational needs is to be cut by 50%. There are already 11,000 children diagnosed with special educational needs who will be affected, and there is a waiting list of 400 children who have not even been placed, so we can see the ongoing problem and the problems we will build up over the years because of the cuts in the education budget. I could also talk about aspects of the education budget that are designed to help youngsters from deprived backgrounds, such as measures on school meals that were introduced by the Minister from my party. They will have to be reduced as well, which again tends to affect children from the most disadvantaged areas.

Let us take the other example, which has also been mentioned. I served for some time on the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Policing is important for any community, and it is particularly important in Northern Ireland because of the ongoing terrorist threat, the problem of paramilitaries and the terror gangs and criminal gangs associated with them, and the impact that has on communities. New Decade, New Approach made a commitment to have 7,500 officers, yet the figure is set to fall to about 5,700 officers. In the next two years, 850 officers are going to retire. The money is available to recruit only 204, so the situation will get worse and worse in terms of police officer numbers, which will fall below the commitment made on how many are required in Northern Ireland.

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[Sammy Wilson]

I think the point that I made was an indication of that. It is not just about getting money so that we can spend it willy-nilly and not care about how it is spent. It must be spent in the best way possible. If we take education in Northern Ireland, for example, we have five different sectors, and in some cases a surplus of desks and, therefore, unnecessary schools that could be closed, amalgamated or whatever. The irony of this—this is where I take issue with some of the decisions by the Northern Ireland Executive—is that one of the last acts that the Assembly undertook was that, despite the surplus of places in existing schools in Northern Ireland, special provision had to be given to opening new schools that had “Integrated” above the door. This was despite the fact that there are stacks of schools that do not have “Integrated” above the door, but that are more integrated than some integrated schools. That will result in additional pressures on the education budget. I am not so sure that some of the decisions made by the Executive on how the money is spent are always the best.

There is one in the area of education and in the area of health as well. I know I am going to incur the ire of some of my own colleagues, and maybe some other hon. Members, by saying this, but in Belfast we have four major hospitals. Four major hospitals for a city of—what? Some 300,000 people? Are there really not better ways of spending that money to ensure proper health provision? Yet we spend it—[Interruption.] And that is exactly the debate that has to be had.

[Claire Hanna]

Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Bengoa report outlined how we could tackle that reform and get ourselves to a more sustainable delivery, but that the Assembly has been collapsed for, I think, four of the six years since that that report was delivered, and that only way we can deliver those reforms, necessary as many of them may be, is in a restored Executive?

[Sammy Wilson]

That is the whole point. Ministers have had the Bengoa report, as the hon. Lady says, for years. They have never acted on it. Indeed, some of the health reforms that were acted on and some of the politically difficult changes that were made in Health were made by a DUP Minister. We have given the lead on trying to deal with some of the spending issues. However, even with those savings, there are still the issues of fairness, of whether the Budget is sustainable, and of why we are not implementing in Northern Ireland the kind of budget reallocations that are implemented in other parts of the United Kingdom.

We will find the issues arising from this budget coming back to the Floor of this House time and again, because Departments are not going to be able to work within the existing budgets. Furthermore, since the Minister indicates that the Barnett consequentials that should be coming through will not come through this year because of the overspend in previous years, when it comes to the payment of nurses, teachers and so on, there will be greater pressures on the budgets of various Departments across Northern Ireland. I do not know whether those are reflected in this budget. That is why it must be accepted that, until the Government are prepared to look at measures that create the grounds for the formation of the Executive again, this issue will rest with the Secretary of State and he will have to take responsibility for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

For the past five years, any budget that we have had has been delivered—sometimes fairly chaotically—here, not in Stormont. For the past decade, we have limped along with one-year allocations and without a new programme for government. Public services are at a genuinely precarious point, as colleagues have indicated; I might touch on that point.

It has to be pointed out, as we look at the context of this budget, that those factors are the consequences of two specific pernicious features of our politics over the past decade. The first is the austerity politics that have been practised by successive Conservative Governments and are being foisted on the people of Northern Ireland with no visible care for public services, let alone for how we create a better and more sustainable economic future or tackle the chronic challenges that are contributing to the financial drain.

The second factor is boycott politics, which are being practised by the DUP right now and have been practised by others in the recent past with, clearly, no real regard for how that affects devolved government and public services, how it gradually wears people down, or how it gradually undermines the belief of the people of Northern Ireland that elections matter, devolution works and politics is the way to do things.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

At the risk of becoming a history lesson, may I remind the hon. Lady that between 1982 and 1986, following democratic elections, the SDLP refused to take its seats for a single day of the lifetime of that Assembly, at a time when people were dying on our streets in their thousands?

[Claire Hanna]

I am happy to correct the right hon. Gentleman’s history lesson. That was not a power-sharing Government, and I remind him that subsequently, in 1998, the overwhelming majority of the people of Northern Ireland made a different choice. They said, “We want to work together, in our substantial common interest, in devolved institutions that put power in the hands of our people from all backgrounds and traditions.” That is the choice before us, but unfortunately the Government are choosing austerity politics and the DUP is choosing boycott politics.

The thing that links those two toxic trends is Brexit. When the Government say there is not enough money to spend on public services, it is in large part because, as every forecaster suggested, Brexit has been economically disastrous. It is also a consequence of the disastrous Budget pushed by the previous Prime Minister. Brexit and the kamikaze Budget were the Government’s choices, and it is now their choice to inflict this budget on the people of Northern Ireland.

When the DUP says it cannot take responsibility for its share of governing Northern Ireland, it is because of the DUP’s choice for a bone-hard, bone-headed Brexit. Despite all the protestations we now hear about the lack of consensus and the DUP’s deeply held concerns not being listened to, for many years of the Brexit process the DUP refused to take on board the advice and pleading of many of us about the consequences of what we were being walked into.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

That is simply not true. One of the reasons why the DUP stated very clearly that it cannot support a hard border on the island as a result of Brexit was to take account of nationalist concerns. If only that had been reciprocated and nationalists had taken account of our concerns about an Irish sea border, we would not be in the situation we are in today.

[Claire Hanna]

I would be happy to give way in a moment if the right hon. Gentleman wants to tell me about any proposals or votes he made in this House with a view to achieving a solution that has the consent and consensus of all the communities. I was not a Member at the time, but I spoke at meetings in this House on a borderless solution being the only outcome without a sense of winners and losers.

As I say, this has been about choices. I do not doubt that the DUP’s concerns are sincerely held but, on the choice to boycott politics, not a single thing is advanced by having no Government. Not a single technical concern about the Northern Ireland protocol or the Windsor framework is addressed by not having a Government. It is a choice, and we want a different choice. We want devolved government based on the common good and Northern Ireland’s huge economic opportunities, and devolved government in which the SDLP can play a constructive role in opposition. To that end, we have already published our detailed triple-lock proposals to protect public services from these sharp, short-term cuts while creating a pathway to much better long-term governance.

If the DUP continues to immiserate our politics, and if the Government continue to press ahead with this budget, more fundamental choices will present themselves. The first choice is to reform Stormont’s Standing Orders to make sure that one party can no longer hold up the formation of a Government. And if the DUP insists on creating the sense that Northern Ireland, as a unit, cannot work, the second choice is to realise the potential of all our people in a new Ireland back in the European Union. Especially when people are told that devolution within the UK is no longer available, the SDLP will pursue that aim vigorously and with honour, based on reconciliation and the potential of all our people.

That is a big choice about our future, but there is also a here and now that this budget does not serve well. Colleagues from across the House have highlighted some of those impacts. On infrastructure, our ability to address climate change, let alone things such as road safety, is hampered. The PSNI is facing its numbers falling to their lowest level, at a time of not just security threat, but increasing complexity of the issues it deals with, particularly on mental health. Across the economy, regions that are doing well are doing well by leaning into their economic potential and their successes, but instead we are cutting things such as the arts sector and Northern Ireland Screen, and we are cutting the budgets of Tourism NI and of further and higher education. All of these cuts undermine all of the flagship strategies about our economic future, particularly 10X. I am not sure where we can start on health and education, and I hope to be able to explore those areas in more detail in a Westminster Hall debate next week.

Schools have not been on the pig’s back at any point that I can remember, but the projected shortfall of £200 million is catastrophic. One of the many things not being covered is a much-awaited pay deal for the most shamefully undervalued parts of the workforce, SEN classroom assistants. That could lead to further strike action, which literally hurts the most vulnerable children, including those at Glenveagh School in my constituency, who have already picked up much too much of the slack of the politics.

In health, we know that a standstill budget is, in essence, a cut and that we are doing nothing. We talked a lot in this House last week about a workforce plan, none of which reaches Northern Ireland. The Chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee rightly highlighted cuts to the Northern Ireland Audit Office and NIPSO—the Northern Ireland public services ombudsman. Those are problematic in practice and in principle, because at many times in the past few years those bodies, particularly the NIAO, have provided some of the only scrutiny we have had. They have acted as an effective opposition in some cases to aspects of Government waste and failure to reform.

In practical terms, discretionary spending is all but gone. Even permanent secretaries, who, as we know, do not like to dabble too much in the politics, are asking the Secretary of State to resolve that tension for them and asking how they reconcile their statutory duties with the budget they have. I hope that one of the Ministers can clarify the position. If their section 75 duties are always followed, as they say they are, will they clarify whether those section 75 assessments are content with the scale and depth of these cuts? What steps have they taken to identify and mitigate the impact? Have they received any advice about an overarching equality assessment?

Will the Secretary of State also clarify whether the Government have taken into account the long-standing guidance as well as the Equality Commission’s investigation into failings in the preparation of the 2019-20 budget? What lessons were learned from that? Finally, the UK has been a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of the child for at least three decades, so will he clarify what regard they have given to the UN committee’s recommendation that this budget be withdrawn and replaced with something that protects the rights and needs of children?

The budget is unworkable and it is a false economy. It is storing up so many problems, both in terms of democratic grip in Northern Ireland and in public services. Devolution has never been more needed. People in Northern Ireland feel that they are part of a political game that they are not playing and that is being played on them. I urge all of those with the ability to make these choices to stop practising austerity politics and to stop practising boycott politics, and to do so as soon as possible.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

In calling Jim Shannon, I just want to say: do not forget to leave some time for the wind-ups, Jim.