Energy Price Support: Northern Ireland

Debate between Claire Hanna and Stephen Farry

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Farry]

By Jim’s standards, it was. I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention. I agree with him about the looming cliff edge that will come next year. It is also relevant to stress the issue of spending power in the economy, particularly in the run-up to Christmas for the hospitality sector.

Delivery of energy support should have been implemented by the Northern Ireland Executive. Normally, Northern Ireland would receive Barnett consequentials, based around equivalent spending in Great Britain, and would therefore have the scope to design or modify schemes to address local circumstances. Delivery of the £400 payments would have been implemented by now in those circumstances.

Furthermore, the size of the Barnett consequentials may well be significantly greater than the value of support that comes from direct provision from the UK Government to households and businesses. The Government have recognised that it would have been much easier for delivery to have been through a devolved Executive. However, in a political vacuum, it has fallen to the Government to intervene. I acknowledge the need for that, given the circumstances.

The energy price guarantee is now in place for Northern Ireland. That said, there are concerns about the scale and duration of the support, particularly what happens from next April onwards. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has already touched on that point. For today, the most pressing issue is clarity on the timescale for the delivery of the £400 energy support payments, and how that will be phased, plus the implementation of the home heating oil support.

Despite those pressures, unlike in England, Wales and Scotland, households in Northern Ireland have not yet received a penny of the £400 energy support. There had been indications that we would receive that support in November, one month after the rest of the UK, yet it is now looking increasingly unlikely to be delivered this side of Christmas. We are also hearing that the payment might now be staggered, which means that households will have to wait even longer into next year.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate on such an important issue—he is always current. I do not know of any suppliers that will deliver less than 200 litres of heating oil, so the £100 support that was proposed would not even get a tank filled—people will have to put in about £150 before they can even avail themselves of it. Does he therefore share my concern about what would happen if that support were staggered or delivered in a piecemeal way?

[Stephen Farry]

Absolutely. There are huge issues in recognising the subtleties of what is efficient for making deliveries in the home heating oil market and the minimum size of delivery, and £100 pounds will not cover the minimum order volume. It is also worth stressing that there are economies of scale. The larger the order, the cheaper it is proportionally, so the households that are struggling most will be hit doubly by that pressure point.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Claire Hanna and Stephen Farry

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claire Hanna]

I desperately hope with every fibre of my being that the position the right hon. Gentleman sets out in his final words is the one we reach at the end of this process. The people of Northern Ireland want more than anything in this world to not hear this situation being played out aggressively in a toxic fashion day after day, as it has for the last six years, but they do not believe it will happen unilaterally through this Bill. Anybody who legitimately and thoroughly supports the Good Friday agreement and the teachings of John Hume will know that this Bill is a world of logic, decency and reality away from what he outlined about consensus and power sharing.

We have tabled amendment 49 to give an opportunity to protect fully and truly the Good Friday agreement with negotiated solutions. That is where we want to get to. Members should be fair and current about the context in Northern Ireland, because people at home do not recognise the Mad Max scenario being portrayed of people unable to access goods and services in Northern Ireland—it is just not reflective of the reality. Once again I say, as I have probably done every time I have spoken on this issue, that I fully understand the hurt of many Unionists. I have also spoken about the constitutional identity of many of us. I am Irish and I am Northern Irish, and I do not pay my taxes to the same state that my passport comes from—I understand that those are compromises, and it is frustrating when the impression is given that such compromises are for non-Unionists, but Unionists should never have to compromise on their lines of governance.

In terms of the actual material effect on people’s identity, I quoted yesterday words from the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) that I agree with. He said clearly that customs checks do not alter the constitutional status of the UK, and I think he is correct, but it is also appropriate that people reflect on the reality of what is and is not happening with goods moving through, where there is not the full panoply of EU checks. The situation is evolving. We were not given the benefit of an implementation period—such was the rush from other parties to get Brexit done, they did not allow businesses a period in which to adapt—but as was always envisioned, the protocol is evolving and the EU has set out legally dropped checks that are available permanently for easement, so Members should be rational about that.

Members should also be rational about the impact of the European Court of Justice. If I understand it correctly, it applies to the sovereign parts of Cyprus in the absence of Brexit. Perhaps Ministers in their summing up could advise whether the constitutional status of those UK sovereign areas of Cyprus has changed due to the jurisdiction of the ECJ.

Consistent with those points, amendments 48 and 49 would try to apply the consensus and the trust of the Northern Ireland Assembly to some of the powers that will be exercised apparently for its benefit. That consent from the Assembly will better reflect the range of views across Northern Ireland’s diverse communities, as well as businesses, whose representative groups—Members and in particular Ministers should be honest about this—have all rejected this Bill and set out their grave reservations about it. It is important that those views be reflected, if only because Members have, shamefully, maligned some of those business representatives in the Chamber, and I do not believe that their accusations have been withdrawn.

When Ministers sum up, will they say whether they will table a report that gives qualitative and quantitative information on the feedback that the Government have received from businesses on the Bill? It is frustrating for many that little pieces of feedback are being appropriated by some, while the vast majority of feedback—the representative feedback—is being distorted. I ask the Government to commit to publishing a report on the feedback—anonymised, where appropriate—that they have received, so that we can ensure that the voices of the economic actors in Northern Ireland are heard without distortion or impediment.

It is wrong to imply, as some did in debate yesterday, that Northern Ireland exporters will have a choice on regulations and standards. In fact, customers will have that choice; that is how these things work. The UK proposes a dual-regulation system on an open border. That will require customers—mostly other businesses—to make judgments and assumptions about the validity and standards of Northern Ireland produce. The Bill creates that serious reputational risk to businesses. I must repeat that the Bill’s powers, to the extent that they can be quantified—there are a lot of unanswered questions—are unwanted by a majority of Members of the Legislative Assembly, and by all the business organisations. Our amendment will help to ensure that those powers are appropriately moderated by the Northern Ireland Assembly. I do not want to hear the all-purpose excuse, “The Assembly isn’t sitting.” We are told, as part of the two-step that is going on between the Government and the Democratic Unionist party, that once the Bill passes, the Government will give democratic governance to the people of Northern Ireland, so that should not be an impediment. I ask the Government to accept that.

[Stephen Farry]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I want to make a few points about the European Court of Justice and my amendment 46. It is important to recognise that the ECJ has not been a big issue in Northern Ireland to date. No business has ever expressed any concern to me about its jurisdiction. Indeed, it was a very minor issue in political debate in Northern Ireland until Lord Frost took it upon himself to escalate the issue in a speech that he made last October in Lisbon, I think. It was on the eve of the European Commission tabling proposals for breaking the deadlock on this issue; that shows how well the Government have handled some of the so-called negotiations. The European Court of Justice seems to be an obsession for hard-line Brexiteers in this Chamber and elsewhere, and for those who advocate what could be described as a purist and old-fashioned approach to sovereignty that denies entirely the realities of the modern, interdependent world.

It is important to focus on the distinction between dispute resolution mechanisms in a free trade agreement, and the situation regarding the protocol. Many people suggest that we should simply have an arbitration mechanism for the protocol, and deliberately conflate the two types of agreement. It is entirely appropriate to have an arbitration mechanism for the trade and co-operation agreement, which is a free trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union. It is about two equals coming to the table and working out exactly how things will be taken forward. The position on Northern Ireland and the protocol is qualitatively different; we are talking about a region that continues to have direct access to the single market for goods, and is required to remain aligned with a body of European law, as is set out in annex 2 of the protocol. We will in a minute discuss the pros and cons of that, and the justification for it, but that is the situation that pertains, and why there is a different arbitration mechanism for a free trade agreement.

If the ultimate jurisdiction of the European Court is removed, that will jeopardise or destroy Northern Ireland’s ability to access the single market for goods. It is important that Members are fully aware of the implications of going down this particular road, because the two go hand in hand. Northern Ireland needs to remain in line with that law, and the European Court is part and parcel of how the situation works. Of course, if that were to happen, there would be massive implications for all businesses that operate on a north-south basis or that trade directly into the European Union. It is important that we do all we can to preserve that jurisdiction, while at the same time trying to fix the issues that pertain across the Irish sea. Through the Bill, a unilateral approach will be imposed on the European Union that probably will not address the issues across the Irish sea and at the same time will undermine Northern Ireland’s current dual-access opportunities.

I will go further and say this: we do not simply have to tolerate and put up with the situation. I maintain that being within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice is actively in Northern Ireland’s interests, because there may well be situations that come to light over the years where—due to the complications around the protocol, and the distinctions between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom—some businesses and places in the European Union do not accept goods from Northern Ireland, because they are confused about the overarching situation. In such situations, it is crucial that we have the European Court of Justice to enforce the rules and protect the rights of Northern Ireland businesses. If we are to change the jurisdiction, there is a real danger and risk that we throw away the opportunity and advantage that we have.

Last night, I had a conversation with a major export business in my constituency, whose representatives said that they were recently at a trade fair in Italy and people said to them, “Thank God you’re still part of the single market via the protocol, because we cannot do business readily with your counterparts in Great Britain, but because you’re part of the protocol we have that export opportunity.” Many hundreds of people are employed by that company. It is important to recognise that issue.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Debate between Claire Hanna and Stephen Farry

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Claire Hanna]

I agree entirely. Among the many things that we discussed under the Good Friday agreement, the primacy of the rule of law and of trust are contained in that as well. They have gone out of the window in recent months, which is having a knock-on effect in Northern Ireland.

I regret that our amendments were not adopted, but the mechanisms that we tried to insert into the Bill were around that sense of joint purpose and common endeavour, as well as accountability. When the First Ministers were elected by the MLAs, they were accountable to the MLAs. The failures of the current process became very clear when Members of the Assembly tried to hold to account Ministers who had been responsible for terrible governance failures in the renewable heat incentive scheme. It became very clear that the First Minister did not feel that she was accountable to the Assembly, and indeed, due to those changes, she was not.

It is also worth saying that the mechanisms that we proposed would have been compatible with an overdue review of designation. I very much agree with the point raised by, among others, the Chair of the Northern Ireland Committee that, as currently operated, the designation structures for people opting to be nationalist, Unionist or other are locking in sectarianism. They were very well-intentioned; they were designed to manage a traditional conflict between two traditional communities, but Northern Ireland has evolved and it is appropriate that we should look to evolve those structures as well.

The Minister referred to the Bill being New Decade, New Approach, no more and no less. It is a missed opportunity, but it is worth saying that it includes some things that I do not remember from New Decade, New Approach, including the removal of key phrases and mechanisms from the ministerial code of conduct. It is still not clear who had problems with the language on transparency and accountability as it stood in the original agreement and in the 1998 Act, but I use that as an illustrative example that it is not a faithful transcription of the New Decade, New Approach all-party agreement and therefore other mechanisms could have been advanced.

Although we agree with the thrust of the Bill, we are beset and bedevilled by a culture of veto and stand-off, and this would have been an appropriate opportunity to try to fix some of those things. For example, to the best of my knowledge, the Assembly has not delivered a single piece of equality legislation. I listened to hon. Members speaking about why we could not pass equality legislation, in this case in the form of language legislation, because there is so much to do on health and education. There is no doubt about that, but those same parties have been running the show for a decade and a half, and in many cases they hold the specific ministerial briefs about which they speak. Every other region of these islands is able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Equality provisions can be advanced while meaningfully delivering for the people of Northern Ireland.

[Stephen Farry]

Does the hon. Lady agree that if a certain party has a huge issue with the UK Parliament legislating in relation to the language and culture package of New Decade, New Approach, it has the opportunity to expedite the package through the Northern Ireland Assembly?

[Claire Hanna]

I agree entirely, as the Assembly is supposed to be local power in local hands. The culture of telling people that sharing is losing is a big part of the problem that we have today. That opportunity is still on the table, and my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) tried in Committee to introduce such legislation through an amendment that faithfully transcribes what was agreed by all parties, including the Democratic Unionist party.

Sustainability and stability will not come from rules and regulations; they will come from people understanding and believing that power sharing is the right thing to do, and not just doing it because the law makes them do it. It will come from London and Dublin operating together again as friends and equals on the basis of transparency and trust, and it will come when the powers of devolution are used meaningfully to change people’s lives and not just as a way of moving from actual conflict to a culture war, as we have had. There are opportunities to improve that governance, and we have not taken them today, but my hon. Friend and I will be ready to have that conversation.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Claire Hanna and Stephen Farry

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Claire Hanna]

Once again, Mr Stringer, I appreciate your indulgence. I promise that we will be expert going forward, and I will be very brief about amendments 17, 18 and 19.

As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley outlined, the amendments are about compelling and encouraging Ministers to implement the programme for government. Notwithstanding the fact that one is not currently agreed, a programme of work has been laid out. Amendment 18 is a pre-emptive amendment that is designed with the sustainability of the Executive in mind. It would require Ministers to implement future programmes for government. By my count we are, since 1998, yet to make it through a full mandate without at least one period of crisis talks and a refreshing of the programme for government, so it would appear to make sense to have that future-proofing amendment.

Amendment 19 would require a strengthening of the code of conduct. We have some concerns around enforceability. Members who were at the evidence sessions the other day may recall that the Speaker and staff of the Assembly were not particularly expansive in terms of how they thought that enforcement should take place. We have emerged from a period of explicit poor governance in the Assembly, with the likes of the renewable heat incentive debacle, where the ministerial code was perhaps not sufficiently powerful to curb the powers of Ministers. Amendment 19 is designed to strengthen it.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

rose—

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[Claire Hanna]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Petitions of concern

[Stephen Farry]

I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 5, page 7, line 12, leave out from “or” to end of subsection.

If appropriate, I will also address the other amendments in my name to this clause in relation to the petition of concern. The petition of concern is something that my party and, indeed, many others have been—

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[Stephen Farry]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Claire Hanna]

I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 5, page 7, line 12, at end insert—

‘(5A) When a petition of concern is lodged and confirmed against a measure, proposal or a decision by a Minister, Department or the Executive (“the matter”), the Assembly shall appoint a special committee to examine and report on whether the matter is in conformity with equality and human rights requirements, including the European Convention on Human Rights and any Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

(5B) Consistent with paragraphs 11, 12 and 13 of Strand One of the Belfast Agreement, a committee as provided for under Section 13(3) may also be appointed at the request of the Executive Committee, a Northern Ireland Minister or relevant Assembly Committee.

(5C) A committee appointed under this section—

(a) shall have the powers to call people and papers to assist in its consideration; and

(b) shall take evidence from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.

(5D) A committee appointed under this section shall—

(a) report in terms that reflect evidence regarding human rights and equality assessments relating to the matter; and

(b) identify relevant clarification, adjustments and amendments (in the case of legislation) and/or other assurances which would address the stated concerns.

(5E) The Assembly shall consider the report of any committee appointed under this section and determine the matter in accordance with the requirements for cross-community support.

(5F) In relation to any specific petition of concern or request under subsection (5B), the Assembly may decide, with cross-community support, that the procedure in subsections (5A) and (5C) shall not apply.”

This amendment provides for a petition of concern to lead to a special procedure, described in paragraphs 11-13 of Strand One of the Belfast Agreement, whereby a special committee shall consider the stated concern(s) relating to equality requirements and/or human rights. Such a special committee could also be appointed at the request of the Executive Committee, a Northern Ireland Minister or relevant Assembly Committee.

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[Stephen Farry]

The issue is essentially about being proactive and the Government and Parliament recognising changes in Northern Ireland, recognising where problems may well arise in the near future and acting to get ahead of those, as opposed to responding to what may well become a crisis in the future.

At present, there is a lot of concern about the precise approach to the determination of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, which has been through quite a number of changes over the years. Obviously, new clause 3, tabled in the names of my friends in the SDLP, potentially takes us back to the original wording of the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which was of course changed by the St Andrews agreement and the subsequent legislation.

We now have a situation where, under law, the determination of First Minister and Deputy First Minister is closely linked to designations. In effect, at present, the largest party in the largest designation chooses the First Minister and the largest party in the second largest designation chooses the Deputy First Minister, with the proviso—slipped into the legislation in 2007—that when that does not apply to the largest party overall, that largest party takes the First Minister role.

This has become, shall we say, the focal point for a lot of polarisation—even more polarisation in what is already a polarised society—and has led to elections becoming focused around who will become the largest party, rather than recognising First Minister and Deputy First Minister as a joint office, and that in practice it does not matter terribly much which party has the First Minister and which has the Deputy First Minister. None the less, this is part of the narrative of our politics and acts to squeeze out the consideration of other issues during election time.

Beyond that, there is a specific issue. The system of appointing the First Minister and Deputy First Minister is very much linked to the designation system in the Assembly. We do not believe that that was ever legitimate, but it was put in in 1998. Not everyone in Northern Ireland is a Unionist or a nationalist, and not every elected representative is a Unionist or nationalist; people wanted to see themselves in a different light. The situation has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, both in terms of the number of elected representatives who do not identify as Unionist or nationalist, and—perhaps even more significantly—within the wider public. Our people, particularly our young people, have moved away from traditional labels.

It is important that our institutions keep up with the changes and evolution in society. We could see a situation in the near future where a party—I cannot think of one that springs to mind at present—may well emerge as one of the largest two political parties in Northern Ireland, but the current formation of the rules around the appointment of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and in particular the link to designations, would act to prevent that from happening. I think that would create a crisis of legitimacy, in terms of the political institutions.

New clause 2 is designed to reflect the changing demographics within Northern Ireland, to move away from the 1998 situation, in which perhaps only a small number of MLAs were neither Unionist nor nationalist, to what may be a very different situation after the next Assembly election. It would also avoid, therefore, what could become a major political crisis of legitimacy, in which the Government would have to intervene to rectify in due course—perhaps with some period of the institutions not being operational. That is why it is important that the Government are proactive: not in a massively speculative way, of course, but by dealing with realistic changes that may be just around the corner in Northern Ireland’s society.

[Claire Hanna]

The previous amendments to the Bill tabled by SDLP Members were probably probing amendments, but we believe that new clause 3 is fundamental and fairly existential for the Assembly. It is worth saying that for the last 20 years the SDLP has advocated adherence to the Good Friday agreement and the mechanisms and safeguards designed in good faith during that process.

The reason why we have protected some of the changes that happened at St Andrews is that the agreement was designed in good faith and endorsed by a very large number of the people north and south. Subsequent changes have been made by politicians and for politicians in their own interests, frankly—and, we believe, over the heads and to the detriment of the electorate.

The joint election of First Ministers was a centrepiece of strand 1. In recent months, we have heard much debate about the concept of parallel consent, but this is really the clearest example of parallel consent as designed in the Good Friday agreement. In theory and in practice, in those early years the First Ministers would have been jointly elected by all the Assembly Members and in practice by a majority in total and a majority of each designation at the time.

The current distorted process, arrived at at St Andrews, has essentially privatised the election to the two larger parties. That was done to spare the blushes of those parties so that they did not have to endorse one another in the voting lobbies, but that has had knock-on effects on the joint character of the office. Leadership comes from the top, and that has an effect on the character of the Assembly and of political conversation more widely. The current process has also undermined the accountability mechanisms that had been designed for the Assembly and removed the primacy of the Assembly as an authority to hold Ministers to account.

The flaws in that approach become very clear in December 2016, when the Assembly was limited in its ability to hold to account Ministers who had presided over a substantial and fairly catastrophic example of poor governance. Restoring that joint election, as we have outlined in new clause 3, would restore some primacy to the Assembly as the key source of devolved authority. It would also facilitate the cross-party working and cross-party mandates, allegiances and alliances envisaged in 1998.

The St Andrews in this Bill is about sustainability and the new clause is very much in that spirit. The St Andrews change has also facilitated the ransom tactics that we saw most acutely in the 2017-to-2020 stand-off, but that we have also seen in recent weeks as well. The fact that the nominations are private decisions for those parties allows them to withhold a First Minister and therefore to withhold an Assembly. That prevents any potential emergence of a coalition of the willing, as might have come forward in the last three-year stand-off of MLAs from all parties. They wanted to get on with the job to which they were elected but, because of the privatisation of the First Minister’s nomination, had essentially been relegated to being bystanders and commentators with no power to implement a different mandate.

That change at St Andrews also has a ground-level impact, in that it has allowed parties to make every Assembly election a first-past-the-post race to be top dog. It effectively makes Assembly elections into many border polls; we have to race to become them’uns or us’uns as the biggest party and get the top job. That has sucked oxygen away from every other issue and prevented the emergence of a politics and discourse more about the everyday issues that affect people here.

Our new clause seeks to address those issues and would also formalise the joint and coequal nature of the offices in removing the word “Deputy”; the reality is that one First Minister cannot order paperclips without the say-so of the other First Minister. The “Deputy” and “First” mechanism undermines the joint nature of that office. The new clause is in the wider interests of this Bill, which is about sustainability, and would head off any potential existential crisis following a future election if the few hundred votes that separate those parties were to change and people in one were anxious about being deputy to the other.

The mechanisms that we have outlined would also go some way to address the issues discussed by the hon. Member for North Down and for which the SDLP has much sympathy. The designation system was designed and is in place to manage the traditional divides and the two communities, as was, and as has been spoken about, but it is a fair point that it is entrenching those communities, in which people are separated and divided out on that basis.

The mechanism that we have outlined in our new clause designs in other potential ways to ensure that the First Ministers have the support of sufficient numbers of the Assembly, through either majorities of each designation or, in essence, a form of qualified majority voting that would in practice ensure that those First Ministers were acceptable to different sides of the communities—different potential identities, but without negating the role and the vote of those who designate as others, which is a perfectly rational way to designate, whatever the constitutional outlook.