Northern Ireland (Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan) Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mark Durkan

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I beg to move amendment 18, page 5, line 42, at end insert—

‘( ) Statements laid before the Assembly under this section must include information on—

(a) how the total figures in the statement have been calculated,

(b) the application of any funding formula used by Her Majesty’s Government in determining the amount of UK funding for that year as notified to the Minister by the Secretary of State,

(c) the extent to which Her Majesty’s Government’s spending plans, on which the funding formula is based, have been informed or affected by statutory requirements or obligations, including specific clarification on—

(i) the consequential budgetary effects of any primary legislation resulting from Bills brought before the House of Commons after 22 October 2015, which related exclusively (in whole or in part) to either England and Wales, on matters within the devolved competence of any or all of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament or the. National Assembly for Wales, with indications on how these have been factored into the funding formula.

(ii) any Regulations or other secondary legislation laid before the House of Commons after 22 October 2015, which related exclusively to either England or England and Wales, on matters within the devolved competence of any or all of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament or the National Assembly for Wales, with indications on how these have been factored into the funding formula .

(d) the ring-fencing of funding by Treasury for bespoke purposes,

(e) UK wide or non-devolved funding measures for which services, enterprises or persons in Northern Ireland may be eligible, and

(f) the impact of any relevant implications for Northern Ireland arising from the Charter for Budget Responsibility.

( ) The Minister of Finance and Personnel must lay before the Assembly further timely statements providing additional information on the effect on funding for the Northern Ireland Assembly‘s budget of—

(a) other spending decisions or announcements by the Treasury or the Secretary of State which might have implications for the devolved spending remit by either adding to or subtracting from previously announced or approved plans,

(b) the ring-fencing of funding by Treasury for bespoke purposes,

(c) any legislative changes affecting the totals of spending by or on behalf of the UK Government and

(d) UK-wide or non-devolved funding measures for which services, enterprises or persons in Northern Ireland may be eligible.”

This amendment requires transparency in statements laid with the budget, to show how figures were calculated, the application of the Barnett formula and the consequences of legislative changes made where EVEL applied; and requires additional statements on the consequences for Northern Ireland of other legislation and spending decisions.

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Edward Leigh)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

Before I call Mr Durkan, I should say that these proceedings have to finish by 3.45. It is of course up to Members how they progress, but we do not have a great deal of time. Short speeches would be appreciated.

[Mark Durkan]

The Government have included clause 9 in the Bill in the name of transparency. I am certainly all for transparency in Budgets, be it here or in the Assembly, and I say that as a former Minister of Finance and Personnel in the Assembly.

Amendment 18 would make the transparency more articulate when the Minister of Finance lays a new statement before the Assembly to reflect the sum allocated to the Executive under the Barnett formula. It should not be just about a figure; it should explain how the figure was reached and the formula that was used to arrive at it.

The amendment is also about making good concerns expressed by parties not just in Northern Ireland but in other devolved areas that legislation passed in this House that conditions the overall plans in the Budget has consequential impacts on the Barnett formula. The Government deny that that is so. Many of us in the devolved parties believe that it is so. The best way of knowing is exactly by having the sort of transparency that amendment 18 would provide.

The transparency is also about avoiding the confusion around Budget announcements. Sometimes the Chancellor will talk about money that is available to Northern Ireland going directly to the Executive under the Barnett formula. Other times money will come from UK-wide funds or it is challenge funds that Northern Ireland is eligible for. Other money is also allocated to Northern Ireland on a purely ring-fenced basis. Often there is confusion about the different sums. Hon. Members are confused when we ask questions during Budget procedures. Members of the Assembly are confused and of course, the public, whose money we are talking about, are completely confused. So if there are to be benefits to transparency, let us make sure that the transparency is complete and articulate. That is what amendment 18 is about.

[Mark Durkan]

I am not persuaded by any of the Minister’s arguments in respect of the quality of the amendment, but I can assure him that I will not press it to a Division.

The Minister said he was not sure that paragraphs (e) and (f) were needed. Paragraph (e) relates to the Chancellor’s own statement. Often there is confusion about whether the money made available to Northern Ireland is in the Northern Ireland budget or not. The aim was to ensure greater clarity for Members in this House, Members of the Assembly and the public.

Paragraph (f) refers to

“the impact of any relevant implications for Northern Ireland arising from the Charter for Budget Responsibility.”

The charter for budget responsibility is becoming increasingly important. Like other measures, it was probably bubble-wrapped as a neutral budgetary tool originally, but neutral budgetary tools end up being cuts weapons in the hands of the Treasury. The aim of the amendment was to ensure that that is understood. Let us remember that the welfare cap is part of the charter for budget responsibility. We want to ensure three-dimensional transparency in relation to budgetary matters.

I am glad that there are some aspects of the amendment the Minister would want to see reflected in the further outworkings of clause 9 and that he feels confident they will be. I do not share that confidence, but I will not tax the House with a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Regulations

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Temporary Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 2, in clause 11, page 6, line 25, leave out “section 10” and insert “sections 10, (Victims and survivors), (Election of the First Minister)”

This amendment provides for NC1 and NC2 to come into force on the day on which this Bill is passed.

Clause 11 stand part.

New clause 1—Victims and survivors—

In Article 3 of the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, at the end insert—

“(3) In this Order references to victim and survivor shall not include an individual appearing to the Commission to be any of the following—

(a) someone who is or has been physically or psychologically injured as a result of or in consequence of their undertaking a criminal act in a conflict related incident;

(b) someone who was in whole or in part responsible for an unlawful conflict related incident if that person took part in all or any of the planning or execution of that unlawful act.””

This new clause provides that persons injured as a result of criminal acts in conflict related incidents cannot be treated as victims or survivors if they were themselves responsible for those criminal acts.

New clause 2—Election of the First Minister—

‘(1) The Northern Ireland Act 1998 is amended as follows.

(2) Omit sections 16A (appointment of First Minister, deputy First Minister and Northern Ireland Ministers following Assembly election, 16B (vacancies in the office of First Minister or deputy First Minister) and 16C (sections 16A and 16B: supplementary).

(3) Before section 17 (Ministerial offices) insert—

“A17 First Minister and deputy First Minister

(1) Each Assembly shall, within a period of two weeks beginning with its first meeting, elect from among its members the First Minister and deputy First Minister.

(2) Each candidate for either office must stand for election jointly with a candidate for the other office.

(3) Two candidates standing jointly shall not be elected to the two offices without the support of a majority of the members voting in the election, a majority of the designated Nationalists voting and a majority of the designated Unionists voting.

(4) The First Minister and deputy First Minister—

(a) shall not take up office until each of them has affirmed the terms of the pledge of office; and

(b) subject to the provisions of this Part, shall hold office until the conclusion of the next election for First Minister and deputy First Minister.

(5) The holder of the office of First Minister or deputy First Minister may by notice in writing to the Presiding Officer designate a Northern Ireland Minister to exercise the functions of that office—

(a) during any absence or incapacity of the holder; or

(b) during any vacancy in that office arising otherwise than under subsection (7)(a);

but a person shall not have power to act by virtue of paragraph (a) for a continuous period exceeding six weeks.

(6) The First Minister or the deputy First Minister—

(a) may at any time resign by notice in writing to the Presiding Officer; and

(b) shall cease to hold office if he or she ceases to be a member of the Assembly otherwise than by virtue of a dissolution.

(7) If either the First Minister or the deputy First Minister ceases to hold office at any time, whether by resignation or otherwise, the other—

(a) shall also cease to hold office at that time; but

(b) may continue to exercise the functions of his or her office until the election required by subsection (8).

(8) Where the offices of the First Minister and the deputy First Minister become vacant at any time an election shall be held under this section to fill the vacancies within a period of six weeks beginning with that time.

(9) Standing orders may make provision with respect to the holding of elections under this section.

(10) In this Act “the pledge of office” means the pledge of office which, together with the code of conduct to which it refers, is set out in Annex A to Strand One of the Belfast Agreement (the text of which Annex is reproduced in Schedule 4).””

This new clause provides for the First Minister and deputy First Minister to be elected jointly by the whole Assembly, provided that the joint candidates for those posts also have a majority among both the designated Nationalists and the designated Unionists voting in the election.

New clause 3—Appointment of First Ministers—

In Section 16A of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Appointment of First Ministers and Northern Ireland Ministers following Assembly election)—

(a) subsections (4) to (7) and (9) shall cease to have effect,

(b) after subsection (3) there shall be inserted—

“(4) Each candidate for the joint office of First Ministers must stand for election jointly with a candidate for the other office.

(5) Two candidates standing jointly shall not be elected to the two offices without the support of a majority of the members voting in the election, a majority of the designated Nationalists voting and a majority of the designated Unionists voting.

(6) The First Ministers—

(a) shall not take up office until each of them has affirmed the terms of the pledge of office before the Assembly; and

(b) subject to the provisions of this Part, shall hold office until the conclusion of the next election for First Ministers.

(c) in subsection (3)(b) the reference to subsections (4) to (7) shall be replaced by a reference to subsections (4) to (6).””

This new clause provides for the First Ministers to be elected jointly by the whole Assembly, provided that the joint candidates for those posts also have a majority among both the designated Nationalists and the designated Unionists voting in the election, rather than appointed by the nominating officers of the largest political parties of the largest and second largest political designations. This would revert to provisions of the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

New clause 4—Implementation and Reconciliation Group—

‘(1) An Implementation and Reconciliation Group will be established to oversee progress on, and adherence to, commitments in the Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan and other relevant agreements.

(2) The Implementation and Reconciliation Group, serving as a forum of joint purpose for reconciliation and normalisation involving Assembly parties and both governments, may receive and make reports and offer advice and recommendations.

(3) The Implementation and Reconciliation Group will have eleven members, including a chair.

(4) Publicly elected representatives will not be eligible for appointment as members of the Implementation and Reconciliation Group.

(5) The chair of the Implementation and Reconciliation Group must be a person of independent and international standing, nominated jointly by the First Ministers.

(6) The other appointments to the Implementation and Reconciliation Group will comprise eight members nominated to reflect the party proportions among the elected members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, one member nominated by the Secretary of State and one nominated by the Government of Ireland.”

This new clause would establish a group comprising of nominees of Assembly parties, whether represented in the Executive or not, and nominees of both governments to appraise progress on agreed objectives and plans in pursuit of reconciliation and normalisation.

New clause 5—Equality duty—

‘(1) Section 75 (statutory duty on public authorities) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (1), after paragraph (d) insert—

“(e) between those who are victims and survivors of the conflict and those who are not; and

(f) between those who have been members of Her Majesty’s armed forces and those who are not.”

(3) After subsection (1), insert—

“(1A) A person is excluded from any benefit arising from this Act by virtue of (1)(e) if that person has been convicted of a serious criminal conviction.”

(4) In subsection (5), insert at the appropriate places—

“serious criminal conviction” means a conviction, whether the person was convicted in Northern Ireland or elsewhere, for an offence for which—

(a) a sentence of imprisonment of five years or more was imposed,

(b) a sentence of imprisonment for life was imposed;

“victim and survivor of the conflict” is defined as—

(a) any person who has suffered harm caused by an act related to the conflict in Northern Ireland, for which they are not wholly or partly responsible, that is in violation of the criminal law,

(b) any person who provides a substantial amount of care on a regular basis for a person as outlined in paragraph (a), where the harm suffered is a physical or psychological injury.”

This new clause provides for a change to section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to add to the list of exemptions victims and survivors of the conflict and members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. It also provides a definition of victims and survivors of the conflict.

English Votes for English Laws

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I fully accept that this is the Conservative party’s way of trying to grapple with what it perceives to be the English question.

A number of points have been made about these proposals, which have been scrambled together by the Leader of the House. Last year, the Government and other parties in the House told us how solemn and important the vow was, but the Bill does not seem to reflect the vow. As far as I can see, it is riddled with contradictions and anomalies. I do not have an inside track, but I join those who wonder “How now, brown vow?” How is it that when those questions are still up in the air and we do not have answers, we have this fast pursuit—this scramble—on English votes for English laws?

A former Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor has, now that he is Leader of the House, taken to political joyriding simply because he could take a vehicle for his own use and indulge himself and think he was going to show off to his peers. He thought he could take a key constitutional vehicle and purloin it for his own purpose, and with speed and noise he revved people up to say, “Ah, here it is: English votes for English laws. Here’s the big deal.” The people who were applauding and cheering that last week are now telling us tonight, “These are only minor and incidental. Why are you worrying and fretting; little will come from this?”

These are of course the same people who next year—we are told this will all be reviewed next year—will tell us this mishmash has turned out to be somewhere between a fig leaf and a figment in terms of resolving the English question and satisfying those with concerns about that. They will end up saying, “It hasn’t made enough of a difference on enough votes or Bills.” Alternatively, they will make it their business to try to show it can make a huge difference. That is why I am not sure that many Members on the Government Benches have fully read the Standing Orders.

I am not opposed to some aspects of what is in these Standing Orders. I actually think there are some interesting new devices in terms of scrutiny of legislation and some of the possible additional stages—giving Members the power to hold Bills in check while they are uncertain about parts of them, and forcing reconsideration. I like the idea of those reconsideration stages, but I do not know why they should apply only to England-only legislation. That is the sort of qualitative consideration we should be building in for proper consideration in this House. I am less interested in English votes for English laws and more interested in better votes on better laws. That means improving procedures in this House. That is what we should be looking at: wholesale procedural improvement in this House.

Then there are the arguments that say, “There aren’t really such things as Barnett consequentials; there are no consequences.” The fact is that there are, however. The hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) referred earlier to his time as Minister of Finance in Northern Ireland. I know from my time that we had arguments about Barnett consequentials, some of them arising directly from legislative and other measures that passed in this House. That then did change the shape of spending here, and that in turn changed the shape of the Barnett package—although sometimes not enough, because we must not pretend it is entirely the Treasury that decides on its own whims what goes into the Barnett formula and what does and does not count. Let us not pretend that there are no consequences.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Last week I and some other Members mentioned these Barnett consequentials and expressed our concern about that. The Government deserve some credit for the fact that they have listened to the points we made and the Leader of the House has amended his Standing Orders to ensure, as I understand it, that proposals relating to the Barnett consequentials have been withdrawn. I see the Leader of the House has just come back into the Chamber and I would like to publicly pay tribute to him for having handled this issue in a model way and listened to representations.

[Mark Durkan]

I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Leader of the House has handled this in a model way. This and the whole issue of the foxhunting vote are examples of premature miscalculations that have then been followed by embarrassing withdrawals.

Let us look at the detail. The Leader of the House tried to tell us earlier that there is no such thing as Barnett consequentials. He tried to say there is no question of Barnett consequentials arising for any piece of legislation in this House and that that issue only arises at the estimates stage of proceedings. That is errant nonsense, because we constantly hear from Ministers that amendments cannot be accepted because they have spending consequences and an impact on the public purse.

Let us also recognise that the proposals will have an impact not only on Members here but on the people we represent. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) said earlier that, under the new procedures, all of us would vote on these measures at different stages, but we will not be voting on them at the stage that counts—the actual decision time. We are told that we should be content, but I think we are somehow going to find ourselves in Dermot O’Leary or Ant and Dec land, where we will be told, “You may be charged, but your vote will not count.”

That is exactly the position that we and our constituents will be in if, for example, there is a repeat of anything similar to the tuition fees legislation. I sat on the Bill Committee for that Education Bill and I was able to eliminate myself from large chunks of the Committee’s proceedings, which dealt with England-only matters to do with education authorities and so on. However, there were aspects of the Bill relating to qualifications that had direct implications for Northern Ireland, and the decisions on tuition fees had serious implications for students from Northern Ireland coming to colleges here. The Bill also had direct policy and spending implications for the devolved Executive. Decisions made here will condition the choices for others.

So, no matter how strong we believe the devolution package to be in our regions, let us not pretend that this situation does not involve unequal legislative airspace. Some of the legislation passed in this House ends up being formative and normative for the standards expected of the devolved Administrations. At times, those Administrations have to conform with decisions that they would not readily have taken themselves. Sometimes, that is prefigured into the Barnett formula and the spending assumptions, which creates its own difficulties.

There is no sign that the Leader of the House has listened to any of the questions that have been raised. We asked what would happen if there were a bit of a twilight zone surrounding what was or was not devolved? On paper, for example, welfare is a devolved legislative power for the Stormont Assembly, but it is clear that it is a karaoke legislative power. The Treasury basically tells the Assembly, “Unless you pass the legislation in the way we want, we will tax your block grant. We will take money back off the Barnett formula.” This happens even though the Treasury should have other ways of policing that situation. None of those questions has been answered about what would happen in certain situations or impasses. Serious questions have also been raised about the odd language that is being used in the Scotland Bill. There is an element of dual control over some aspects of welfare in Scotland, so it is not clear when measures will be seen as England-only provisions.

What are we meant to do as we move from one Grand Committee to another? The suggestion from McKay was that there could be a single Grand Committee, but now, a bit like King Louie in “The Jungle Book”, it is a case not of “Have a Grand Committee!” but of “Have two Grand Committees! Have three Grand Committees!” We now have proposals that could give us three different Grand Committees. We are also told that there will be stages of voting, and that some of us will be excluded from some of them. It is not quite clear what will happen. Perhaps we will not have to leave the room, but we will be expected to avert our eyes while votes are taken and decisions made. This does not make any sense whatever.

Furthermore, this will involve elected Members being told that there is something sinister, subversive and wrong about their having a view and an input on some issues in this Parliament while the unelected Members of the House of Lords, who are free to come from anywhere in the United Kingdom—or even outside it, if they are tax exiles who are registered elsewhere for tax purposes—will have the power to determine all the legislation. The Government are absolutely shameless about that. We heard tonight about English self-determination. The Conservatives are putting ermine into English self-determination.