Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill

Emma Little Pengelly Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the intervention, and let me answer it and the point made by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). She makes my point for me. She asks what the Executive decided in respect of the HIAI and the answer is we do not know. We know that they said they thought they ought to implement its findings in full—they said that just before the Assembly went down—so we have some clarity on that. Crucially, we do not know what the Executive would have decided in respect of the regional rate and we do not know whether the Assembly would have decided to change the terms of the cap on the RHI, yet we are legislating in this place, in this Bill, to change those things, without any knowledge of what the Assembly would have done. So it precisely relevant to the business at hand—

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I will give way in a moment. It is precisely relevant to the business at hand that we could be legislating under the same terms on these two issues but are choosing not to do so for some reason, be it political expediency, timeliness or the fact there are less pressing financial reasons for doing so. Those people who are here today—there are people who were injured by either side in the troubles—having been in paralysis, having lost limbs or having lost livelihoods for a long, long time now, are in need of our support.

I know that the Secretary of State wishes to give that support, so I cannot understand, and do not think she has yet explained to the House, why it is not a moral imperative—and a financial imperative for those people—to introduce legislation to implement a pension for the severely injured and to enact at the very least the relatively minor compensation arrangements that Sir Anthony Hart agreed under the HIAI.

The Secretary of State has the extra £1 billion that she managed to find for the Democratic Unionist party under the confidence and supply agreement, and part of that money could be allocated either to the victims of historical institutional abuse or to those who have suffered injury as a result of the troubles. That would be time well spent in the House, and nobody would reject or resent it. I do not believe for a moment that it would undermine either the Secretary of State’s efforts to get the peace process and the talks back on track, the Sewel convention or our desire to get the Assembly back up and running.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

I shall speak briefly about this short and reasonably technical Bill. I will first touch on rates and the power being given to the Secretary of State to look at the issue. She has previously announced her intentions regarding these matters.

I emphasise in the strongest possible terms that I and my colleagues in the Democratic Unionist party firmly believe that the best place for these matters to be discussed and decided is in the Northern Ireland Assembly and by locally elected representatives there. Yesterday, I mentioned the important role that the Assembly’s Committee for Finance plays in scrutinising such measures, talking to business and stakeholders, and trying give advice. The Committees of the Northern Ireland Assembly have a statutory role to give advice and to form policy, which is unusual within an elected body. That important role aids the cross-party power sharing arrangement for Northern Ireland. It is incredibly disappointing that we do not have that in place, and it is sad that we do not have the opportunity to look at these measures in that way.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) mentioned the DUP’s approach to taxes in Northern Ireland. As I said yesterday, a number of former Ministers of Finance in the Northern Ireland Assembly are now in this place. Regarding the year-on-year budget, the DUP made it clear that we are a party of low tax because we want to keep as much money as possible in the hands of hard-working and under-pressure households in Northern Ireland. We have looked at a range of measures to that end, including keeping rates low.

My right hon. Friend also mentioned some of the pressure regarding the increase in rates. I welcome the fact that the significant increases feared by some did not happen and that the Secretary of State consulted all the parties. I did not want any increase, because an increase will have an impact on those hard-working and under-pressure families, but I welcome the fact that, following consultation with the parties, it is not as significant as was initially suggested.

No firm details on rates were released to the Assembly by the last Minister of Finance, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, despite the Committee for Finance calling on him to do so. He did not bring forward the rates legislation in a timely way, which meant that the Secretary of State had to do so at a very late stage, on the collapse of the Assembly. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is not taking forward Máirtín Ó Muilleoir’s proposal to lift the cap on domestic rates. I have been contacted about this issue by many of my constituents who were particularly worried about the significant increases that they would have faced as a result. Without the cap, they would have been paying more in domestic rates than if they had lived in a house in London worth £1 million or £2 million. That would have been fundamentally unfair. I disagreed with that proposal by Sinn Féin and I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has not taken it forward. It is important that there is fairness in relation to these matters across the United Kingdom.

We are of course aware that rates levels in Northern Ireland have traditionally been low. However, given what the Secretary of State has said about the devolved nature of these matters, as well as the very difficult position we find ourselves in and what has been said about the Sewel convention, I urge her to talk to local representatives and organisations in Northern Ireland to ensure that as we move forward through this difficult period, we continue to make sure that we keep costs low for our families in Northern Ireland.

The second aspect of the Bill deals with the renewable heat incentive. I welcome the Secretary of State continuing the cap on costs in relation to that scheme. We had considered this matter in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I welcome the fact that my Assembly colleague, the then Economy Minister, Simon Hamilton, brought forward these measures to almost eliminate any overspend on the scheme. I want to put on record, as we did previously, my concern about the reporting of this issue. Many of the political parties in Northern Ireland, for political reasons, gave a very clear impression to the public of Northern Ireland that £500 million was gone—spent—and that that was it. That was not the case. Despite the fact that we said repeatedly that it was not money that has been spent but money that was projected to be spent, and that we gave a firm commitment to bring forward measures to mitigate that, as we did under the DUP’s ministership in the Department for the Economy—

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that just over year ago there was the most outrageous and disgraceful calumny in Northern Ireland as regards the reporting on the RHI scheme? A small number of journalists repeated the untruth that the money had been spent—had already gone up in smoke—and exacerbated people’s fears unnecessarily, leading to the beginning of a state of crisis even before the Government fell?

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I absolutely agree. Language was used to the effect that the money had turned to ash.

We have to be aware that many people do not get the detail of some of these schemes. They are not privy to the information that those who are delivering a scheme or have examined it may be privy to. The language used gave the clear impression to people—this was a misunderstanding—that the money had disappeared, but that was not the case. Yes, it is disappointing that there were flaws within the scheme. I welcome the fact that we moved, and moved quickly, to eliminate any overspend on the scheme—this measure will virtually eliminate that—and to protect public money. I welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification about the projected cost saving of £450 million-plus over the lifetime of the scheme.

I welcome the fact that the regulations survived a legal challenge over the past year. That is an important point, because the situation caused concerns to be raised when we discussed it in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I welcome the fact that the courts looked at this and listened to the public interest. The Bill represents a continuance of those regulations. I urge the Secretary of State to consider implementing these mitigations on a more permanent basis, rather than their needing to being continued on a year-on-year basis. I understand that that was the intention prior to the collapse and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim indicated, that would have happened following consultation with all the relevant parties about putting measures on to a much firmer footing.

I was disappointed that the shadow Secretary of State did not eventually give way to me, despite indicating that he would do so. I was in fact rising to offer support for what he was saying. I think that my record shows that I might have come across as a little critical in some of my interventions on the hon. Gentleman, but I have always tried to be informative as opposed to critical. I was going to tell him that the WAVE campaigners on pensions for severely injured victims of the troubles are over here at the moment. Along with my DUP colleagues and our party leader, I had the opportunity to welcome them to the House of Commons last night to speak to them about this issue in some detail.

I have been supporting those individuals and encouraging them to speak to as many people as possible about this issue. I extend my thanks to those Members who have met or will meet them, including the Scottish National party shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). Such meetings are very valuable, because they have a very powerful story to tell. I was also going to say to the shadow Secretary of State that this issue extends far beyond Northern Ireland. It absolutely should be seen as an issue right across the United Kingdom, because there were many victims over the course of the troubles from right across the United Kingdom, and a number of them were severely disabled. Although there is no doubt that some elements of dealing with victims’ issues are devolved, this is a UK-wide issue.

The other issue I wanted to raise in support of the shadow Secretary of State relates to the fact that this is a legacy issue. As we have said, my party has been involved for many years in discussing how to deal with the very troubled and tragic legacy that arose from the troubles in Northern Ireland. In those discussions, there was an agreement across all parties that some of these issues happened at a time when there was direct rule and no devolved government. Some of the issues go much wider than Northern Ireland with regard to dealing with the legacy of the campaigns of violence. That would be recognised through the Government considering, drafting and bringing forward legislation to deal with a mixed range of issues, some of which would have been devolved and some that would not. I see no reason why such legislation could not contain provisions to support those who are very much in need of support through a victims’ pension. The people who are over here are victims of some terrible, terrible atrocities, and they are suffering the consequences. I urge those Members who have not spoken to them to take the opportunity over the next couple of days to do so.

With reference to business in Northern Ireland, I welcome the very positive words about looking into the establishment of a business forum to discuss these matters, because the Secretary of State and the Minister will both know from listening to people from the business community that they have some concerns. They think it is right that their voices are heard. Of course, there is a positive story about business in Northern Ireland, as outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim. Despite the political difficulties, business is doing well. Invest Northern Ireland is working hard. Businesses are benefiting through foreign direct investment. We want that to continue. We will be doing everything in our power, within our role, to work with our partners across Northern Ireland and across the House to try to ensure that Northern Ireland works and that we have the best possible outcomes for everybody across the community in Northern Ireland.