Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill

Emma Little Pengelly Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

That has to be right. We have a duty to ensure not only that we dispatch the legislation where it is appropriate to do so, but that we monitor its impact to make sure that no injustice is caused by the clumsiness of the legislation.

I will draw my remarks to a conclusion, but the point I have sought to establish all the way through is that the Secretary of State has not given answers with the level of detail that this House ought to demand if we are to say that this scheme is legitimate in terms of protecting the wider public interest, as it rightly and properly should do, and does no injustice to people who, in reasonably good faith—some may have seen a large amount of pound coins rolling in their direction—invested in a scheme that we as a society wanted to promote: a more environmentally sound system of heating. We need to insist that we get that balance right, but I am not convinced that I can see that in the Bill, the explanatory notes or the Secretary of State’s opening remarks

I repeat what I said at the beginning: the way the House is being asked to dispatch this legislation today is incompetent and unreasonable. I hope the Secretary of State will reflect on that, because even at this stage it would be possible for the Government to take part of the legislation back and say that the capacity to scrutinise could be done very differently.

Finally, I wish to make a slightly wider point. Once again, the House is being asked to do something that the Secretary of State talked about as being limited but necessary. There are many limited but necessary schemes that she is refusing to do. In response to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), she made the point that she would be looking to legislate on providing the necessary support for housing associations in Northern Ireland. We would not want to oppose that, as it is necessary to have those housing associations working. Again, however, we come down to questions such as: who will make the decision on the medical school in the Derry and Strabane city deal; when will we see progress on Hart if we are still stalled on getting a devolved Assembly in Stormont; and what are we going to do about the important question of public sector workers, such as nurses, physiotherapists and others in the health service, who will not see the uprating in their pay that their counterparts will see in the rest of the UK? Such issues are within the Secretary of State’s capacity to address. It is difficult for us to see any longer when she will act. Yes, protecting public money and allowing public moneys to be spent by local authorities at the Northern Ireland level is important, but so are these issues. There is no clarity any more—

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

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as far as we are aware, senior civil servants do have the power to give pay increases? In fact, many of them have done so, particularly for nurses, the police and those in the Prison Service—this has been recently announced. The senior civil service does have that ability because of legislation passed in this House previously. Does he agree that we also need to encourage those permanent secretaries to make those decisions earlier, because many of them have taken considerable time, and many people are waiting and are out of pocket? The power is there and we just need to get those decisions made by the senior civil service in a timely way.

[Tony Lloyd]

A guarantee that everybody in the health service receives the same uprate as their opposite numbers in the rest of Great Britain would be welcome. I think the hon. Lady knows, probably better than me, that the most senior civil servants are still traumatised by the judicial review that found that their level of competence to make decisions was limited. Although we brought legislation through the House, I think few people believe that that really did much more than to codify what was already there, rather than to expand their capacity to make decisions. I would love to believe there was a transparent and accountable decision-making process, and hence coming back to Stormont in operation, but we do not have that at the moment, so the only system of accountability for pressing matters lies ultimately in the House of Commons and the Department.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Little Pengelly]

Whenever that legislation was discussed by the House, it was very much part of the context that it should give clarity. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that because of the judicial review there was clearly apprehension among the permanent secretaries in some of the Departments about making decisions. The legislation was designed to give that certainty and that legal basis, but we are still seeing a reluctance in some Departments. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that guidance for all the Departments in Northern Ireland would perhaps be helpful, to tell all the civil servants exactly what types of decisions they could and should be making in accordance with the legislation passed by this House?

[Tony Lloyd]

It may be helpful to deliver that kind of guidance. The problem we all have to face is that, in the end, decisions made by senior civil servants without reference to a policy framework determined here, or in some logical sense determined when the Stormont Executive were operating, will be challengeable. Judicial review can and will take place, and if civil servants face such a review, that will make them cautious about making the wrong decision. Every Member of this House would face the same kind of reluctance. I am sure that some will by instinct be a little braver than others, but something still circumscribes such decisions. I do not actually think that the legislation we passed materially changed the boundaries. Perhaps that debate is for another occasion, but it is important.

I have come to the end of my remarks, but I wish to emphasise that we would not want to oppose the passage of the regional rates legislation, because it is timely and it is important that there is certainty at the beginning of the new financial year. However, I repeat that the Secretary of State should not have allowed these two separate items of business to be conjoined. It forces the hand of those in the House of Commons and in the other place in an unacceptable fashion. It forces us not to scrutinise properly the legislation she has put before us. She has to think seriously about whether this is the right way to take this legislation through the House. I suggest to her that, even at this stage, she should think about whether she can technically decouple these two pieces of legislation and allow a slower process and more time for the consideration of the RHI.