Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Debate between Emma Little Pengelly and Andrew Murrison

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I am not really sure that that is the case. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the guidance, which I am sure he has now read. On the third page, the guidance states that particular weight must be given to any

“serious detriment to the public interest, public health and wellbeing”.

That seems fairly clearcut to me. I think that the Secretary of State will have got the sense of the House today on her being proactive in the guidance that she is able to issue.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

Some of the concern is that this is actually not that straightforward. The terms of reference that set up the Hart inquiry clearly said that what came after the findings was not a matter for the chair of the inquiry. There are issues and decision points in those recommendations. To use a quick example, Hart recommends legal aid or separate legal representation for each of the people coming forward to a redress board. That has never been agreed. There would be a huge cost and, in my view, a lot of bureaucracy with that approach. There are decision points in the recommendations that, as I understand it in terms of the guidance, could not be made by a civil servant, because there is no consensus at this stage on those matters. That is the complication, and that is why the Secretary of State needs to step in and make those decisions.

[Dr Murrison]

I do understand that. One point I made on Second Reading was that I was slightly disappointed that the Bill does not advance pretty much any of the recommendations we made in our report on the democratic deficit, published in May. Had it done so, there would be scope now for even more consultation, using formal structures, which may have assisted the implementation to which the hon. Lady rightly refers.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) mentioned cannabis, which leads me on to healthcare—a matter that is of particular importance to my Committee right now, since we were at the Royal Victoria Hospital on Monday, where we took evidence from a number of service users. It is very clear from the guidance, which cites public interest and public health, that this matter is preying on the mind of Ministers.

It is a crying shame that there is no proper cancer strategy in Northern Ireland right now. There is one published in 2008, so it is out of date. We have a situation where, to pick one condition at random, the outcomes for prostate cancer are far worse in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the country. This is pretty clear. If we do not have a cancer strategy and we believe that a cancer strategy will be of assistance in improving outcomes, of course outcomes will be worse if one is not in place. To get a cancer strategy, we need some form of direction to civil servants to get on with it and, furthermore, to implement it.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Debate between Emma Little Pengelly and Andrew Murrison

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I certainly share the concern about long-term planning. In general, we do such planning through the normal budget system, but it is not clear to me how that is going to be achieved for the financial year 2018-19. I suspect our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be considering how that can best be achieved in short order, since we have only a matter of weeks in which to determine the budget for Northern Ireland, as for the rest of the United Kingdom, for future years.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to refer to our evidence session with the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when he expressed his concern not just about finance, but about general accountability. Given that the Northern Ireland Policing Board has not been properly constituted, because of the impasse at Stormont, he is very concerned, as she will recall, about the democratic deficit and what that implies for accountability.

On testing the methodology on which the estimates are based, for me the most important thing to do is to look at the biggest spending Department. The biggest spending Department and the one with the second largest cash departmental expenditure limit is of course the Department of Health. Until the end of last year, the Minister in charge of the Department was Michelle O’Neill. She said last October, in response to Professor Bengoa’s health sector reform plan, that it was

“a foundation for my vision”—

we could not hope for a clearer statement of ministerial intent—and formed the basis of her 10-year vision.

It is not clear to me where and how that vision is captured in the budget presented, but we know that David Sterling has relied on what he understood to be the ministerial intent up to the point at which the Executive collapsed. It would be useful to know in greater detail how the purposes listed under the Department of Health in schedule 1 are being addressed with Bengoa’s plans in mind, given that they have been endorsed by the last Minister of Health in Northern Ireland. As it happens, those purposes are remarkably broad, but it is one of the smallest paragraphs in the schedule, which is somewhat strange given the extent of the health budget in Northern Ireland.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I declare an interest in that my husband is the permanent secretary of the Department of Health in Northern Ireland.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the report looked forward in terms of transformation, which requires hard decisions and many years of preparation and hard work if we are to have efficiencies and savings without any impact on frontline services? We are now in November, and this money must be spent this financial year. Does he agree that the terrible situation we have been put in, because a budget was not put forward this time last year when it should have been, means that those decisions and the outcomes in the report are now very difficult to achieve?