Social Security

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It is important to be mindful throughout today’s debate of the events that have led us to this point. It is now almost a full year since the Stormont House agreement was finalised, after months of negotiation between five Northern Irish political parties, involving representatives of the UK, US and Irish Governments. Those negotiations sought to reach a lasting solution to some of the problems that have afflicted Northern Ireland not just in recent years, but throughout its history. The agreement made a substantial amount of progress on some of the most contentious issues, including flags, parades and dealing with the past, while also seeking a way forward on issues such as welfare reform and the devolution of corporation tax.

The Stormont House agreement marked a turning point, but in the longer term it has not provided a conclusive resolution to most of the issues that the parties sought to address. Divisions have remained in the 12 months since and have escalated at frequent intervals. On more than one occasion this year, it appeared that there was a genuine risk not just that the devolution settlement might collapse, but that we might see a return to direct rule for the first time in almost a decade. Whatever their disagreements, it has always been clear that none of the parties wanted that. Neither, of course, did hon. Members on either side of this Chamber.

My hope is that today marks the end of a difficult process that none of us wants to see repeated. The Northern Ireland (Welfare Reform) Act 2015, which received Royal Assent this week—together with this order, which it enabled—takes an important step towards bringing the events of the last 12 months to a close. I suspect that no one will see this order as a perfect solution. Most will nevertheless regard it as necessary at least, in so far as it paves the way for an end to financial penalties and a return to stable government. The Opposition will not, therefore, be voting against the order today, just as we did not vote against the enabling Bill, which became law last week.

We have serious concerns about many of the Government’s welfare reforms and, as the Minister knows, we have not held back from expressing them at the appropriate time. We have also, however, been consistent in our view that these debates are not the right forum for rehearsing the arguments we have been making elsewhere. We sincerely hope that, in bringing recent disagreements over welfare reform in Northern Ireland to a close, this legislation will mark the beginning of a new chapter in its history. It is hoped by many that it will pave the way for progress on long stalled issues, including the devolution of corporation tax, as I mentioned, as well as a voluntary redundancy scheme to mitigate the impact of recent civil service cuts on Northern Ireland’s workforce.

We particularly welcome the provisions made for transitional protections, extending over a number of years, to help to mitigate the impact of some of the most significant changes. These include important protections for existing claimants affected by the bedroom tax and the transition from disability living allowance to the personal independence payment. I understand that agreement has also been reached for a number of changes to be made to the way that universal credit will be implemented in Northern Ireland, which include exemptions from the requirement for single household payments, provisions to allow the housing costs element to be paid directly to landlords and protections in the sanctions regime for lone parents seeking work.

These are all welcome compromises on the part of the Department for Work and Pensions. Although they may not address all the concerns that have been raised about welfare reform in Northern Ireland, they will nevertheless go some way towards mitigating the impact on some of the most vulnerable among those affected.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is rightly outlining some of the beneficial mitigating measures that will come into effect in Northern Ireland. As a Member of Parliament in this part of the United Kingdom, does she perhaps look on the package in Northern Ireland with some shades of envy for her own constituents?

[Emily Thornberry]

I appreciate that some of the compromises that the DUP have reached for Northern Ireland are not outcomes that we have managed to achieve on the mainland. Many of the policies that I see in front of me are certainly things that the Labour party has called for, so I congratulate DUP Members. Let us call a spade a spade. These are all welcome compromises on the DUP’s part. Although they may not address all the concerns, they nevertheless go some way towards mitigating the impacts on some of the most vulnerable among those affected.

We must remember that the divisions that recent negotiations have sought to heal go far beyond welfare reform alone. As such, finalising this agreement will allow progress to be made in other areas, making available additional funding for the Police Service of Northern Ireland to step up its efforts to fight terrorism. There will also be new funding for community initiatives, among them efforts to bring down the peace walls that have historically divided Northern Ireland’s communities. The compromises reached on the part of the DUP helped to get the exceptional circumstances of Northern Ireland recognised. Disagreements no doubt remain, but the settlement reached between Stormont and Westminster nevertheless presents an opportunity to draw a line under the difficult events that we have lived through in recent months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I want to make it clear that the responsibility for this matter being debated in the House today lies fully with the SDLP and with Sinn Féin—and the Greens: the wee Green man in the Assembly. They used the powers that were available to block the legislation, created a constitutional and financial crisis in the Assembly, and hurt the many hundreds of thousands of people who found that for the last year the budget of the Assembly had been in disarray. The only way out of the impasse that had been created by the SDLP and Sinn Féin was to bring the legislation here. At the end of the day, common sense prevailed, and that is why we are in our present position.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that, on top of the problems that have been caused by the SDLP and Sinn Féin, more than £100 million-worth of fines were levied on the Assembly as a result of that intransigence?

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course, that £100 million-plus could have been used to deal with many of the pressing problems faced by my hon. Friend’s constituents and mine, and, indeed. the constituents of all of us in the House tonight. They could not benefit from hip operations, eye operations or special needs provision in schools because money had been drained from the Northern Ireland budget unnecessarily. Let us be clear about this. The responsibility for the legislation being brought here rests with those who took the view that they did, even after concessions had been made. I want to thank the Ministers on the Treasury Bench who listened to the special case in Northern Ireland, albeit that they made us pay for the changes ourselves. Nevertheless, they recognised that there were special conditions in Northern Ireland and they were prepared to be flexible. I suspect that caused some difficulty for them with their constituents, because the same arrangements were not available here on the mainland. Nevertheless, they were made available in Northern Ireland—although, as I said, the Northern Ireland Executive had to pay for the changes made.

This was always going to be a difficult issue because of the parity principle. It is one of the reasons why at the very beginning when devolution was being set up we questioned whether welfare should ever be devolved; departure from the parity principle was always going to be very difficult. The arrangement was that, so long as Northern Ireland stayed in line with tax changes and benefit changes in the rest of the UK, through the annually managed expenditure, whatever the cost of welfare would be, it would be met by the Exchequer; it would not have to be found locally, but would be met by the Exchequer. It was perfectly legitimate to say, “We’re not going to allow you to go and do your own thing and then expect the Treasury to pick up the bill.” We expect there to be that parity principle and, that being the case, the devolution of welfare to the Northern Ireland Assembly was always going to create difficulties if parties decided to dig their heels in and ask for radically different arrangements.

It has been mentioned that my party voted against some of the things contained in the Bill at Westminster. That is true, but there are many things we voted for. We supported the benefit cap. We supported the move to universal credit and the simplification of benefit arrangements. We supported the principle that benefits should be set at a level to make work pay, and not to penalise people who went out and worked. We supported all those things, but there were things we were not happy with. We voted against them here. In some cases we were able to negotiate differences in Northern Ireland, and in some cases we were not, but we faced up to the reality that once the legislation had passed through Westminster the Northern Ireland budget was not going to be able to bear the cost of not implementing it in Northern Ireland.

It is ironic, however, that the SDLP should say that Sinn Féin and the DUP rolled over to the Government on welfare reform. Let me give one example. When the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) was Minister for Social Development, she put through a lot of statutory instruments that simply reflected welfare changes here and were introduced in Northern Ireland, very often without any debate. Indeed, it was her successor who introduced in Northern Ireland the removal of the spare room subsidy for the private rented sector, and then railed against it when it was introduced for tenants in the public rented sector. There was not a word about it in the Northern Ireland Assembly when her colleague Mr Attwood introduced that. So we can see a certain amount of conflict between the anti-welfare rhetoric of the SDLP and its willingness on many occasions to introduce welfare changes through the Assembly.