Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointments and Regional Rates) Bill

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 24th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

Indeed. We have been told that Brexit is another reason why we cannot progress, because the Government have been disrespectful of the vote in Northern Ireland against leaving the EU. The Government have not been disrespectful—if anything, they have worked well with the Administration in trying to address the unique issues that Northern Ireland faces, just as they work with the City of London, the motor car industry and other industries on issues that affect them. Of course, different parts of the country and different sectors of the economy face different issues, but there should be a method of fitting that in. The one sure way that we will not fit it in is if we do not have devolution.

The Secretary of State is right about the regional rate—a decision needs to be made. It is an important part of Government finance in Northern Ireland, and we need certainty. Councils have not sent out rate bills, because the regional rate has not been established—it is a source of income for them too. It is therefore important that a quick decision is made. However, as I said in an intervention, the Secretary of State must not allow the delay on budgetary issues to continue because there is uncertainty in Departments, which can have only 95% of the budget allocated, which has a knock-on effect. No one knows—even with the 90-day notice for voluntary and community groups, suppliers and so on—what the full budget will be, so the precautionary principle sets in, and those notices are given out. We will have to move quickly on that.

May I make a point on behalf of my party? There is no reason, even before the general election campaign begins, why devolution should not be up and running. People were elected to the Assembly and they have a mandate to serve in the Assembly. The way to sort out these issues is to debate them in the Assembly. However, one party in particular has made a list of demands. First, it said that it wanted RHI sorted out. When that did not happen, it said that it could not serve with Arlene Foster. Then it said that legacy issues had not been dealt with by the Government. I hope that some of its interpretation of those issues, especially on the unequal way in which terrorists have been treated in relation to incidents involving the security forces, are never accepted by the Government. Then we were told there were lots of new issues about equality and respect.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is not just that Sinn Féin have listed a series of unreasonable demands? They have said that many of those demands are fundamental prerequisites even before the institutions are established again, rather than trying, as he has suggested, to resolve them in the institutions. They want the institution up and running on their unreasonable terms even before they enter the place.

[Sammy Wilson]

That is exactly the point I was making. These issues can be resolved in the Assembly. If we want to decide what position to adopt on Brexit, who better to do it than Ministers in the Assembly introducing the issues that affect their Departments and reflecting the difficulties that we face? If we want to sort out issues around culture and so on, we should do so in debates in the Assembly, then the relevant Ministers could introduce legislation that could be properly debated. If we want to deal with legacy issues, there is a role for the Assembly in doing so. These things can be dealt with in the Assembly—that is the place to deal with them, rather than saying that unless we get these things sorted out on the terms required by one party we will not have devolution.

This is where I take issue with the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire, who spoke about punishing Assembly Members. First, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North pointed out, if we are going to punish people for not doing their job, we should punish Sinn Féin, who have milked this place dry for the past 10 years, getting millions of pounds from it, but not doing their work. Secondly, we should recognise that it is not the intransigence of Assembly Members generally that has led to this position. Thirdly—and he should know this as a public representative—there are many ways in which public representatives do their job. Of course they have a role in the body to which they are elected, but they also have a role in relation to their constituents. The Assembly Members in my party who were elected have worked tirelessly at constituency level as well as taking part in the talks and preparing material for the talks. As for the notion that somehow or other they are lying around at home watching daytime television and getting paid for it, he should know better, and so should many of the people who have commented on it.

If we want to understand the situation, we ought to ask whether people think we are intransigent because we are on a jolly, it is great and we do not want the Assembly up and running. I do not know any colleagues who do not want to be back in Stormont tomorrow doing their job. I therefore believe that the Secretary of State can push the thing along by spelling out to Sinn Féin that the consequence of not getting the Assembly up and running is that decisions will be made here in Parliament.

I do not want to see that happen. I do not want direct rule, and I do not believe that it will be good for Northern Ireland or for the House to have to do that. The Secretary of State should begin to address the issue and, rather than using the generic term, “the parties”, should begin to point the finger. He knows how difficult Sinn Féin have been. In fact, they took umbrage at him, and did not even want him to chair talks because of his comments about the security forces. That is the kind of arrogance that we have had from them, and until that arrogant bubble is burst we will not make any progress in Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

We have to use the timeline that is created here and now. We also have to use such good will as any of us were able to detect in the talks in Stormont Castle over the past number of weeks.

I personally would not come to the conclusion that one party is determined to prevent the formation of a Government altogether. I wish I had more evidence that I could point to so as to support my hunch that Sinn Féin would want to see the formation of a Government. It would be better if Sinn Féin would say more in public that gave people reason to believe that. In the debate I took part in on the BBC yesterday, I was struck by the fact that Chris Hazzard of Sinn Féin said that Sinn Féin would have a powerful position in relation to Brexit because of having four MEPs and because Dublin was going to have a decisive role as a member state. He put no premium whatsoever on the institutions of the agreement. At no point did he say, “The important thing that will help us to offset some of the challenges and threats of Brexit is having our own devolved Government who are part of using and activating the strand 2 structures that are the best way of doing things on an all-Ireland basis, with relevant sectors being treated as an Ireland market, and that being reflected and respected with regard to EU construction programmes and potential funding, as Michel Barnier has indicated.” There was none of that whatsoever from Sinn Féin. I can therefore see why people are worried about what it is saying about Brexit and asking, “Where are the institutions of the Good Friday agreement?”

Strand 1 of the Good Friday agreement would be pretty central to making those institutions work because, as we know from what happened before, strand 2 cannot be activated—we cannot have a North South Ministerial Council—unless we have northern Ministers in a northern Executive. It is therefore imperative that we get our institutions up and running. A failure to do so means that we are sentenced to the hard Brexit that people are complaining about and worried about, but also a hard Brexit in the absence of any devolved mitigation—any north-south axis that can be used, including by the Irish Government. Strand 2 provides that the views of the North South Ministerial Council will be reflected and represented in various EU meetings, so it gives the Irish Government a potentially powerful role. However, whenever Chris Hazzard referred to the Irish Government’s role yesterday, none of that related to the fact that they would be reflecting the views of the North South Ministerial Council in EU meetings. We need to get the institutions up and running, although I recognise that there are issues in the way.

I do not accept the rewriting of recent history by the hon. Member for East Antrim in relation to the renewable heat incentive. When questions were put to Treasury Ministers and to NIO Ministers about a Westminster and Whitehall interest in RHI, the DUP was seething at any such suggestion by me, by my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), or by the two Ulster Unionist party Members. The DUP was completely opposed to a public inquiry. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley made it very clear on TV on several occasions that consideration by the Public Accounts Committee in the Assembly was sufficient and there was no need for any other inquiry. It had Sinn Féin on board with that position for quite a while, and then things fell apart between them.

Like the hon. Member for East Antrim, I ask why the Northern Ireland Executive did not produce a draft budget. Why are we in this position at all, with no hint or sign of what the devolved budget would have been? Let us remember that back on 21 November the DUP and Sinn Féin issued a joint article, stating:

“This is what delivery looks like. No gimmicks. No grandstanding.”

And that was when there was no sign of a draft budget. The DUP was quite happy to say that it was good government not to have a draft budget at that stage. We are now at a point when we should have long had the revised budget. That is what the joint article by Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness said and it was accompanied by a lovely photograph: back in November, Sinn Féin and the DUP gave us the Mills & Boon version of lovely government. Then the wheels started to come off after the pressure created by the RHI issues in December.

What was the root cause of the arrogance that manifested itself in the RHI scandal? It was the fact that the DUP felt that it was not accountable to the Assembly and that it had been appointed entirely according to its own mandate. We heard Arlene Foster say that she had a mandate from the people of Northern Ireland. The DUP’s mandate in last year’s Assembly election was no greater than that which the Labour party got in Great Britain, and yet we were told by Arlene Foster that her mandate from the people of Northern Ireland meant that she could ignore the mandate received by everybody else in the Assembly. Given that she was not appointed by the Assembly, contrary to the provisions of the Good Friday agreement, she had no sense of accountability to it, which is why the DUP made it clear that it would veto any motion passed by the Assembly on the RHI. Of course, that is what it did, and in so doing it not only ignored the proper authority and its debt of accountability to the Assembly at large, but broke the ethic of mutuality and jointery in the offices of the First and Deputy First Ministers. That made it very difficult, if not impossible, for Martin McGuiness to continue as though there were no other strains present.

Those are not the only challenges that we need to resolve. Other hon. Members have touched on legacy issues, but unfortunately, given Madam Deputy Speaker’s advice on time, I will not be able to go fully into them. The hon. Member for Blaydon has referred to the Sammy Devenney case, which happened in my constituency. Conservative Members have also raised concerns about former officers being pursued and questioned about previous cases. However, although those cases have been presented here as examples of people being pursued for prosecution, they have actually come about as a result of new inquests about controversial deaths that have shown that some of those who were killed were not terrorists or gunmen as had previously been reported, and that therefore their killing was wrongful. It is entirely legitimate that legacy issues should be pursued and questions asked. Officers gave various accounts—and Ministers in turn, down the years, have in this House given false accounts—of those deaths and incidents. It is entirely proper that those cases should be well pursued.

Although there has been a measure of agreement among Sinn Féin, the DUP and the British Government—notwithstanding disagreements on questions of national security—on limited approaches by the historical investigations unit, the Social Democratic and Labour party wants more architecture on legacy issues, not least with regard to thematic approaches. The HIU is able only to produce individual reports on individual cases, and not to join the dots, show the patterns or draw on the wider lessons. It is also confined to looking at killings, but the troubles have many other dimensions and legacies of victimhood that are not just in relation to killings. People have many questions about the pattern, motives and character of the violence carried out by paramilitaries as well as, possibly, by the security forces, and they want those questions to be examined and tested. I think that that would give a more equal assessment of the past.

We considered those proposals in the Haass talks. Richard Haass and Meghan O’Sullivan had particular ideas about a strong approach to thematics, which would have reflected the interest right across the community. It would not only have addressed issues of state breaches and allegations against state forces; it would have been very wide, open, thorough and responsive. We need to return to those sorts of arrangements in respect of the past.

We need to make progress on the Irish language Act, but let us be clear that part of the problem is that people are selling riddles, because in the St Andrews agreement there was a pledge from the British Government that they would legislate for a language Act, whereas the only commitment on the part of the parties was for a language strategy. Ambiguities and contradictions were built into it and some of us sought clarity at the time. Sinn Féin was spinning it that there would be an Irish language Act in the Assembly, but we pointed out our honest interpretation of the literal language. Of course, we were decried simply for pointing out the truth.

Whatever the problems in relation to the Irish language Act and the RHI issue, we need to remember that Brexit is the biggest issue facing us all. What helped bring about the discolouration in the politics around our institutions? The fact is that it was Brexit, which has made a much bigger difference to the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland than certain Members care to admit.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

The hon. Gentleman says that Brexit is the fundamental issue. Given his position on Brexit, does he take any comfort from the fact that the British and Irish Governments and the EU have ruled out a hard border? Does he accept that there will not be one?

[Mark Durkan]

I accept that those bodies have given that indication, but they have not said how it will be done. The Prime Minister has been careful to say that she wants the border to be as frictionless and seamless as possible and that there would be

“no return to the hard borders of the past”,

but there has been no full commitment that there will be no possible borders of the future. Sector after sector in Northern Ireland worries about such borders, and the best way to prevent them is to properly use the machinery of the Good Friday agreement, which allows for areas of co-operation and joint implementation. It also allows us to take concerted action on a north-south basis and say that different sectors want to be treated as an island market. Given the EU’s historical position, that should be fully respected and reflected. If the British Government are serious about wanting to continue to honour the Good Friday agreement in the context of Brexit, they should allow that to happen.

That is what special status would look like. We do not have to negotiate a new special status for Northern Ireland. We have to have the full optimisation of the Good Friday agreement in the context of any Brexit, so that we can have the strongest regional say in our own interest and a strong north-south axis. We also need to use the east-west structures of the agreement, not least the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, which can deal with all of the non-devolved issues that the two Governments have in common, as well as allow devolved Ministers to be part of those meetings, particularly when they touch on devolved matters. I believe that that would be a much more attractive facility for devolved Ministers than even the Joint Ministerial Committee on European Negotiation, because the common experience of all the devolved Administrations is that they find it pretty confusing and belittling.

Using the structures and mechanisms of the Good Friday agreement would give us the best answer to Brexit, but we will not do that unless we use the additional time given by this Bill to make sure that we form an Executive in the Assembly that was elected on 2 March.