Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

We are approaching tomorrow, so I will try not to detain the House too long with the comments I wish to make on this important Bill. At the outset I want to pay tribute, as others have, to the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), the former shadow Secretary of State, who has now moved on to another post. He visited my constituency on more than one occasion and spent time with businesspeople and community leaders there, which was much appreciated. It was very clear that he wanted to learn as much as he possibly could about Northern Ireland, and he used that information wisely and, on many occasions, powerfully in this House. I hope he continues to maintain that interest, particularly in the hydrogen technologies that he looked at in Northern Ireland, in his new role. I wish him all the very best.

I also welcome the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) to his new post. He brings a level of gravity to the post, which is very important, and I wish him all the very best as well. I hope that, as a supporter of Leeds United, that brings us closer to at least some extent.

When the Minister of State opened the debate this evening, he made it clear that he was putting a budget in place—I think I quote him correctly—that would allow Northern Ireland Departments to continue to function. That was its purpose. Of course, at some level those Departments will continue to function, but they will function on the most stingy budget Bill ever brought forward: a Bill that is a crisis point. Whether there is direct rule, the current formation that we have, or a devolved Assembly operating, the current budget is inadequate. It is a disaster for many of the Departments in Northern Ireland, and it will not allow government to function, or to function normally. Many of those Departments have been cut to the bare bone with regard to what they will be expected to deliver.

What lies at the heart of this budget Bill? Of course, it is a fundamental unfairness. It is unfair in terms of the budget allocation; the formula, or the definition of need, that has been used in relation to Northern Ireland; and the outcome that it will have for the people of Northern Ireland, irrespective of their political or other identity. This is a grossly unfair budget, and it will impact harshly on the people of Northern Ireland. It has been described as a “punishment budget”, and I say frankly to the Secretary of State, his Minister and his team that I think it is designed to be a punishment budget—to punish Northern Ireland because of political circumstances.

If the Government are making an argument tonight that they want an Assembly back, this is a very strange way to go about it, because they are basically saying to the political class in Northern Ireland, “If you go into the Assembly and you try to run it on this pinching, stingy budget, you will deliver to the people of Northern Ireland a disastrous arrangement.” It is no encouragement whatsoever to politicians to go into the Assembly on that one narrow point of the budget. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) has outlined much more detailed reasons as to why Unionists would not go back into the Assembly on the current arrangements until issues around the Windsor framework and the protocol are resolved.

If ever we needed leadership from the Government that led to decisive outcomes, it would not be this stunt budget that has been pulled in Northern Ireland. It is a pathetic excuse for a budget, and it will damage the opportunity to try to build better relationships not only within this House, but across Northern Ireland. The Government would not dare bring forward these sorts of arrangements for any other part of the United Kingdom—they simply would not dare and they would not have the affront to do it—and it is appalling that they are doing that for this part of the kingdom, Northern Ireland.

The hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) rightly identified that, if we are going to raise more revenue opportunities and invest in the public service, we need resources to do that. I notice that, in our newspapers every day, there are threats that the Northern Ireland Secretary is going to introduce water charges. I have heard this before. When I speak to the head of Northern Ireland Water, she tells me that, to get us back to an even keel in Northern Ireland with regards to the infrastructure of our water service, we need to invest about £2 billion. That is just to get it back to a level playing field and to a state where we could charge people for the water service. Are the Government proposing to put that sort of investment into the process, or are they just saying, “No, we’ll bring in water charges”? It is impossible to bring in water charges and well the Secretary of State knows it.

Just look at the cuts that are being proposed. The shadow Secretary of State rightly identified the problems to do with the concrete in schools across Northern Ireland, yet the education budget is being given the single largest kicking by the Government. Its budget is going to be down by 2.7%. If there is a crisis identified in the schools’ structure—another crisis in the schools’ structure—they just will not have the resources or the capability to resolve that, and we are going to see a major funding crisis there. Justice funding is down by 1.5%; I will come to some more points about that in a moment. Of course, the Department for the Economy funding is down by nearly 1% and this comes in the jaws of the great economic conference the Government are holding in a matter of seven or eight days in Northern Ireland. They are going to invite investors from all over the world and to say, “Come and invest in Northern Ireland—by the way, we have decided to cut the budget of the Department for the Economy, and we have decided to cut the budget for education and for other parts of Northern Ireland”. What sort of a message is that going to send to potential investors? If the Secretary of State has to try to sell these issues to outside investors whenever they decide to cut the budget, I certainly would not want to be a Northern Ireland-based devolved Minister trying to make that point.

[Mr Steve Baker]

Thankfully, the hon. Gentleman is not writing the speeches for the investment conference next week because, if he were, it would not be very successful. What he knows and I know—and any of us in this House know who knows Northern Ireland—is that it has an amazing, vibrant private sector with terrific entrepreneurs, who are incredibly well grounded in place, care about their communities, and care about making a profit justly while taking care of the environment. They are amazing, inspiring people who can succeed if they are provided with the right capital. If anything, what we are trying to do here, on the point he makes, is to make sure that the very poor quality politics of Northern Ireland ends up matching the very high quality of the private sector. If we could pull that off, Northern Ireland would soar.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank the Minister, but I was once told, “If you throw a stone among a pack of dogs, the one that yells the loudest has been hit the hardest.” I think that point maybe hit the Minister just a little bit this evening in that he knows that to say to investors, “By the way, we’ve cut the budget”, is not actually a good look for the Minister.

I want to turn to the issue of the cut to the Department of Justice funding; it is down by 1.5%. We all know that the morale of the police is at an all-time low. The issue of police pay for probationers has been raised in this House. It is very difficult to encourage young and newly qualified police officers that what they are doing is worth while. That is because the Department of Justice is going to be faced with another cut.

We have had the drama in recent weeks of the data breach. Police on the database have, shockingly, been given advice that they should remove themselves from the electoral register. That is one of the ways in which they can now protect themselves, undermining the democratic process for them and their families. The integrity of the MI5 officers who work in Northern Ireland has been undermined. That has a massive cost not just economically and politically, but to our security. Of course today there has been the loss of the Chief Constable, who decided to make decisions at the behest of Sinn Féin; rightly, he has had to resign. Who can calculate at this point what the cost of this will be, not just economically but to policing and to resolving that problem? I am disappointed that today the Secretary of State hedged his bets on who will pay the costs of the data breach; compensation will run into tens of millions of pounds. With Department of Justice funding cut by 1.5%, it is impossible to take that level of cost from that Department. The Secretary of State knows that he must do better, that this is not a good budget and that it will hit some of the Departments in Northern Ireland that mean the most the hardest.

Northern Ireland’s biggest industry and single largest employer still today is agrifood, making good-quality, tasty food. It does so not just for the people of Northern Ireland: the 30,000 or so farms in Northern Ireland make food and feed about 17 million people here in the rest of the United Kingdom. That sector of our economy is facing problems because that industry is about to have its veterinary medicines violated by this Government. Under the Windsor framework, the problems facing our farms are coming at them at 100 mph. Over 50% of our medicines for that sector are going to be denied and the UK Government say, “We are in discussions to resolve this issue.” The fact of the matter is that Europe has made it very clear that those discussions are over, yet the Government still think they can solve that. That crisis is coming too and the Government will need to resolve it and do so very soon. I hope that they do. I hope that they actually listen to these points, instead of getting tetchy about them, and recognise that the threat they have caused to the people of Northern Ireland by such a stingy, nasty budget, in such a procrastinating manner, is not serving the purpose of getting Government back into Northern Ireland, but is putting us further into the doldrums.