Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Steve Baker)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I begin by asking the leave of the House to take all stages of the Bill. The Secretary of State sends his apologies; I am pleased to say that he is enjoying a trip to the United States where he is representing Northern Ireland as he seeks to drum up business for local people.

Once again, I stand here with a strong sense of disappointment.  On Second Reading of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said:

“No Northern Ireland Secretary would want to introduce a Bill of this nature.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2022; Vol. 723, c. 820.]

That sentiment very much applies again today.

The Government are bringing forward this legislation because the Northern Ireland parties have been unable to form an Executive and subsequently, therefore, to set a Budget. In the absence of an Executive, the Government stepped in to set a Budget, which the Secretary of State put before the House on 24 November last year. We are legislating for that Budget today.

Setting the Budget was not an easy task. Northern Ireland departmental Ministers were in post until 28 October, which meant we could take over only from that point. They had not been operating with confirmed spending limits and had not implemented plans to deal with their looming overspends.

Of course, pressures on Northern Ireland’s finances did not happen overnight. Successive former Executives also failed to put finances on a sustainable footing. As a result, the Government inherited a Budget halfway through the year with an overspend of some £660 million. That is unacceptable, and the unsustainability of Northern Ireland’s finances cannot continue.

Spending per head in Northern Ireland is already at the highest level of any region in the UK. Northern Ireland receives 21% more funding per head than the UK average and has received record levels of financial support. The difficulties that Northern Ireland Departments now face are the result of tough decisions not being taken by elected representatives in Northern Ireland, not just this year but in successive years before that.

Funding alone will not solve those issues. They need strong and responsible leadership by a stable, devolved Government.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for giving way, but I know that he will go down the predictable line that all this would be sorted out if we had an Executive. How does he juxtapose that with his comments on 23 October, when he made it clear that

“we will not have devolved government in Northern Ireland”

until Unionist demands are met and the jurisdiction of EU Law comes to an end? Does he admit that the idea that the Executive will be a magic wand is a fallacy?

[Mr Baker]

There is no question of admitting any kind of fallacy. What I was saying with the quote the hon. Gentleman referred to was really a reflection of the DUP’s position. In a sense, I am grateful for his party’s clarity about what it requires to go back into government. From my engagement with its voters in Northern Ireland, I think they know that a price is being paid by not having the Executive up. It would be churlish of me not to admit that those voters—it was a small section—wanted to pay that price, but others will be devastated by the consequences of not having the Executive up. It is only fair that I, as a Government Minister, reflect the full spectrum of opinion, and people in Northern Ireland very much want the Executive back and dealing with the issues before it.

As for a magic wand, I would be the first to admit that government is difficult, whoever is in power. All these decisions are difficult—they are difficult decisions in difficult times—and there is no question of a magic wand. However, everyone in this House is aware of the devolution settlement, and I am sure everyone here would want Northern Ireland Ministers to be taking decisions in an accountable way locally. However, there’s no question of a magic wand, and I would be the first to be realistic about the conditions the hon. Gentleman and his party have set out for going back into the Assembly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) on this matter. At the outset of my speech, I also refer to the very kind comments made about our colleague Alex Easton. In the course of today’s events, he has sent a little text message thanking colleagues for their kind messages. The unbreakable heartache he must be going through will be unfathomable to most, and we leave him in the care and grace of his God and saviour at this time.

Turning to the less solemn issue of the Budget in Northern Ireland, which this House is passing, I chided the Minister earlier that no doubt he would say that, if we had a functioning Executive up and running in Northern Ireland, the Budget at Westminster would not be necessary and everything would be much better. Legislating for the Northern Ireland Budget Bill at Westminster is of course a mark of the failure of the Government to create the conditions to help restore the Executive. The Democratic Unionist party cannot do that on its own, despite the childish comments from some that, if the DUP just got over the protocol, this thing would be sorted out. If it were that easy, most of us agree it would have been sorted out, but it is not, because there is a problem here that has to be addressed.

It is now two years since the protocol came into effect and the Government have still failed to fix the problem of the protocol. I remember the first debate in the House back in the new year, in January, after the protocol had come into effect. I said then that within a week it was clear that the operation of the protocol would be an unmitigated disaster for Northern Ireland and we should move immediately to trigger article 16. I was told that that was premature and, “Don’t be silly, that cannot be the case.”

It has taken two years for the penny to drop. Among the architects of the protocol, even Leo Varadkar in recent days has indicated his regrets at signing up to it. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was in the House at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee today and again said that this matter has to be resolved. Thankfully, the chorus has started to change. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East is right to single out the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), for, I think for the first time from the Dispatch Box, making it clear that Unionists have actually got a point here, and sooner or later that point has to be addressed.

Six months after I gave my comments in 2020, in a Command Paper, the Government accepted that the

“combination of serious economic and societal difficulties, along with the obvious diversion of trade, would justify”

triggering article 16. That was 18 months ago. We are in what is called the can-kicking phase of the protocol’s existence, with the can just being kicked down the road and nothing actually being done, when all the evidence clearly suggests things should have been done years ago. They were flagged up. There was no excuse not to do them—they were flagged up and should have been done years ago.

A further year on, with no substantive action having been taken and following the understandable and inevitable collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive, the Government introduced the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, claiming the legal justification of necessity. In international law, the doctrine of necessity requires “grave and imminent” peril, yet a further six months and more have passed and the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill appears to be stalled in the other House.

I know the Secretary of State and the Minister of State, and indeed others, want the DUP to put hope over bitter experience and take this Government on trust and restore the Executive before the protocol has been fixed, but the Minister of State will know that it is not going to happen. I have referred to his comments on 23 October when he set the standard; it is a very good and high standard and it has to be met. The Government have got to deal with Unionist demands on the protocol. Those are not just my words but the Minister’s words, and I appreciate his echoing them. There is no point in the Government’s complaining about legislation for a Northern Ireland Budget in this House given that they have failed to address the problems of the protocol over the past two years, when they have had ample opportunity to do so. I hope they will address them now.

I do not criticise the Government for legislating on this matter. I want His Majesty's Government to govern. I do not want them to manage; I do not want them to hold the ring until something better comes along. There will be things with which I disagree and there will be things that I oppose, but it is the Government’s job to govern for our region of the United Kingdom when devolution is not in operation. I therefore do not criticise the Bill on that point of principle, but I believe it has taken far too long for the Government to act, and as a result the public sector finances in Northern Ireland have continued to deteriorate. We need to address that as a matter of urgency.

The options do not get any better if the inevitable is delayed. The time and the personal political credibility of the Government were wasted when they were playing around saying that there would be another election. That was the time for them to act immediately. They should have acted when the leader of my party pulled the First Minister out of government, but it is not a matter of 20 days or so but a year since that happened. The Government have had a year in which to do something about this, not just since the election but well in advance of it. A great deal of time was wasted over that year when the Government were not grappling with the issue.

As my colleagues have already pointed out, devolution of itself does not generate money, with the exception of the rate take. It is important to guard against the idea that an Executive would be an answer to many of the serious challenges faced by public finances. That is not abrogating responsibility; it is a statement of fact. We should not pretend that the Executive is a solution to all our problems. The mere fact that devolution does not produce money is one indication of that. Ironically, spending in Northern Ireland will probably be higher this year in the absence of an Executive—because the Secretary of State was able to secure flexibility from the Treasury—than it would have been if the Executive had been in place. This comes at the cost of next year’s Budget, which I think will be a worry for many people.

There are three points that I want to leave with the Minister. First, the Budget does not deliver on NDNA commitments. As some of my colleagues have already observed, NDNA spelt out the need for a sufficient increase in resources to allow the number of police officers to rise to 7,500, but the Budget does absolutely nothing to achieve that. In passing the cultural legislation, the Government placed reliance on the purported implementation of the NDNA agreement, but the Budget flies in the face of that approach when it comes to policing, which is something that will affect everyone in Northern Ireland.

Secondly, the Budget fails the children of Northern Ireland. It is one thing to set a challenging Budget at the beginning of a financial year, but it is quite inappropriate to impose damaging and undeliverable cuts in the final months. I think that all Northern Ireland Members—and, I hope, the Government—have received copies of a letter that was sent jointly and uniquely, for the first time, by the chief executive of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, the chief executive of the Controlled Schools’ Support Council, a chief executive in the Irish sector, the chief executive of the Catholic Schools’ Trustee Service, the chief executive of the Governing Bodies Association Northern Ireland, the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, and the chairperson of the Transferor Representatives Council. That letter spells out very clearly that the authors

“question the lack of parity”

between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. They ask:

“Why is the education of a young person in NI valued less than those in England, Scotland and Wales?”

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) went into that in some depth. He has significant knowledge, having for a long period headed the section that set the exams in Northern Ireland. I am delighted for Scottish kids. They get the equivalent of £7,600 per pupil. In Wales it is about £6,600, and here in England it is £6,700. Northern Ireland gets £6,400. There is a significant decrease in the moneys available to help children in Northern Ireland, and that crisis is not addressed by the Budget that this House and this Government are presenting to us this evening.

[Gavin Robinson]

To add to that, I outlined the difficulties of the squeeze over the next three financial years, which will see £2,000 taken from the spend of every household in Northern Ireland. That is almost 10% in public spending off every household in Northern Ireland over the next three years.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my hon. Friend for putting that on the record. It is clear that this Budget and the squeeze that he identified—set by this House—leaves the Northern Ireland education system facing a funding crisis that will affect every child and young person, not just this year and next year but for years to come.

The third point I want to leave with the Minister is that this Budget makes next year’s Budget even more difficult. I touched on that in my earlier comments on being able to get money out of the Treasury. Though it was not highlighted in the Secretary of State’s November statement, this Budget is balanced only by robbing from next year’s Budget. That will make it even more difficult for any new Executive to agree a Budget, given the cost of living crisis and wage pressures. In the absence of reforms or additional funding, it is difficult to see how next year’s Budget will be credible at all.

At the outset of his comments the Minister thanked the various permanent secretaries in Northern Ireland for taking on a very difficult task. It should be pointed out that the various permanent secretaries in Northern Ireland have described this Budget as grotesque. They are not happy being left to carry the can. We find ourselves in a constitutional netherworld where the Secretary of State dips in and out of devolved responsibilities formally and informally in a manner that is frankly unacceptable. That has been referred to by former senior civil servants as an affront to the democratic process.

Although Parliament has the right to legislate for Northern Ireland in the devolved field, it is only in very narrow and carefully defined circumstances that it has the power to take executive decisions. We have seen the Government taking legal powers to intervene in areas such as abortion law and the implementation of the protocol, but not to tackle hospital waiting lists or Dáithí’s law, as raised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), to allow Northern Ireland’s new organ donation laws to take effect.

Many will question the political morality of the choices that the Government have made and the right to do that, but it is equally unacceptable, in the absence of direct rule, for the Minister to make Northern Ireland civil servants answerable to him. Direct rule is a legitimate choice for the Government to make in the absence of devolution. It is not a choice that we are asking them to make, but indirect rule where the Secretary of State seeks to wield power without taking responsibility is not acceptable. It puts civil servants in an intolerable position. They are expected to make the cuts but do not have the authority to bring forward the reforms. I go back to my first point to the Minister: govern, do not manage. That is the job and that is what should be done. I hope that the Government will act now. There is an old saying that if you break it, you fix it.

By signing up to the protocol, the Government broke the institutions first created by the Belfast agreement. Rather than asking Unionists in Northern Ireland to do the politically impossible, the Government should face up to their own responsibilities. The Budget will pass this House tonight, but very soon the constitutional no man’s land must come to an end. Either the Government should fix the protocol so that new arrangements can be supported by Unionists as well as nationalists, or they should take responsibility for decision making in Northern Ireland in a way in which they can be held accountable properly and thoroughly by this House.