Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Julian Smith]

I am having proactive discussions with the Treasury, and I agree that we need to have no costs and no barriers for Northern Ireland business.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

In the light of that answer, how does a Unionist Secretary of State justify export declarations on £18.5 billion-worth of trade flowing from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, and what charge will be placed on that £18.5 billion-worth of trade?

[Julian Smith]

Through this agreement, the United Kingdom maintains total control of how that is applied. As my hon. Friend knows, we are working day in, day out to ensure that Northern Irish businesses can send their goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain with absolutely unfettered access.

Early Parliamentary General Election

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Elegantly put, and thanks to the work of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, our preparations for a no-deal Brexit are very thorough indeed. But alas, as I have said, we have not been able to get Parliament to agree. There was a tantalising moment when I thought that Parliament was going to do the sensible thing, and then this House threw out the programme motion, at the urgings of the Opposition, at the final hurdle, as they intended all along. They made it inevitable that the people of this country would be retained in the EU against their will for at least another three months, at a cost of another £1 billion a month. [Interruption.] I hear cries from those on the Opposition Benches to bring the Bill back. I have offered that and I continue to offer it. I wanted, and I still want so badly, to accommodate this House.

Those of us on the Government Benches have compromised. Last week, I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition offering him more time for debate—days more in Committee, days more in the Lords, the ability to sit round the clock if necessary, and all last weekend—with only one condition: that he would agree to do what all Leaders of the Opposition are meant to yearn, crave and campaign for and have a general election on 12 December. I offered him that chance and I offer it again today. [Interruption.] He turned us down on Thursday and Friday. I offer again today to use all the hours God gives to scrutinise this Bill, provided that that scrutiny concludes in time for an election on 12 December.

Let us be clear: that is enough time to scrutinise this Bill. It was a remarkable feature of the debate last week on the new deal that not only were there no new ideas in that debate, but the Opposition actually ran out of speakers in the debate. [Interruption.] They want more time—they ran out of speakers. The people of this country can see the reality. They are not interested in scrutinising Brexit. They are not interested in debating Brexit. They just want to delay Brexit and cancel Brexit. If the House is to convince the country that it is serious about getting Brexit done, there must be a fixed term to this debate—a parliamentary terminus, a hard stop—that everybody can believe in.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

To make this matter easy for those of us on the DUP Benches, could the Prime Minister confirm to the House whether, if he is successful and achieves a general election, he will seek a mandate on the basis of the withdrawal agreement that the House voted for last week, or whether he will seek to change that withdrawal agreement?

[The Prime Minister]

I can tell the House that we have an excellent deal for the whole of the UK and that we will campaign on the basis of that deal. If the hon. Gentleman wants more time to debate and scrutinise it, as I take it from his question he does, he can have it, but we must have 12 December as a hard stop, a parliamentary terminus, that everybody can believe in.

An election would fulfil exactly that purpose. It would allow a new Parliament and a new Government to be in place by Christmas. Without that hard stop of an election, without that moment of truth, the electorate will, I am afraid, have a sense that we are all like Charlie Brown, endlessly running up to kick the ball, only to have Parliament whisk it away yet again, only to find that Parliament is willing to go on delaying and delaying, to the end of January, to February and beyond. The frustration will go on, the anxiety will go on, and the angst and uncertainty felt by millions of people and businesses across the country will be unnecessarily and unfairly prolonged and exacerbated. That is what the Opposition’s course condemns the country to.

If I am wrong, the remedy is very simple: the Opposition—the Leader of the Opposition and all his cohorts on the Front Bench—can vote for this motion tonight. Then we can bring the Bill back and get Brexit done and then go our separate ways and make our cases to the country to reboot our politics in the way our people want. If he does not wish to take that opportunity —if he wants simply to delay Brexit and frustrate yet again the democratic will of 17.4 million people, frustrate democracy in this country—I am afraid we must have an election now. We cannot continue with this endless delay.

I don’t know about you, Mr Speaker, but I think the Leader of the Opposition has now run out of excuses for running away. First he said of the Benn Act:

“Let this Bill pass and gain Royal Assent, and then we will back an election”—[Official Report, 4 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 292.]

The Bill passed and gained Royal Assent, but he still shrank from an encounter with the voters. Then he said he would wait until the Act had been complied with. The letter was sent over a week ago—not my letter, of course, but Parliament’s letter—and he is still coming up with ever more ludicrous excuses for hiding from the British people. Now he says we have to take no deal off the table at the end of the transition period in December 2020. I repeat: he wants to take no deal off the table at the end of the transition period in December 2020. Of course I think his so-called anxieties are absurd, because I am confident that we will negotiate a fantastic new trade deal. [Interruption.] If the Opposition vote for this motion, we will bring the Bill back. We will negotiate a fantastic new trade deal that will bring thousands of new jobs to businesses and communities across this country.

Even if the Leader of the Opposition disagrees, would it not make sense, even according to his logic, for him to agree to an election now, so that he can have the opportunity to take no deal off the table himself? Is that not the logic of his position? He can run, but he cannot hide forever. Across Parliament, his supposed allies are deserting. The SNP, I now read, is in favour of an election. The Liberal Democrats are in favour of an election. What an incredible state of affairs. There is one party tonight that is actually against a general election. There is one party that does not trust the people of this country, and that is the principal party of opposition. I hope that the Leader of the Opposition accepts tonight that he is snookered and that this charade has gone on for long enough, and that he will agree to allow Brexit to get done and then allow us to make our cases to the people.

When that election comes, the people of this country will have to make a choice between a Government who deliver, a Government who not only got a great Brexit deal when others said it was impossible but who are putting 20,000 more police on the streets, delivering the biggest hospital building programme in a generation, investing £14 billion more in our schools and levelling up education funding across the country—a great one-nation Conservative Government, which is what we represent—and a Labour Opposition who would turn the year 2020 into a toxic, tedious torture of two more referendums, one on the EU and one on Scotland. That is the choice.

It is time for the Leader of the Opposition to move his rusty Trabant from the yellow box junction where it is currently blocking progress, and it is time for us to get Brexit done by 12 December and then go to the people. It is now overwhelmingly clear that the only way to get Brexit done is to go to the people of this country, and I believe it is time that we all, each and every one of us in this House, had the courage finally to face our ultimate bosses, the people of this country.

I commend the motion to the House.

Preparations for Leaving the European Union

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We want the Assembly to be up and running. We recognise that time is short. In those circumstances, we will talk to the Government of Ireland, but direct rule, which I know is a step that no one should take lightly, will be required in order to ensure that the Northern Ireland civil service gets the political and ministerial direction that it needs.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

At 5 o’clock this evening, in the Public Accounts Committee, Jim Harra of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs informed the Committee, when asked about the transfer of goods from Northern Ireland to GB under the agreement the Chancellor is proposing, that

“an export declaration is required for all movement of all goods from Northern Ireland to GB”

in order to ensure that the EU’s obligations are properly discharged. The Chancellor says that he holds the Union very dear. These arrangements make the Union very expensive.

[Michael Gove]

We will be doing everything we can to ensure that there is unfettered access for goods from Northern Ireland into the rest of the United Kingdom. Deal or no deal, we will also be bringing forward additional steps to ensure that businesses in Northern Ireland are supported and protected come what may.

Early Parliamentary General Election (No. 2)

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I believe the right hon. Gentleman says what he says with total sincerity. In that spirit, is he ashamed that, when the Prime Minister was on his feet, a Member from the SNP Benches shouted, “You’re a liar” and a Member from the Labour Benches shouted, “You’re a thug”? Does he agree those things bring the House into disrepute?

[Ian Blackford]

I am appealing to all Members to behave in a way that is respectful to colleagues and respectful to our constituents.

I listened very carefully to what the Prime Minister said: “I will not ask for another extension.” Dwell on those words, because the Prime Minister is saying with those words that he is going to ignore an Act of Parliament, that he is going to ignore the law. I simply say to the Prime Minister: be careful. You occupy the highest office in the land and what you are demonstrating to the people of the United Kingdom is that the law does not matter. That is a very serious situation to be in. I ask the Prime Minister to think again—to think very carefully or be prepared to pay the consequences of ignoring the law of this land.

Points of Order

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you. That was a very beautiful tribute, and I appreciate what the right hon. Lady has said.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It would be remiss of me not to say, on behalf of all the Unionist Members of this House, a huge and hearty Ulster thank you for the work you have done in this House, both in chairing these proceedings and, of course, in your 22 years as a Member of Parliament.

We thank you for your kindness outside the Chamber, as well as inside the Chamber. You have called one Member from Northern Ireland more than anyone else in the whole House—he obviously catches your eye better than the rest of us—and I know my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has already thanked you.

Will you pass on a huge thank you to your staff? You have opened up the facilities of this House to Members of Parliament for charitable groups and for other activities, and your staff have been very obliging in assisting to ensure that issues of importance to them are properly advocated in this House.

Your comments were very Burkean in that you said it is not for us just to give of our industry but of our judgment. Each of us has different judgments on all sorts of matters. You, Sir, have been able to respect those judgments, even though, at times, they are very different from the views you hold and, indeed, very different from the views held by other Members of this House.

I know that nationalist Members from Northern Ireland who sat in this House would also like to be recorded publicly as thanking you. Even though nationalists no longer take their seats here, which is a shame, I know those nationalist Members who previously represented their constituents in this House would also like to say a word of thank you for the work you have done as Chairman of these proceedings.

From your many visits to Northern Ireland, I know you have a soft spot for Belfast and for the people there. I am sure you will receive a rousing reception in some places and a less rousing reception in other places, but you will be welcomed back in Belfast.

The one thing that will probably disappoint you most is that you are not the Speaker who will oversee the restoration and renewal of this building. I know that is a personal passion of yours, but maybe as we enter into a new dispensation, free from Europe, we will have a fresh, new Parliament to sit in.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he says but, above all, I am enormously appreciative of his remarks about the team in the Speaker’s Office, to whom I referred. They have been steadfast, unwavering, efficient and magnificent, all of them, and I have worked with many of them for several years in succession—a point of absolutely no interest to the bigoted faction who form their view and do not want any facts to get in the way. They will not write about it. They will scribble their bigoted drivel, because that is what they do. When their grandchildren ask, “What did you do for a living?”, they will say, “Well, I scribbled my bigoted drivel for some downmarket apology for a newspaper.”

Calling it a newspaper is probably a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act, but they will not mind—they are probably very proud. Trashy articles by trashy journalists for trashy newspapers. It goes with the turf. It is downmarket, substandard and low grade. There is no intellectual weight to it, but that is what they do. It will always be about ad hominem attacks, because that is what makes their world go round.

But the fact is that the people who work in my office have been outstanding. I know their worth. We know the strength of our relationship, and the person standing on my left is one of several who have worked with me for many, many years and has worked with me throughout the 10 years I have been in post as Speaker. He was in the office for a decade before. He was educated at the university of life. There is not a pompous bone in his body. He would not know the meaning of the word “snobbery” if it hit him over the head, but he is absolutely brilliant, and I am grateful to him—Peter Barratt.

Priorities for Government

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that in my opening statement I mentioned electric planes.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Prime Minister will know that, in order to make the United Kingdom the home of electric vehicles, he will need to protect the intellectual property of those making the electric vehicles. Will he therefore step in and save Wrightbus—a company that he is very familiar with—which is facing significant economic hardship at present? Will he make that a priority?

[The Prime Minister]

It is a great pity, in my view, that the current Mayor of London—not a patch on the old guy—decided to cancel the contract with Wrightbus of Ballymena, which has been of great value to the people of this country. I give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that we will do everything we can to ensure the future of that great UK company.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s claim that this Government are no longer neutral on Northern Ireland, which sets aside what was previously said about “no selfish, strategic… interest” in Northern Ireland. Will she put together promotional literature, and a promotional programme, that expresses the economic, social and cultural benefits of the Union that can be promoted not only in Northern Ireland but around the world?

[Karen Bradley]

I just point out to the hon. Gentleman that I am a member of the Conservative and Unionist party; I have never been neutral in my support for the Union.

One Public Estate Programme

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I spoke to the Minister this morning before the debate. Does the hon. Gentleman believe it is important that there is a purpose behind the sale of any land, such as saving money when Departments come together? Equally important, as he outlined, is the need to ensure that, whatever land becomes available, there is a social housing requirement to give those who do not have the same assets the opportunity to buy or rent houses. In Northern Ireland, we had a suggestion—not a rule—that developers should set aside 10% of land for social housing. Does he feel that the Government should look at something more objective for the mainland, with land set aside in law for social housing? Does he think that might be a way of retaining land for social housing? People cannot get housing if we do not give them the opportunity to do so.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. If Members wish to make speeches, will they please make an application to do so? The Chair of the debate will happily accommodate them.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention—I think it was an intervention—and he makes a valid point. There is a huge need to legislate for this, as I have identified, with 1.2 million people in homelessness. We have a massive social crisis because of the land banking that is going on across the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) said. We saw that yesteryear with commercial land, when the big supermarkets just took up options, and now we see it with housing developers and home builders, who have a huge number of options across the country, in Northern Ireland and here on the mainland. They control the prices, the roll-out and the build of housing in this country, and they allow to be built what is viable for them, in view of the profitability that they want to achieve.

In Amsterdam, all housing projects have to deliver 80% social housing. Whether it is 10% or 40%, or whatever the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, we have to choose, politically, the right figure. I want the figure to be 100%, which is the way the Dutch authorities are looking to go in Amsterdam. That is what we need, because we have such a crisis. The Shelter report from January on the need for social housing identified that we need to build 3 million social rented properties in the next 20 years—155,000 every year for the next 20 years. That is why we should use all this land to realise its greatest value, which has to be in its social value, not simply in the financial receipt.

To summarise, let me be clear: I support the overall aims of the One Public Estate programme. It has been important in trying to achieve a change in the mindset of those in the various public sector authorities and our Ministries to try to deliver better outcomes. Its simple approach of seeking to establish a partnership model across the sector was, and remains, right. The simple idea of mapping the public estate and understanding, through audit, what is out there and what we have that local authorities and others can use; the establishment of a strong governance mechanism, with representation across the public sector, which is vital in driving delivery; and the engagement of public sector partners as early as possible, to ensure that a project meets the needs of local communities, are all creditable and right. When delivered effectively, it can produce savings to the taxpayer and, most importantly, improve local services, but I am absolutely not convinced that that is happening as widely or as openly as was originally hoped.

I can only draw on my own experience in Warwickshire and with my local authority, Warwick District Council, where there has been no real appetite to exhaust the options of sharing assets. We still have in Warwickshire a police headquarters and a fire headquarters, and both are on prime land. There is considerable opportunity for a master plan to improve the delivery of services while enabling the best use of assets for the public purse. The Suffolk example that I gave earlier is a positive example of what can be achieved.

I think, however, that there are examples across the country of asset stripping, and of the wholesale industrial sell-off of land. My fear is that there is not, through the Public Accounts Committee or through this place generally, proper scrutiny of what is going on, even though billions of pounds of public assets are in play. I would urge the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy to be more closely involved.

In my own investigations, I realised that one particular company was involved with my local council, Warwick District Council. Called PSP—Public Sector Plc—it is, I discovered, involved with 22 different authorities across the UK. I understand that it has not followed a procurement process, yet it is advising and involved in the disposal of these assets. Surely CIPFA and others should be looking at that. I believe that the Government Property Agency should be looking at it, and so should the Public Accounts Committee.

We should focus on the ambition, which is the utilisation of the assets for the maximum possible benefit in our communities, and on how we realise true social value. In practice, that means a shift in the programme from delivering as much money as possible—the highest receipt—through the sale of assets, to releasing land for local authorities to deliver the best services, the best joined-up practice and high-quality social rented council housing so that we can finally get to grips with our housing crisis.

I look forward to hearing the contributions of other hon. Members and that of the Minister, but I urge us all to think about our most pressing need, which is to deliver low-rent social housing. Only public land can deliver that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

In Northern Ireland a very different approach has been taken. The Government policy is to turn former Army barracks into intergenerational places, where the community and the economy can come together, where businesses can build and where councils can be involved. That is all happening on Army bases. In other words, the benefactors are the communities of all sides. That was an opportunity we have used in Northern Ireland. Perhaps they could do something similar where the hon. Gentleman lives?

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. I feel that the hon. Gentleman has a speech waiting to get out of him today. I am tempted to put him on the notice paper, whether he wants to or not.

[Luke Pollard]

I take what the hon. Gentleman has said. In Plymouth, although we are better known for the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, we do have an Army base at the Royal Citadel. One of my frequent concerns about the defence disposal programme is that the MOD maps have a red line drawn around the site, and that is the land chosen to be disposed of. We need to take a much more holistic approach and ask about the needs of the wider community beyond that red line and what benefits can be accrued for it, especially when it comes to disposing of Ministry of Defence bases, with which the local community’s identity and employment opportunities are often so intricately involved. I encourage the Minister to speak to his MOD colleagues about that.

Although One Public Estate has had many failures, it has also had some successes. I encourage the Minister to keep tweaking those elements that are not quite right and also to unblock the decision-making process that is delaying the relocation of civil service and public service jobs from central London to the regions. My sense is that there are decisions waiting to be made and announced that could have a profound and positive economic effect on the regions, especially in the far south-west. I encourage the Minister in his new job to give the cage a bit of a rattle, to see if we can accelerate some of those decisions, because there are jobs to be created, value to be restored and money to be saved for the taxpayer. I also encourage the Minister to look at that wider opportunity of creating more affordable homes and decent jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for securing the debate and making an excellent case, which stems from his vast experience in local government in his area and as a member of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for their excellent contributions, which demonstrated the vast reach of the public estate strategy and its local effects.

On the face of it, the One Public Estate programme appears to be a positive, sensible strategy to reduce waste and get the most out of our public assets, as I expect the Minister will say. Its stated goal of unlocking land to increase house building is commendable, as estimates have put the number of new homes needed in England at between 240,000 and 340,000 per year, but worryingly, on recent estimates, the Government’s target of 300,000 homes annually is already under threat and could take 15 years to achieve. Let us not forget that over the last two years fewer new social rented homes have been built than at any time since the second world war.

To face that challenge, central Government must take a sustainable and transformational approach to resourcing local authorities to provide the homes we desperately need, but the Conservatives have comprehensively failed to do that. The strategy, which is effectively austerity by the back door, sells public land and property for quick cash under the illusion of helping to solve the housing crisis. It is not only disingenuous, but kicks the funding can down the road, rather than confronting the serious realities head on.

I say that the policy is disingenuous because the Government’s figures show that One Public Estate has released land for the development of just over 3,000 new homes, and the public land for housing programme has released land with capacity for fewer than 40,000 homes. That is some way short of the programme’s ambition to release surplus public sector land for at least 160,000 homes by 2020, just one year away.

The idea that this strategy and programmes such as One Public Estate are even scratching the surface of the housing crisis is total fantasy, yet the bigger question remains unanswered: why are public land and property being handed over to private developers in the first place and why are they being sold at a discounted price? Shockingly, analysis by the National Audit Office shows that of the 1,500 or so sites released by Government between April 2015 and March 2018, 12% were released for £1 or less. Let me get to the central point: such is the scale of the challenge, and the consistent failure of the market to tackle it, that we must look at empowering local authorities and housing associations to use public land to build the affordable housing this country desperately needs. Not only is that the best strategy for tackling the housing crisis, but it provides a way for the public to share in any rise in land value, as the Institute for Public Policy Research and others have pointed out. The Opposition oppose the strategy of flogging off public assets for developers to provide insufficient housing.

The Government must be called out for missing their own targets. I ask the Minister, how many of these homes built on public land are affordable? When it comes to central Government land sales, remarkably, the Cabinet Office does not analyse data at the programme level to assess the use to which the land is subsequently put, but let me help the Minister out. Thanks to research by the New Economics Foundation we know that only 20% of new homes built on public land will be affordable. That is simply not good enough.

We know that one of the main reasons that this figure is so low is the fact that developers are able to exploit section 106 loopholes and ride roughshod over desperate councils, leaving the public ripped off. We must also ask why local authorities are signing up to programmes such as One Public Estate, because they know such programmes will reduce the land and property they use for essential services, which are assets that might not be needed today, but may well be needed tomorrow. Indeed, much of the land and property sold under One Public Estate and other programmes is needed, despite the rhetoric around reducing waste. As the National Audit Office report said, many sites identified for disposal are still being used by public bodies to provide services.

How have we got here? Ultimately, because for almost a decade our hard-working local authorities have been forced to implement the Tory austerity agenda. Under the Conservatives, local authorities have faced a reduction to core funding from the Government of nearly £16 billion since 2010. That means councils will have lost 60p of every £1 that the last Labour Government provided to spend on local services. With a £3.1 billion shortfall in funding, many councils are funding essential services or redundancies by the quick sale of their property portfolio for good. The scale of this is staggering.

Research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that £2.8 billion-worth of local authority-owned assets were sold between 2014 and 2018. In 2016, the Government said that they expected local authorities to sell assets with a value of £11.7 billion by the end of this Parliament. That same year, the Government passed legislation to allow local authorities to invest the proceeds of assets sold by April 2019 in transforming frontline services. Just how low will this Government stoop? They have decided that the right way to fund social care, youth services, libraries, bin collections and road repairs is not by reversing their tax cuts for millionaires or clamping down on tax avoiders, but by forcing local authorities to sell their assets—assets owned by the public—while further inflating private developers’ profit margins.

If we needed yet another reason to show that this is a Government for the few and not for the many, here we are. For the public, this is a ticking time bomb until the day local authorities have sold assets they will one day need. The housing crisis remains and local authorities have run out of family silver to sell to raise funds. The Tories know exactly what they are doing: forcing councils to implement austerity, leaving them no choice but to sell public assets such as libraries, youth centres and playing fields—assets our most disadvantaged people rely on—to fund vital services.

One Public Estate is part of a strategy that has been rumbling on for many years in different forms. Local government now owns just 40% of the land it owned a few decades ago and the NHS has seen its estate reduce by 70%. As our population grows, as demand is loaded on to local authorities and as our housing crisis deepens, what will this Government say when they have run out of public assets to sell, and their great housing remedy has produced only a few thousand extra affordable homes? I suspect they will not say much at all.

One thing is blindingly clear: this scheme and others like it do little for families who are desperate to exercise their right to an affordable home or for those who rely on public services. They do very little for our councils, which deserve fair funding, not schemes to encourage asset stripping. Our message to the Government is clear: stop messing about, confront these big issues head on, own up and admit that this strategy is really austerity masquerading as partnership and a house building strategy.

The public deserve far better. They deserve a Government on their side, standing up for the public good, building homes, funding and improving their public services, and unashamedly putting the many in this country first. We will make those honest, bold and fair decisions to fund our councils and build the homes we need. We have that plan; it is fully costed, fully transparent and exactly what the next Labour Government will deliver.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister. You have lots of time to answer all these questions.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I hope that once I am able to make a little progress beyond my introductory paragraph, I will be able to provide the hon. Gentleman and others with an explanation of the different elements of the Government’s motion.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

This intervention provides an early opportunity for the Minister, in setting out the Government’s case, to clarify something for us. He will know that yesterday a Cabinet Minister, from that Dispatch Box, basically said that more powers would be given to Dublin to be exercised over Northern Ireland. The Minister for the Cabinet Office will know how insulting that is to Members who sit on this Bench. He will also know that it is the Members who sit on this Bench who keep his party in power. Would he now care to clarify that the Secretary of State involved misspoke from that Dispatch Box and that there will be no involvement in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland and its governance?

[Mr Lidington]

I wish to say two things to the hon. Gentleman in response. First, the Government’s position has been absolutely consistent on this, from the Prime Minister down: we stand by every aspect of the three-stranded process embodied in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the peace-building process in Northern Ireland. I can put on the record that there are absolutely no plans at all to transfer additional powers or rights to the Government of Ireland. There are certain rights of consultation that flow from the three-stranded process, and those, clearly, we need to observe. On the specific comments that the hon. Gentleman attributed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, he will recall that I was not in my place yesterday, because I was attending a family funeral. However, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will hear of his intervention. I will make sure that he does, so that he consider whether he needs to make any further comment on that subject.

Points of Order

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister without Portfolio (Brandon Lewis)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I will not keep the House long. I only want to say that the Government have not asked anyone to start contingency planning for the European Parliament elections. That is our position in public and in private.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is recorded in column 391 of yesterday’s Official Report that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that the Government would

“start formal engagement with the Irish Government about…decision making”—[Official Report, 13 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 391]

in Northern Ireland. As you will be aware, that would be a complete breach of the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and, indeed, the Belfast agreement. Do you believe that the Secretary of State misspoke, or has he a duty to come to the House, with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and announce a new policy shift, if that is the case?

[Mr Speaker]

I had no advance notice of this matter and, in truth, I must confess that I am unsighted on it. Rather than dissemble, which would be wrong, or to seek to give the hon. Gentleman the impression that I have an authoritative view to offer, I think it best simply to say that if a Minister has a new policy to announce, they should announce it in the House. If some incorrect impression has been given, of a kind that either flummoxes or irks the hon. Gentleman or others, I feel sure that a sensitive Minister will wish to put the record straight, sooner rather than later.