Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I know from the hon. Gentleman’s time on the Select Committee that he is very familiar with this issue. He is absolutely right. I referred to the 500 seriously physically injured victims and survivors, and the £2 million to £3 million quantum that is the annual sum associated with their receiving some form of pension. He is also right that a further significant issue to be considered is the people who have been injured permanently and psychologically as a result of the troubles. No, I do not have an absolute idea about how this would be achieved. I have of course read the commission’s report on how it might be achieved, and other pieces of work have been done. That would need to be taken into account. I repeat, however, that time is passing for all the victims of the troubles, and time is the one thing they cannot afford. I therefore urge us all in this House to get past these difficulties and see a way clear to providing the resources that are needed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

When we had the debate here on the Northern Ireland covenant, the hon. Gentleman said in response to many of the questions that he would go back to Sinn Féin to see how we could move the thing forward. In the period between that debate and now, has he had the opportunity to talk to Sinn Féin to see what its position on the Northern Ireland covenant would be, and is he going to give us good news that it will agree to it?

[Owen Smith]

No, I have not.

I know that the Secretary of State agrees that this should be the last year that we are passing a budget in this place instead of at Stormont. Will she outline a little further what she is doing now to ensure that that is the case?

For our part, notwithstanding the slightly less than successful intervention by the Prime Minister in February, we continue to believe that there is an important role for the Prime Minister in galvanising parties in Northern Ireland and acting as a rallying point to try to bring people together, ideally in some sort of prime ministerial and Taoiseach-led summit of all the parties. These things have worked in the past and we cannot understand why there has been so much refusal to consider it in the past 14 months. We also believe that the Secretary of State should be thinking about asking an independent chair to come in to try to take those talks to fruition.

If we simply continue with the cycle of failure that we have seen in the past year—if we do not try to shake things up somehow and inject new energy and dynamism into this process—we can all see the danger that we do drift towards direct rule. I know that she feels that that would be a grossly retrograde step for Northern Ireland, so I urge her to tell the House today, and in the coming days, what she is doing to make sure that it is not where we end up.

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[Nigel Dodds]

Yes, and I am sure that even 30 years ago the good people of Lisburn would have extended that same welcome to the soldiers to whom my hon. Friend refers. The fact is that when we praise the peace process and the political process in Northern Ireland, far too little praise and respect are given to the members of the Army, the other services, the police or the Ulster Defence Regiment, who over many decades held the ring and protected innocent life, both Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and nationalist. They were courageous in their efforts and, were it not for them, we would not enjoy the peace that we enjoy today. There are individuals in the political sphere and elsewhere who are rightly praised and given plaudits, but the real heroes are the people of our emergency services and security forces who put on their uniforms and went out to defend the people at great cost to themselves. Some of them still bear the cost in mental and physical trauma.

[Jim Shannon]

I think it might be appropriate to point out, given that my right hon. Friend feels as we all do on this side of the Chamber, that Gillian Johnston was brutally murdered by the IRA as well. Perhaps her family feel that she is one of the forgotten victims, but we should remember them. There are many forgotten victims, but their families never forget.

[Nigel Dodds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw our attention to that particularly brutal slaying. It is right to remember all the victims of the troubles in Northern Ireland; it is all too easy to gloss over these events. We remember them not because we want to indulge in talking about the past but because it is important to remember the victims and to remember that their sacrifice is never forgotten.

It is also important that we redouble our efforts to keep moving Northern Ireland forwards. We want devolution to be restored and we want to get the institutions back up and running. Sometimes, when people say that we should just get it done, I say to them, “Well, let’s call a meeting of the Assembly on Monday. Let’s go through the process of forming the Executive. Let’s see who steps forward to form the Executive, and let’s see who refuses to step forward.” Then all those who say, “Why can’t you all just get together?” and who lump all the politicians into one group and say, “You’re all to blame” would be able to see for themselves who was refusing to form the Government.

Let us get this process passed today, and let us get the legislation passed tomorrow. Let us start getting decisions made and let us keep on with the efforts to get devolution. Then perhaps the Secretary of State, encouraged by her efforts in getting this legislation through, will come forward with the proposal to call the Assembly together, to re-establish the Executive, to invite those who wish to do so to form a coalition of the willing, and to invite those who refuse to do so to say why they are not prepared to take on the responsibility of the government of Northern Ireland.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to speak at any stage in any debate in this House. I look forward to the opportunity to be the rear gunner, to use terminology that is very apt in the armed forces and the services.

We did not want to bring this debate to this House, but it is here and we must have it. I congratulate and thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for their contributions to making it happen. I am not here to plead for direct rule, because I am very committed to devolution, as is my party. I was part of the old Assembly from 1998 before I was elected to this place. The work in the Assembly was always hard and frustrating, trying to plough forward against constant opposition, as we sometimes do in this place as well. Yet it was workable, because people knew they were elected to do a job and sought to do just that.

People still know that. Our MLAs who are more than capable of doing their job want to do it but are stopped by a red line that may as well be the Red sea. The problem is that we do not have Moses to step forward to part the sea at this time. None the less, the waters are raging and the people who are being caught in the current are everyday people from all sides of every community. Rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Muslim, Unionist and nationalist, healthy or sick, old or young: all are paying the price for the red line erected by Sinn Féin which says that nothing is worth more or is greater than an Irish language Act. No grandmother who needs a care package, no child who needs a classroom assistant, no road that needs repairing: none of those supersedes the provision of a militant Irish language Act. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) referred to the politicisation of this legislation. That is why I say this: set the budget, make the ministerial decisions, get the process in place, and do what we are capable of doing ourselves but are prevented from doing back home in the Assembly. I have too many constituents in need for this to be prolonged any more.

At the end of the day, we secured additional money for all the people of the Province. Last week, a Member said to me facetiously: “Well, I suppose that money will be going to the Unionist areas.” That money will go to Unionist, nationalist and all parts of the Province. It is very clear where it is going to be allocated. I wanted to put that on the record.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a very substantial contrast between Sinn Féin’s very narrow focus, to bring the Assembly down, and the much wider and more comprehensive approach that we took in terms of the confidence and supply motion, which benefits everybody without exception in Northern Ireland?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend; he is absolutely correct. Yes, we were committed to bringing advantages for everyone across the whole of the Province, and we did so. This money has been committed to all the people of the Province.

Permanent secretaries will not take decisions, and the losers are people from all corners of the Province. Northern Ireland is disadvantaged today because of Sinn Féin’s austerity and its obstacles and negativity. Members of Sinn Féin are quite clearly the people to blame for this. I have parents tearing their hair out as their child can and should be mainstreamed if they could have a little bit of help in the form of a classroom assistant. Similarly, I have headteachers tearing their hair out because they are limited in the amount of referrals they can make, in the hours they can allocate to pupils, and in the one-to-one time they can give to pupils who could excel with early intervention. There is a very clear need for classroom assistants and educational assessments. I have schools such as Newtownards Model Primary School, which provides music specialists and has helped children who struggle academically but thrive musically. The school has seen great success with these programmes but is having to cease them because the board of governors cannot work out what its budget will be and do not know how or what to cut otherwise.

That simply should not happen. The school has raised money and worked hard to have that wonderful scheme, only for it to end because schools do not know what is happening. That is unacceptable, and yet our schools are forced to accept it, with the caveat of, “Blame the politicians on the hill.” It is not the politicians on the hill who are to blame; it is Sinn Féin. Not all politicians are to be blamed, but some are, and let us be clear who: the blame lies with Sinn Féin and their intransigence.

Special schools were a big issue in the news yesterday. I had a number of phone calls yesterday morning about that, as other Members will have had. Five schools are going to be amalgamated into perhaps two. There will be a consultation process, but already parents in my constituency have phoned to say that they are very concerned about where their child is going to end up and what is going to happen.

We have North Down Training Ltd, which does some great work with young adults who are educationally disadvantaged and have problems that are apparent and need to be addressed. We have high schools with small numbers under threat, with no money in the budget, yet money is flowing in for the Irish language schools—and this is before an Irish language Act comes into being. I have constituents saying, “Where is the equality for the small school in my area, when Irish language schools with under 50 pupils are as happy as Larry?” Of course they are, because they get every bit of money they want.

Where is the fairness? Where is the equality? We hear Sinn Féin talking about equality. I am going to talk about equality as well. Let us have equality for my constituents and for constituents across the rest of the Province who are disadvantaged and do not have it. How can I explain to my constituent why his child deserves less than another child because he does not feel a need to speak Irish in an English-speaking country?

New builds are an issue. Glastry College, which I serve on the board of governors for, is waiting for a new build. The decision on Movilla High School stands clear as well. These are problems that every school in my constituency, and indeed every constituency across the whole of the Province, deals with.

I have people complaining that they cannot access their GPs and that when they do get to the surgery, their GP puts them on a waiting list of sometimes over 18 months to get done what needs to be done urgently. We need a decision to be made to provide bursaries to medical students who will give a commitment to work their first seven years in GP surgeries, to relieve the burden on those and the doctor out-of-hours system.

These are things we are dealing with every day. Hopefully this budget and the allocation of moneys and ministerial decisions that will come will eventually ensure that these systems are all sorted. Again, we have A&Es bursting at the seams, with beds in the halls being above the normal. I remember my parliamentary aide coming back from Swaziland and telling me about the hospitals there, which had two people to every bed in the wards. Sometimes we ask ourselves, is that where we are heading? If we are, something needs to be done.

I have met the permanent secretary regarding funding for insulin pumps, which vastly improve the quality of life of children with type 1 diabetes, as well as adults. He agrees that those would be wonderful, but money needs to be released for training of the nurses who specialise in the field. That needs to be budgeted for. In Northern Ireland, we have the largest number of type 1 diabetics percentage-wise in the whole of the United Kingdom, with Scotland following us. These are key issues in my constituency and in constituencies right across the Province.

We need to bridge the pay gap for the nurses and staff, but again, that will not be done without ministerial approval. We need care-in-the-community packages to allow elderly people to retain their independence for as long as possible and to cut down on the funding allocated to placing them in a home before necessary. That cannot be signed off without ministerial direction. We need to ensure that people on restricted diets can access their food when needed on the NHS, without having to make a case; their illness is the case.

Some of the money from the sugar tax will come to Northern Ireland, and we need someone in place to make decisions on that. A pilot took place in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), which my hon. Friends are well aware of. That is a great scheme, addressing issues of obesity, diet and health. We want to see that scheme across the whole of Northern Ireland. That is something we should do.

We need the £1.4 billion of funding that we secured to be allocated. We desperately need the Ballynahinch bypass, which would benefit so many people in my constituency and those in South Down. Since the MP refuses to come to the House—he is too busy naming his office after those killed in the midst of terrorist activity—we are making that point and speaking for all those people in this place. I speak for my constituents and perhaps for some of his as well.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

My hon. Friend thinks I am intervening to put forward an alternative proposal for the route of the A55 Knock Road widening scheme, but that is not the case. He has mentioned on several occasions that many things cannot progress because of a lack of ministerial appointments and the fact that there are no Ministers to make decisions. Does he agree that it would be useful if the Minister indicated whether he has considered article 4(4) of the Departments (Northern Ireland) Order 1999, which says that senior officials can take decisions falling to their Departments in the absence of a Minister?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for that solution and for his question to the Minister. I am sure that Ministers will correspond furiously with their civil servants to find out how that might work. It has already worked in Northern Ireland on one occasion. We have seen it in action, and if we can have it in one Department, it can happen in all of them. Let us see whether we can get on with doing so.

In the case of the Ballynahinch bypass, the permanent secretary needs ministerial direction. This scheme is ready to go, so will someone please sign it off, because I would love it to happen? Similarly, a scheme must be put in place, Province-wide, with additional money for repairing roads. This hard winter has left too many potholes on our roads, and they are damaging cars. People are coming to my office saying that they have never before had to come and see their elected representative about this matter, but are now doing so. Let me mention one example which, miraculously, was fixed after a lot of correspondence. There was a pothole in Mary Street in Newtownards, and I raised it with the Department on a number of occasions. The last time I did so, I said to the gentleman, “If we don’t fix that pothole soon, we’ll be shaking hands with the Australians”. It was so deep, cars were getting damaged every day. It has now been fixed, and thank the Lord for that.

I have big businesses that are seeking to remain competitive globally through the Brexit uncertainty, but they cannot access grants to improve their business and cannot get through to decision makers to bring us into line with mainland practice. I say to the Secretary of State that someone needs to make such decisions. For example, the budget in front of us mentions the agri-food sector, which is very important in my constituency and across the whole of Northern Ireland. Where are the moneys for capital build? There is such a scheme in England, and this is devolved in Scotland and in Wales, but we do not have it in Northern Ireland, so we would like that to be put in place as well.

I applaud the voluntary sector and charitable organisations that are doing a tremendous job, but they are closing their doors as they cannot operate in uncertainty—they do not know what will happen in April—which leaves vulnerable people without the support they need to function meaningfully. Again, we look to the budget, and perhaps the permanent secretary, with the blessing of the Secretary of State and the Minister, could do something about that.

For all of these reasons, I am bringing to the House what I should have brought to Ministers and asking them, in setting the budget, to allocate the powers as well—as my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) said so well—to those who are capable of making decisions. They will make such decisions and stop this floundering about, which has left our constituents frustrated, unrepresented at the Assembly and second class citizens.

I ask that consideration is given to the issues raised today when setting a budget, but also, more than this, that a system is urgently enacted to allow Northern Ireland to run again as a country, instead of being in limbo and no man’s land due to Sinn Féin’s austerity programme. Sinn Féin have tried to break the Assembly and to destroy Northern Ireland, and no matter what language they say that in, it is wrong. I hope that the budget we are setting today is the first stage in stopping just that.

I conclude with this last comment. Northern Ireland has weathered the past year, but a heavy price has been paid by voluntary sector workers, community groups, our NHS, our education boards and schools, and they are done paying for someone else’s refusal. I look to the Secretary of State and the Minister, and to this Government, to take the power, make the decisions, get the country back on its feet and put Sinn Féin back in the corner in which it already skulks.