Investigation of Veterans

John Penrose Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if she will outline the Government’s plans for dealing with legacy issues and the investigation of veterans who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

I begin with an apology because, as everybody will no doubt have observed by now, I am not the Secretary of State for Defence—I don’t have her hair. I wanted to explain why there has been some to-ing and fro-ing since the terms of the urgent question became clear in the last hour.

I am here because we have concluded, at least for the moment, that it would be better that I try to respond to my right hon. Friend’s question about soldiers serving in Northern Ireland—obviously the Northern Ireland Office addresses that directly—particularly because the rules were different when soldiers were serving in Northern Ireland. They were there in support of the police and in support of civil powers, which forms a different legal basis than the one that applies if they are fighting abroad in other kinds of conflict. I shall endeavour to be as helpful as I can to my right hon. Friend; if he has any remaining questions he wants to address, I will be happy to follow through with him later, but let me at least try to respond to the burden of his urgent question as it was asked.

I strongly agree, as I suspect that all Members on both sides of the House will strongly agree, that my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the current system—the current situation—in Northern Ireland is not working properly for people on all sides. It is clearly unsupportable and it is unfair in many ways. If a former soldier or a former police officer—perhaps now in their 70s—is concerned about being pursued through the courts for events that happened 30 or 40 years ago, that is a constant worry to them, their family and their friends. Equally, a family member of a victim of republican terrorists in a case where the perpetrators were never brought to justice has a feeling of great worry and concern, and has difficulty moving on. That concern affects people on all sides of the community in Northern Ireland, and my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that it has to be addressed.

It is for that reason that not just the Government but—I think I am right in saying—parties on both sides of the House and right the away across Northern Ireland believe that a new approach is vital if we are to put this right. That was why the original Stormont House agreement was announced some years ago, and it is why most recently we have been consulting on how to take this forward. We received more than 17,000 responses to the consultation, which shows the depth, breadth and intensity of concern about the current situation. We have now pretty much finished going through those responses. Some trends are starting to emerge, and we will of course bring them to the House as soon as we decently and responsibly can.

One thing is clear to everybody: everyone agrees on the aim. The difficulty is that, 30 or 40 years after some of the events of the troubles, we need a process that, while having a judicial element, is broader than just judicial. It must allow all sides of the community in Northern Ireland to establish the truth, where it can be established, be fair to all sides and allow people—society as a whole—to draw a line and move on.

While comparisons cannot be exact, because the situation in Northern Ireland is unlike anything else on the planet, this has been done in other societies. One famous example, of course, is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Clearly, that would not work precisely in Northern Ireland, but it is essential that we find an equivalent process that aims at the same outcome of allowing people to feel that justice is being achieved with the truth established, wherever it can be, so that closure can be achieved for all sides on an equal basis wherever possible. That matters particularly for soldiers and police officers who served in Northern Ireland, but also for the families and grieving loved ones of victims.

I will endeavour to respond to my right hon. Friend’s further questions—I am sure he has many—but I hope that helps to set the scene.

[Mr Francois]

I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question. There has been a great deal of media speculation over the last week about what the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office want to do, yet no information has been given to the House. I sought this UQ to try to achieve some clarity—we will see how we get on, Sir.

The Secretary of State for Defence gave a very confident and front-footed speech at the Royal United Services Institute yesterday. I was in the audience and it was an excellent speech. She mentioned her intention to try to provide legal protection particularly for veterans who had served in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have seen articles in The Times and elsewhere to that effect, but thus far I am afraid we have had no specific details. If press reports are accurate, the MOD is aiming at something along the lines of a statute of limitations, taking force perhaps 10 years after a conflict has ended, after which no prosecution would be possible unless exceptional or compelling evidence were to come forward.

If that is the case, the Defence Secretary would be honouring the Conservative party’s 2017 manifesto—that would make a nice change—which reads:

“We will protect our brave armed forces personnel from persistent legal claims, which distress those who risk their lives for us, cost the taxpayer millions and undermine the armed forces”.

That is plain as a pikestaff, and if she is to do it, well and good, but we would like more details.

I will explain one reason why this is so pressing, in terms of the persecution of Iraq veterans. The MOD set up the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, which spent years looking into these cases, but unfortunately it became a racket. Several law firms—particularly the ironically named Public Interest Lawyers, led by an appalling man called Phil Shiner—trawled Iraq to encourage people to come forward and make false allegations. Basically, they made some of it up. That all came out in a court case when the trial collapsed after they admitted that they had fabricated evidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer)—a fellow member of the Defence Committee—then conducted a Sub-Committee inquiry into IHAT, which proved so shocking that the then Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), shut the team down. I am sure that the whole House would agree that we must never do that again.

Turning to Northern Ireland, the Minister—I have a great deal of time for him, but perhaps slightly less time for his Department—rightly said that the NIO, under the Stormont House agreement, agreed with the parties in Northern Ireland to establish so-called legacy institutions to look into the past. The NIO’s interpretation of that means that it will set up some form of commission that will go back 50 years to 1968-69 and re-examine every fatality since—some 3,500 cases. Any serviceman or member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, George Cross, who fired a fatal shot will therefore be reinvestigated. However, the alleged terrorists will not because, under the Good Friday agreement, Tony Blair gave them so-called letters of comfort, which mean that they are immune from prosecution. No alleged terrorist who was given one of those letters has been successfully prosecuted. The nearest we came was with the alleged Hyde Park bomber, but when he produced his letter of comfort in court, the judge abandoned the trial and declared an abuse of process. The entire process will be utterly one-sided, because service personnel and members of the RUC GC will be liable to prosecution, while those with letters of comfort get off scot-free.

After the appalling, tragic events in Londonderry, we all want the Northern Ireland Executive re-established—of course we do—but that cannot come at the price of some rancid, backstairs deal between the NIO and Sinn Féin-IRA that sells Corporal Johnny Atkins down the river. Up with that, I believe, this House will not put. We have a moral duty to defend those who defended us, and we abrogate that duty if, for reasons of political convenience, we allow the scapegoating of our veterans to pander to terrorists.

I want to ask the Minister six very specific questions—

[Mr Francois]

We are both addicts, Mr Speaker.

First, while I know that the Ministry of Defence is not the Minister’s Department, will he give us some indication of when the MOD will provide the House with more details of its proposals? Secondly, when will the NIO publish the response to the consultation on legacy issues to which the Minister referred? Thirdly, will the Minister confirm that a Bill will be required to set up the legacy institutions—or, as I call them, IHAT mark II? Fourthly, what discussions have taken place between NIO Ministers and civil servants, and Sinn Féin-IRA, and is there any truth in the rumours that they have demanded the continued investigation of British veterans as the price of re-entering the Executive? Fifthly, when will the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland come to the House to make an oral statement to update us so that Members can question her in detail about the NIO’s proposals?

Sixthly, and lastly, what would the Minister say to former Royal Marine David Griffin, aged 78, whom I met on Monday? He is being reinvestigated for a shooting in 1972 for which he was investigated, and completely cleared, at the time? If he wants to discuss the matter with Mr Griffin in person, would he be kind enough to go down to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, because that is where he now lives?

[John Penrose]

I will endeavour to respond to those six points, but may I begin by saying that I am sure that my right hon. Friend speaks for everybody in this House—he certainly speaks for me—when he says that we will have no rancid political deals here? That is not acceptable. If we are going to ask people potentially to put their lives on the line by serving in Her Majesty’s armed forces anywhere in the world, we need to make sure that we do the right thing by them when they have done the right thing by their country. As somebody who has served and who understands the importance of military discipline, my right hon. Friend will know that that is not unqualified, because there are rules within the armed forces. However, provided that people have adhered to those rules, we in this place, on both sides of the aisle, and more broadly across society, owe something in return, so there absolutely will be no rancid political deals on my watch, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be absolutely certain to make sure that that will not happen more broadly.

Before I come to my right hon. Friend’s six questions, may I put him right on a couple of other things? On his point about whether or not the Secretary of State announced a statute of limitations or an intention to move towards one, he is right that the details have not yet been fully put out. I understand that there will be a consultation with more details attached to it. Some press reports are talking about a presumption of non-prosecution rather than a statute of limitations; we will have to wait and see.

My right hon. Friend’s first question was about when the MOD will publish details. I am afraid that I cannot answer that as a Northern Ireland Office Minister. I imagine it will want to move forward fairly briskly, but to get a categorical answer, I am afraid he will have to raise that point either privately or at the next Defence questions.

[Mr Francois]

On Monday.

[John Penrose]

Exactly.

My right hon. Friend also made a point about the letters of comfort that were issued by a previous Government. I reassure him and other Members that legal reports have been issued on those letters since the cases that he mentioned saying that they are not an amnesty from prosecution. If a case can be made, letters of comfort will not in future be body armour against prosecution—[Interruption.] He is right to say that we will have to wait and see how that plays out when or if one of the cases comes to court, but that is the latest and strongest legal situation.

My right hon. Friend asked when we will publish the responses to the consultation. We have received 17,000 responses, and the answer is as soon as we decently can. We are very nearly there. It has taken a very long time to go through those responses. As I am sure that everybody will appreciate, they came from people with stories of tragedy to tell, so they needed to be gone through with a degree of respect and care, as I am sure that everyone would expect. It has taken some time to go through the process properly and to honour the reasons why people wrote in. We are very nearly there and we will bring them forward as soon as we decently can.

My right hon. Friend asked whether a Bill would be required to put new legacy arrangements in place as and when we come up with proposals. The answer is almost certainly yes, so the House will have an opportunity for full scrutiny according to the usual process—I suspect that that was why he asked the question. Everybody will have a chance to ask detailed questions about how this thing is being put together—

[Mr Francois]

And to vote on it.

[John Penrose]

To vote on it, and to confirm the important point, on which my right hon. Friend and I agree, that no rancid deals have been done.

My right hon. Friend asked whether Sinn Féin-IRA, as he characterised them, demanded a price in the talks. Not to my knowledge at all, but I think that goes back to his point about no rancid deals.

My right hon. Friend asked when the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would make a statement on our plans. I think the answer to that is as soon as we have had a chance to discuss the issue in detail with different parties, both in Northern Ireland and here. I hope all Members will understand that while there is agreement on the direction and the outcome that everybody wants, the details matter hugely. He gave examples of real concerns about the initial set of Stormont agreement proposals for dealing with legacy. He could have given examples about other concerns. We have to deal with those and come up with proposals that work in detail and that have acceptance from all sides of the community in Northern Ireland. It is worth everybody’s while to take a little bit of extra time now to get the details right to come up with a process that everyone can live with, and to do the detailed design work—the pre-legislative scrutiny, if you like—so that we get that essential work right. The answer, therefore, is as soon as we decently can, but given the sensitivities involved and the precision required to come up with a process that, after decades, will stand the test of time and of warring views within Northern Ireland society, I hope my right hon. Friend will understand that we need something that is robust and put together with enormous care.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

The Minister rightly began by talking about victims—those who were killed, those who were killed unlawfully—and the families of those victims, who all these years on still seek truth and to know what has happened to their loved ones. As a matter of record, which I know the Minister will confirm, the overwhelming majority of the killings that took place in Northern Ireland were committed by paramilitaries, republican or loyalist—

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd]

I am happy to join the right hon. Gentleman in using that word. Therefore, by definition, those were illegal and in need of investigation, where there can be no bar because of the passage of time. Every serving soldier swears an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to

“observe and obey all orders of Her Majesty, Her heirs and successors and of the generals and officers set over me.”

It should be axiomatic that when a soldier has obeyed those Queen’s regulations and acted within the orders set out, that individual soldier should be protected from vexatious attacks—that is legitimate whether in foreign fields or in the context of Northern Ireland. But I have to say to the Minister, and I am not sure he wants to disagree with me on this, that it is very hard for me to recognise that when a soldier has broken that solemn oath of allegiance to the Queen—a solemn oath to uphold our laws—and wilfully broken it, leading to the death of individuals, that should be put beyond time for investigation. We have to be very clear in this House that investigating the most serious crimes, where death has taken place, we have to be resolute and absolute in saying there can be no statute of limitations. Crime is crime. Murder is murder, and we need to establish as a House, as a nation, that our principles uphold the rule of law and uphold not simply our international obligations, but our moral obligations.

In that context, can the Minister confirm specifically that the Police Service of Northern Ireland now—and any other investigatory body—will, by law, be enjoined to investigate those most serious crimes, whether committed by republican terrorists, loyalist terrorists or those in the police service or the Army who wilfully have broken our laws? That is the important distinction. The important distinction is between protection from vexatious claims for those who legitimately carried out the Queen’s orders—that is right and proper and we should establish that—and no protection for those who wilfully broke our laws.

[John Penrose]

I think the hon. Gentleman is making a central and uncontroversial point, but we need to be very careful in how we approach it. He has to be right that outright crimes such as murder must be pursued, and be pursued even-handedly. In defence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), I should say that I do not think he is suggesting anything else.

As I was saying earlier, military discipline means that the duty we all owe to members of Her Majesty’s armed forces is not an unqualified one—there are limits to it for people who may have failed to follow the orders they were given or failed to act in the right way. But we need to be careful about being resolutely even-handed about it. One of the many difficulties that many people have about the situation currently in Northern Ireland is that it is extremely difficult to mount effective investigations into many of these deaths. The hon. Gentleman rightly said that the majority of the deaths that occurred originated from republican terrorists, and it is therefore difficult in many cases to find enough evidence to make those cases stand up in court. It is not necessarily a question of prosecuting authorities not trying to be even-handed; they have to be able to follow evidence that is available to them and see whether or not there is a decent case.

The fact remains that the Government are a great deal better at maintaining records 30 or 40 years later than perhaps the IRA was at all. It is therefore extremely difficult to pursue some cases, which is one of the major reasons—it may not be the only one—why, to many eyes, the ratio of prosecutions is as skewed as I think the hon. Gentleman was trying to suggest. That is the concern that people have, but I can reassure him, as I am sure everybody else present would, that it has to be everybody’s intention to pursue cases for which there is evidence on a completely even-handed basis. We obviously need to make sure that we deal with all the others, too, which is why we have to have a process that is broader than just a judicial one and that allows people to get to the truth, in so far as it ever can be reached at this late stage, to move on with their lives and to draw a line under a pretty terrible series of episodes in Northern Ireland’s past.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I have an interest to declare, having served in Iraq. With respect to the consultation, what trend has emerged in the views of veterans of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and might we be surprised by it?

[John Penrose]

The simple answer to that is that the analysis is only just starting to emerge now, and I have not seen it broken down in the way that my right hon. Friend describes, so I am afraid I cannot give him a factual answer. Once the results are out, I am sure people will pore over them and we may then be able to come up with an answer. I apologise that I cannot come up with a solid factual answer for my right hon. Friend at the moment.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

We acknowledge the challenges that come with military service. We do need to be sensitive to those challenges and to recognise the volatile circumstances that came with serving in Northern Ireland during the troubles, but nobody is above the law. The Good Friday agreement remains incredibly important today, and we have a duty to defer to the frameworks underneath it. When he was Prime Minister, David Cameron gave a formal apology for the events of Bloody Sunday. He said:

“What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2010; Vol. 511, c. 739.]

I suggest that, having acknowledged that, it is reasonable that we determine whether—whether—anyone is culpable of criminality for the events of Bloody Sunday. Are the Government committed to ensuring that those who lost loved ones, on all sides of the conflict, have the means to pursue both justice and truth?

[John Penrose]

The straightforward answer to that last question is yes, and I do not think there is any disagreement, on either side of the House, about that central aim. The question, of course—I think this is inherent in what the hon. Lady asked—is about the details of how. Once we have had a chance to announce to the House the results of the consultation, we will need to start work on the detailed reactions to that consultation, to formulate a Bill that will be acceptable to deliver what we are talking about in a way that works for all sides of the community in Northern Ireland.

On the point about Bloody Sunday cases, the hon. Lady will of course be aware that the Director of Public Prosecutions recently announced, having reviewed all the various different cases, that all but one of them will not be taken forward. There is not enough evidence for any sort of reasonable prospect of a prosecution, so all but one of them have been withdrawn.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I completed seven tours in Northern Ireland, all with the infantry or associated units. I lost many men and I was involved in fatality shootings. I was investigated, along with others. The investigations were thorough, aggressive and bloody awful to go through. When the investigations were completed, we sometimes had to go to court to prove that we had acted in accordance with the yellow card. In 1978, I told two soldiers who were with me that because they had been to court and been proved innocent and had acted within the law, they would never, ever be asked to do such a thing again. How the hell can our Government allow such people possibly to be investigated again?

[John Penrose]

My hon. and gallant Friend speaks with huge authority given his personal background and experience in the armed forces. I think the whole House understands that the examples that he has just given are a specific and very good illustration of my earlier comments in response to the initial question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) about why the current situation is not working properly for anybody. We need to get to a point where, unless there is some brand new and credible piece of evidence that changes the situation, but in most cases that is not the case—

[Bob Stewart]

They asked them to come and give evidence.

[John Penrose]

Exactly so. Unless there is something that is brand new and that was not available at the time—in the vast majority of cases that is not the case—then at that point people should be entitled to consider that they do not have to face further pursuance through the court. Therefore, my point is that we must get this sorted and sorted soon, and we must come up with a process that works for all the different sides of the equation, as I laid out in my initial response. I guess what I am saying is that we are in violent agreement on this. My hon. and gallant Friend illustrates forcefully and accurately why the current situation is not acceptable and cannot be allowed to stand.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his response so far. Will he explain the fundamental difference between soldiers following orders in uniform in Afghanistan and Iraq and soldiers following orders in uniform in Northern Ireland, other than a drive by militant republicans to rewrite history to make it seem as if their bloodlust against Captain Nairac and the three Scottish soldiers and all those other men and women slaughtered by evil people was in some way acceptable? We must have equal treatment for all who have served in Army uniform wherever it was, or is, in the world.

[John Penrose]

May I start by saying that I certainly agree with the underlying premise of the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is that we need to make sure that we are doing the right thing by our armed forces? The difficulty lies with the legal underpinnings. The legal difference between soldiers serving abroad versus soldiers serving in Northern Ireland in support of the police is important. It means that our route to arriving at the goal that he wants to get us to, and that I want to get us to, has to be a different one. Let me take a specific case in point: people who suggest that we should have some kind of a statute of limitations for forces that have been serving abroad need to realise that if we try to do that in the UK, that statute of limitations, according to human rights law, would have to apply to all sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

[Mr Francois]

They got letters of comfort. They are scot-free.

[John Penrose]

The Northern Ireland letters of comfort, as I have already said, do not stop prosecutions under the latest legal guidance. Therefore, we have to come up with something that gets us to the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to illustrate, but it must have a different legal foundation to it. I wish it were simpler. I wish that it were not the case, but it is and we have to take the world as we find it. That should be an explanation about why it is hard, but not a satisfactory justification for not trying and not getting there, and not getting there soon.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

May I say to the Minister of State that I have every sympathy with his position at the Dispatch Box? I did exactly the same and had exactly the same advice, which was fundamentally wrong, when I was in the Northern Ireland Office as well as in the Ministry of Defence. Like many colleagues, I served in Northern Ireland. When I came back, I was given a general service medal. I was on operations. To us, peacekeeping there was no different to peacekeeping anywhere else in the world. That is what British Army soldiers do. To stand here and say that there is a legal difference between a soldier going on ops in Iraq, Cyprus or anywhere else in the world and a soldier going on ops in Northern Ireland is fundamentally wrong, and I challenged and challenged and challenged that advice. How on earth have we got into this position where we will not defend our own soldiers because of some technicality that we were not on ops? We were on ops and we were defending the public and our guys were killed. I will not have terrorists mentioned in the same breath as British soldiers.

[John Penrose]

I could not agree more. My right hon. Friend rightly points out that he has stood in my shoes on this issue. I am sure he is absolutely right that, to anybody serving in Her Majesty’s armed forces—whether they served in peacekeeping operations or not, and whether they served in Northern Ireland or in other parts of the world—the practical effect will feel the same.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I was given a medal for it.

[John Penrose]

As my right hon. Friend rightly points out, he was given a medal for it. The only point on which I would pull him up is that, although the practical effect may feel the same, the legal underpinnings—again, I appreciate that he contested this—are different. Although we may wish that were not so, it is so. Therefore, we have to come up with something that will withstand legal challenge. As my right hon. Friend for Rayleigh and Wickford rightly pointed out, there are people out there who will try to knock legal holes in any answer that we come up with unless it is legally robust. We have to acknowledge the legal difference and find an answer that works, even though we are trying to get to the same answer in each case. If we cannot do that, we may come up with something that sounds great when we announce it, but that will get legal holes knocked in it; and that would mean that we were not protecting our veterans in the way in which everybody here wants us to do.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I represent Darlington, which is the nearest large town to Catterick garrison, so there are many hundreds of veterans living in my constituency. None of them has ever asked or expected to be treated differently or as if they were above the law in any situation, but there is deep concern about this issue. There is also deep concern in the wider community that individual soldiers may be held responsible for failings that they alone do not own—that a lack of preparedness, or a lack of understanding or anticipation of the context in which they would be serving at the time, may have led to certain things happening that those individuals could be held responsible for. That is a real and deep worry. Will the Minister assure me that individual veterans in my constituency will not be held responsible for actions that they alone are not responsible for?

[John Penrose]

That is precisely why we need to come up with these proposals as fast as we can. It is clear from both sides of the House that the time for action is now—well, it was probably several years ago actually—and that this situation cannot be allowed to persist. The hon. Lady’s example is only one of a spectrum of concerns, depending on which part of the community one talks to in Northern Ireland and who one talks to in the UK. However, that concern is absolutely valid and we cannot allow this situation to continue. We will come back to this as soon as it is decent to do so; and by “decent”, I mean when we have a chance of getting something that is practically going to work, rather than something that sounds good as a soundbite. We need to ensure that this thing works under legal challenge.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

Is it not ironic that throughout the whole Brexit process we have been bending over backwards to treat Northern Ireland the same as the rest of the UK, and we are now about to treat Northern Ireland differently? I understand the sensitivities of the Good Friday agreement and the Stormont House agreement, but surely this can be sorted out with robust and strong leadership. I put it to the Minister that no other country in the world would treat their veterans in this way. He goes on about taking more time, and going through this and that. All this time, veterans—including in my constituency—are suffering.

[John Penrose]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I certainly did not want to imply that we are countenancing being leisurely about this. This situation has been wrong for many years. The only reason for not announcing something tomorrow—or, indeed, today or yesterday—is simply that we need to ensure that we have put all the answers from the consultation out and in front of the House, so people have a chance to work through the details and ask, “All right, what does this mean in practice then?” We need to move as fast as we can, but it has to be as fast as we can in a way that is consistent with forging a consensus in Northern Ireland. We have to ensure that whatever answer we come up with sticks, survives and works for both sides of the community, otherwise it will come unravelled in the fullness of time and we will have failed to protect our veterans from the kind of problems that we have all heard about and that I think everyone here agrees are absolutely unacceptable.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) is quite right when he says that this question really ought to be answered by the Secretary of State for Defence, because it is her intervention that has left the Government with a policy that is totally lacking in any coherence.

Quite apart from the inconsistencies that others have highlighted, we are now, we understand from the Secretary of State for Defence, to disapply the European convention on human rights in this area. Is that Government policy that she speaks of, and if so, where does the Minister, as a Minister of State in the Northern Ireland Office, think that leaves the Good Friday agreement?

[John Penrose]

Let me first address the right hon. Gentleman’s point about whether this is a matter for the Ministry of Defence or the Northern Ireland Office. He is of course right that the Ministry of Defence has a major, major stake in getting this right. As he would expect—as everybody would expect—the Secretary of State for Defence wants to make sure that this issue is dealt with as promptly as possible. The Ministry of Defence is not the only Department to have a stake, because clearly there are former police officers in Northern Ireland—members of the PSNI—who could also be vulnerable to such predatory legal attack, or whatever, and we need to make sure that they are properly dealt with too. He is right that the MOD is a vital part, but it is not all of it, and that is why the issue goes broader than just veterans of Her Majesty’s armed forces.

On human rights, as I said earlier, all we have to go on at the moment are the press reports and the outlines of the Secretary of State for Defence’s proposals. I did not see those as having—and I do not think she meant them to have—anything to do with contradicting human rights. It is clear that anything we come up with, if it is to be legally robust, has to be compliant with article 2 in human rights terms, because if we do not have a process that is compliant with article 2, we will have failed to protect our veterans, whether they are former members of the armed forces or former members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. If we fail to protect them from proper legal challenge because we have designed a process that is not compliant with article 2, we will have failed in our duty and failed to deliver what everybody here, of all parties, wishes to achieve.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I understand that the Legacy Inquest Unit is powering through its work. May I urge the Minister to consider the timescale for inquests while considering what other bodies he is going to set up? May I also urge him to make sure that veterans are properly supported throughout the inquest process? To most people, an inquest looks like a court and smells like a court, and it is very important that they are helped through the process.

[John Penrose]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about people facing current cases, regardless of whether we wish to design an alternative process that may mean in future many of them will not have to undergo the process, which I think everybody here agrees would be sensible where possible and appropriate. For those who have to do so, however, we absolutely need to make sure that there is proper legal support. As I said, I would regard that as absolutely part of the duty that we owe to our former soldiers and other members of our armed forces.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister is speaking as though this issue has landed on him unexpectedly from a clear blue sky, but we are talking about events that happened 40 years ago, and much of it could have been predicted. Although of course we want malicious cases to be dismissed, will he confirm his exact policy on cases that may have some legitimacy but have already been tried and within which we would expect soldiers to be treated fairly?

[John Penrose]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that this issue has not landed on anybody’s desk in the Northern Ireland Office out of a clear blue sky—it has been taking up a very large proportion of everybody’s care and attention. It is probably fair to say that it was doing so under former Labour Governments as well as the current Government, and indeed the coalition Government. It is certainly not a new problem, and it has clearly defeated successive attempts to solve it. That is why we have to proceed as fast as possible, but with care.

With regard to people who have already faced cases, clearly we need to make sure that they are treated fairly within the law. Bearing in mind Mr Speaker’s earlier strictures, I probably should not comment on individual cases, but I am sure that everybody here would stand up for the notion that yes, clearly, everyone should be treated fairly within the law.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I deployed to Afghanistan twice and to Iraq and to Northern Ireland, all in quite quick succession. I can tell the Minister that I received operational training and operational kit. I carried operational rules of engagement. I received operational pay, and I received an operational medal for all four of those tours. The distinction that a soldier is aware of the legal premise on which they are deployed is not true—it is not fair, and it stinks. Troops do not get to choose whether they deploy on an operational tour because of the legal underpinning that the Government have chosen, and it is unreasonable to assert that now. We must limit their liability immediately.

[John Penrose]

I completely agree. I was trying to make this point in response to a couple of earlier questions, but let me have another crack at it. For members of Her Majesty’s armed forces serving on the ground, no matter where they are, if they are on similar kinds of operation, the practical effect and feel of those operations will be the same. My hon. Friend, who is my parliamentary neighbour in Somerset, is absolutely right to make that point. It is not an acceptable justification for inaction for any Government to say, “The legal basis is different, and therefore we cannot solve this.”

All I am saying is that the legal solution has to be different because the legal basis is different, even though soldiers may not care or worry about it. If we do not take that difference of legal basis into account, the answer we come up with will not work in protecting them. We want to protect them properly and successfully. If we do not, the first malicious prosecution that is mounted in a court and knocks a hole in it will show that our efforts have been in vain. My hon. Friend is right. This is an explanation of why it is different; it is not a justification for not acting, nor is it a justification for not succeeding in coming up with an identical outcome, even though it has to be based on different legal foundations.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Chester is a proud garrison city, and I am proud to represent ex-service and current service families, many of whom have raised their concerns with me. Their concerns are generally twofold. The first is that these seem to be arbitrary fishing investigations—and investigations are just as stressful as prosecutions. Secondly, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) talked about rancid deals. Of course there had to be a deal under the Good Friday agreement, but my constituents’ concern is clear: that deal should be applied equally and fairly to all sides.

[John Penrose]

“Equally and fairly to all sides” have to be our watch-words for the outcome of publishing the results of the consultation and the process of coming up with a Bill that works. It has to be equal and fair to both sides, otherwise it will not endure, it will not work, and it will not protect our forces in the way that we all want.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

As the MP for Moray, I represent a large number of veterans, and I share their disgust at the way they have been treated by this Government. The Minister’s answers have been full, but when speaking about future legislation and the results of the consultation, he has said “soon”, “very quickly” and “shortly”. He has given no specific timeframe. When can my constituents and people across the United Kingdom expect to hear from the Government specific dates for the plans, to ensure that we can hold the Government to account on their promises?

[John Penrose]

I wish I could give my hon. Friend a specific date. We are trying to get through this as fast as we can. I hope he will understand that, with 17,000 responses, each telling a story of personal tragedy, we needed to ensure we were honouring the sense in which those were provided. Having worked through that, we need to move at pace, and we will endeavour to do so. I cannot give him a precise date today, but I will undertake to take back to the Department the very clear message from today, which is that we need to get on with this and move as fast as we can, but we need to ensure we are proceeding in a way that will endure and come up with a robust answer that, as we just heard, is fair and equal for all sides.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Like all Members here, I have veterans in my constituency who are very angry at the way this issue has been handled and extremely concerned about issues being dredged up from 20, 30 or 40 years ago in what they consider to be an unfair manner. There has been a lot of press speculation in recent days and mixed messages from the Government, which has only increased the anxiety that many veterans feel. Does the Minister understand the concern caused, as well as the need for clarity and certainty that it will be dealt with as quickly as possible?

[John Penrose]

Yes, yes, and emphatically yes.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The borough of Kettering is blessed with many veterans who served in Northern Ireland, and they are outraged by this process. The previous Labour Government issued letters of comfort to known terrorists, and now a Conservative Government are effectively threatening prosecution of veterans, many of whom have already faced court cases. The Minister says he has received legal advice from the Northern Ireland Office. Will he reassure the House that he is challenging that advice, not simply accepting it? He said that Sinn Féin is not pressing for these cases to be examined—he said he had no knowledge of that. Can he confirm 100% that Sinn Féin is not pressing for these veterans to be prosecuted as a condition of setting up the new Northern Ireland Executive?

[John Penrose]

I am not in that part of those talks, so I would not be able to tell my hon. Friend that one way or another. I can say, however—this returns to my earlier answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford—that rancid deals should have no part in how we treat our veterans in any case.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The best way for wounds to heal is to stop picking at the scabs, and we must stop treating Northern Ireland as “other”. Our military, police or civilians will have far greater confidence only when rules apply globally, and I see no merit in perpetrating the “otherness” of Northern Ireland. Rules should apply to our military, police and civilians, whether in Basra or Belfast. The status of the unbalanced letters of comfort must be reviewed and clarified as they distort the arguments. The scales of justice must be able to balance, but those letters distort them beyond all chance of that happening.

[John Penrose]

I agree strongly that the scales of justice must be able to balance, and it is not just a question of balancing in one or two cases—they must balance for all cases, and be seen to balance by all sides. We are all here today because there is a widespread perception, on both sides of the community in Northern Ireland, that those scales are tilted for different reasons in different ways. My hon. Friend is right to make that point, and I remind him of my earlier answer on the letters of comfort. Those letters have now been reviewed, and the latest legal report states that they do not provide immunity from prosecution—

[Mr Francois]

But no one has ever been prosecuted!

[John Penrose]

They may not have ever been prosecuted, but the letters do not provide immunity from prosecution.

[Mr Francois]

What is the difference?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

The difference is that, were a case to be brought tomorrow, those letters would not be a piece of legal body armour. It is important that we make that point, and I hope the message will go out loud and clear from the Chamber that anyone who thinks they can swan around scot-free as a result of that does not have the legal protection that some people may have thought they did.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and I apologise that I came in when the Minister was already on his feet. I served in Northern Ireland and in what was then Rhodesia. I received a general service medal for one campaign, and a separate campaign medal for the other—as has been said, they were both operations. We were sent to Northern Ireland, and I lost friends, particularly Robert Nairac—I am sorry I was not here when he was mentioned. I do not know how I can honestly, and with a clean heart, say that my Government represent the best interests of ex-servicemen and women who have served their country. I simply state to the Minister this simple principle: when natural justice collides with the law, we change the law.

[John Penrose]

That has to be correct. That is why we are talking about bringing forward a Bill in this place to change the law to put this right. My right hon. Friend is also right to say—I think he is echoing the point made by my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey)—that for serving soldiers who get campaign or operation medals, whatever it may be, it feels the same whether or not the legal underpinning of the operation is different. We therefore have to come up with an Act of Parliament that ensures that protections are the same, even if they are arrived at through a different legal route. Either way, it absolutely and essentially has to be robust in the event of legal challenge, otherwise we will have failed in our duty to look after our veterans, no matter where they have served.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Northern Ireland Executive

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

I beg to move,

That the Northern Ireland (Extension of Period for Executive Formation) Regulations 2019 (S.I., 2019, No. 616), which were laid before this House on 21 March, be approved.

The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 initially created a five-month breathing space, in which everyone hoped and expected that we would be able to get the Stormont Executive back up and running, and that is what we have all been working towards. The Act also allowed for a one-off further extension of five months, and that is what these regulations would bring about. This is a small and perfectly formed statutory instrument. It runs to all of one side of a page and contains two regulations, one of which deals with citation and commencement. It simply adds another five months of breathing space, opportunity and potential, during which, if we work hard and if all sides are willing, we might be able reinstate the different sides in Stormont and get the Assembly back up and running.

I do not need to tell anyone here how important this is. In the preceding piece of business, we heard that this area is crying out for a political voice to deal with the devolved issues in Northern Ireland. Everyone on all sides of the community in Northern Ireland, and more broadly, understands the importance of this, and I therefore hope that everyone will back not only the statutory instrument but the efforts from all sides of the community to push everyone towards a willingness to come up with a successful resumption of and conclusion to the talks. As this is a short statutory instrument of only two regulations, I propose to sit down now and leave the floor open to others who might wish to contribute. I hope that everyone will feel able to support the regulations this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I am delighted that everybody accepts, with a degree of reluctance and frustration, that the statutory instrument, while not wanted, is necessary. I thank everybody for saying, albeit with a heavy heart— I think that goes for all of us—that they will support it. I appreciate and recognise the degree of cross-party support. It is more powerful because it is cross-party.

That is not say that the frustrations are not real, or that those frustrations have not been clearly and effectively expressed this evening. We have heard a whole litany of examples, from all sides of the House, from the lengthening list of decisions not being taken because Stormont is not currently operational. We have heard examples from all sorts of people. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who just spoke, gave the examples of a lady with a premature baby and a grandmother left waiting on a hospital trolley for too long. There were other examples. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) gave a long list of missed opportunities, as did the Select Committee Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). The repeated refrain from all sides is that we cannot keep on, in the Chair’s phrase, kicking the can down the road. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) said that the mountains in front of us are no higher than those we have scaled in the past, but he also said that bread and butter issues are far better done by locally elected politicians in Stormont.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

In light of recent legislation relating to the Buick case and permanent secretaries needing cover to allow them to make decisions, permanent secretaries are still not signing off non-controversial decisions. They are using the frustration of no Assembly as an excuse not to do business.

[John Penrose]

I am sure everybody here would appreciate that the senior civil servants in the Northern Ireland civil service are faced with a very, very difficult position. They are being required to keep the wheels of good government turning. The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 equips them to do that, but clearly they have to be extremely careful not to take new policy decisions which should rightly and constitutionally be taken by elected politicians in Stormont. That would clearly be wrong and outwith the powers in the 2018 Act.

That perhaps answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) about the stresses on the Administration. The answer is simply that: people are being asked to operate up to the limits of what they can decently and constitutionally do. It requires a great deal of care and civil service professionalism to ensure they go up to those limits but no further. I do not think we can reasonably ask them to continue doing that for any great deal of time longer, not least because, as people have been rightly pointing out, the list of problems left unsolved because they require a political decision is getting longer every day.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Just to re-emphasise the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) made, I understand the caution in the Minister’s response and the balance that senior civil servants have to reach in the public interest. There is a matrix in the Act for how those decisions should be made, but the truth is that some permanent secretaries and Departments are more willing to use the powers afforded to them under the Act than others. There needs to be a fair appreciation of that and an encouragement to the head of the civil service to say that for as long as the Act pertains, for as long as we do not have active devolved institutions, and for as long as there is a democratic deficit and decisions can be made, they should be made. I encourage him to meet us to go through that in finer detail, because some permanent secretaries are using it to its full force. Others are not and they should be encouraged to do so.

[John Penrose]

I share the frustration on both sides about this issue. We need to be extremely careful. It may be clear to one person on one side of the House, or to another person on the other side, that a particular Department in the Northern Ireland civil service is acting to the full extent of its powers or perhaps drawing back a little further from using those full powers, but the point is that at some stage, that becomes a political judgment rather than a professional civil service judgment. When it becomes a political judgment, the answer at that point, of course—as many people on both sides of the debate have rightly said so far this evening—is for there to be an Executive at Stormont and for the devolved Assembly to come back into play. Ultimately, until that happens, the judgment of the civil servants has to be just that—within the scope of the Act. It is very hard for politicians to say that this civil servant is doing a good job and that civil servant is doing a bad job unless we get the politicians in place in Stormont who have the natural legal locus and the democratic mandate to do so.

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

Although the Minister has stated that this could become a political judgment in terms of civil servants, the reality is that the law is there. There are parameters around the exercise of the powers given within that legislation. We would like to see consistency in the discretion that each of the permanent secretaries or senior civil servants has. I asked the Secretary of State on a previous occasion to consider looking at guidance being issued to permanent secretaries to get that type of consistency. What all of us are finding at the moment is that there is a disparity in the way that permanent secretaries and civil servants are operating the powers that they have been given objectively in the Act.

[John Penrose]

I accept that there will be different views about whether some Departments are using those powers to their full extent and others are not. To coin the phrase used by the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who spoke for the Labour party, we are being asked to tread down a primrose path in saying that this particular part of the Northern Ireland civil service is using those powers to its full extent and this one is not. Ultimately, this has to be something that is decided, led and ultimately arbitrated by the devolved Assembly and devolved Ministers. All of us feel this frustration, but it is becoming a rather circular argument if we say that we should be trying to push them one way or the other. We have to set those rules, but ultimately, if people are not happy with the way that they are being applied, provided that they are being used within the rules of the law that we have set in the EFEF Act it is then up to the Northern Ireland Assembly. I am afraid that it is as fundamental, as simple and as difficult a truth as that. The only answer is for the Northern Ireland Assembly to come back.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The Minister has said a number of times that he shares the frustration of what my colleagues have said tonight, but why will the Government not go ahead and call the Assembly? Those who turn up can get it moving and working for the people of Northern Ireland—why will the Government not do that?

[John Penrose]

I bring the hon. Gentleman good news. My colleague the Secretary of State has many, many talents and powers but one of them is not to “call the Assembly”, to use this sort of portentous phrase, which a number of us have been using so far this evening. In fact, the Assembly is still legally in existence. If MLAs want to turn up tomorrow, or perhaps the day after tomorrow, given the sad and tragic events that are happening tomorrow, nobody needs to call them to do so. They have a legal right to turn up, open the doors and do so. When they do turn up, they will be entitled to select a Speaker and then choose a First Minister and Deputy First Minister. It does not require the Secretary of State to call them. We have heard several calls this evening for a trial to see whether people would turn up and do that. If MLAs from any side of the community and from any political party are so minded, they can do that. I will leave it up them, of course, as directly locally elected politicians, to decide if they wish to do that, but they are legally entitled to do so.

I do not want to detain the House any longer. I am conscious of the passage of time.

[Nigel Dodds]

rose—

[John Penrose]

I will give way very briefly and then try to answer one more question before sitting down.

[Nigel Dodds]

I admire the Minister greatly. He is doing a valiant job with the only two regulations in the SI, which he mentioned, so I understand that he does not have a lot of material, but he is trying to put everything on to other people, saying it is up to the parties to call the Assembly and so on. Does he not take any responsibility for the state of affairs in Northern Ireland, which his Government are responsible for, in breach of their own manifesto commitments? Will he not answer that point?

[John Penrose]

The right hon. Gentleman leads me on to my next point, which is a response to the several people who asked for a road map. Clearly, it will depend on the actions of the individual parties, but one of the things the Government are responsible for, which we have been trying to do and will continue to try to do, is to get the talks to bring Stormont back together again started, get them continued and get them successfully concluded.

Several people asked about the road map. As the Secretary of State set out to the House on 21 March, she has spoken to the Northern Ireland parties and the Irish Government several times in recent weeks. In those discussions, all the parties have been consistent in their commitment to restoring a power-sharing executive and the other political institutions set out in the Belfast agreement. We believe that the five main parties are in favour of a short and focused set of roundtable talks to restore devolution at the earliest opportunity, and the Irish Government also support this approach. Any such talks process would involve the UK Government, the five main parties and the Irish Government and would take place in full accordance with the well-established three-stranded approach.

During the statement earlier, several people said, without wishing to prejudge or anticipate anything with the funeral of Lyra McKee due to take place tomorrow, that there might just be a glimmer of light—a change of view and tone in Northern Ireland—which is tremendously important. If it is the case, this kind of approach will be necessary. I completely accept what the right hon. Gentleman said. We need to convene those talks, if we possibly can, and thereby create the breathing space in which that change of tone and approach can flourish and develop.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

rose—

[John Penrose]

I was about to sit down. I have one minute, but then I really must conclude.

[Lady Hermon]

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to take his one minute. Earlier this evening, no one in the Chamber could have been unmoved by the dignified and moving tribute the Secretary of State paid to Lyra McKee. How will she and the Northern Ireland Office translate that tribute into tangible change in Northern Ireland? People have a right to know. We want change in the Northern Ireland—led by the Secretary of State.

[John Penrose]

I think I just set out the next steps. Clearly, it will then be for the people involved in the talks to bring them to fruition. They have to be led and convened by the Government, but they will require everybody else’s involvement too. I have laid out what the process will be. I agree that no one could have failed to be moved. There is an opportunity here, and we must grasp it if we can. The SI creates the moment—that breathing space—that might allow it to happen. I hope that everybody will grasp the opportunity thus created with both hands.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Northern Ireland (Extension of Period for Executive Formation) Regulations 2019 (S.I., 2019, No. 616), which were laid before this House on 21 March, be approved.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

4. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect of the two-child limit in universal credit on families in Northern Ireland.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

Both the Secretary of State and I were delighted by the recent announcement by the Work and Pensions Secretary that parents who had their third child before the two-child limit was introduced in April 2017 would not face the cap. This will help thousands of families across the UK, including Northern Ireland. The administration and implementation of universal credit is a devolved matter, but Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities knows of no complaints, issues or problems experienced by claimants in the operation of the two-child policy.

[Dr Huq]

The cruelty of this policy, as was confirmed by the UN rapporteur, is most acute in Northern Ireland, where families are bigger and abortion is illegal, which has been condemned by the Supreme Court. Surely in the case of non-consensual conception, women who seek to exercise the already humiliating rape clause will risk the prosecution of professionals who assist under section 5 of the Criminal Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1967. Can we have some clarity on this human rights double whammy?

[John Penrose]

The hon. Lady is right to raise that concern, which has been raised on previous occasions because of the depth of worry. I would just reassure her that in the 52 years since section 5 was passed, there have been no prosecutions for failure to report a rape in Northern Ireland. I would add that an outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland said that it is very unlikely that anyone will face prosecution in future.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

The Minister appears to be presenting some new legislation to us. We are not familiar with the information he has just given, and I hope we can have a bit more detail.

I rise in sorrow and in anger to say that the roll-out of universal credit has had an unmitigated devastating impact on the poorest people in Northern Ireland. If universal credit is not good enough for the Minister’s constituents or my constituents, why is it good enough for Northern Ireland, where the level of long-term unemployment is twice the national average? Does he believe that making the worst-off worse off is acceptable?

[John Penrose]

I politely disagree with the hon. Gentleman, not least because unemployment in Northern Ireland has been falling steadily, which is one of the huge success stories of Northern Ireland’s economic progress since the troubles. The previous Assembly introduced some rather important legislation, which is still in operation, that mitigates some of the local concerns about the operation of universal credit in Northern Ireland.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

6. What recent assessment she has made of the security situation in Northern Ireland.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

13. What recent assessment she has made of the security situation in Northern Ireland.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

The threat from dissident republican terrorism continues to be severe in Northern Ireland. Our top priority is to keep people safe and secure. Vigilance against this continuing threat is essential and we remain determined to ensure that terrorism never succeeds.

[Vicky Ford]

It is 21 years to the day since the signing of the Belfast Good Friday agreement. I will always remember the devastating bomb that ripped through Omagh, the town of my birth, just months before. Does my hon. Friend agree that the agreement has been vital in delivering the relative peace in Northern Ireland and that it must not be jeopardised?

[John Penrose]

I do. As the Secretary of State rightly mentioned earlier, the Belfast agreement was a landmark moment for Northern Ireland and all its neighbours. The peace that it has helped deliver is the foundation of so much of the economic and social progress that has been made since. Of course, the terrorists know that, which is why it is essential that we never let them win.

[Victoria Prentis]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does a fantastic job? Will he confirm that the Government will continue to do all they can to support it?

[John Penrose]

Yes, I do. The Police Service of Northern Ireland does a terrific job of keeping everyone safe across the community in Northern Ireland. I am sure I speak for everybody here in expressing our admiration and thanks for the work it does.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.] I am very glad that the Prime Minister has just taken her seat, because the question relates to dissident republicans. Has the Minister been made aware by the Police Service of Northern Ireland that dissident republicans are responsible for the recent spate of thefts of ATMs across Northern Ireland and are intent on using the stolen money to purchase weaponry to attack police officers and others along the border in the event of a no-deal Brexit?

[John Penrose]

There has been a great deal of speculation about this matter. I hope the hon. Lady will understand that all I can say in my response here is that policing is an operational matter. There are ongoing live police investigations into this matter and therefore I cannot go any further into it. However, I am sure that everybody here will have heard her concerns and registered them clearly.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Bearing in mind that the Secretary of State made a statement saying that the threat level for January was at “severe”, will the Minister outline what efforts have been made to increase police presence in local community policing to build relationships within communities? How much extra funding has he secured for the police?

[John Penrose]

I am happy to report that there has been a great deal of extra funding for the Police Service of Northern Ireland. There was £230 million of extra security funding over the 2010 Parliament and there has been £131 million over the current spending review period, plus £25 million to tackle paramilitary activity. In December, we announced another £16.5 million to help the Police Service of Northern Ireland prepare for EU exit.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

What action are the Government taking to tackle delays in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland? That is essential to ensuring we do more to bring to justice people responsible for terrorism.

[John Penrose]

My right hon. Friend, as a former Secretary of State, will appreciate that that is predominantly a devolved matter and that many things would be on the plate of a restored Stormont Assembly and Executive. I am sure that that would be one of them, but first it is essential to get that Executive and Assembly back to work.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

In these heightened times of threats against politicians, anyone standing for a council election in England this May does not need to have their home details published. In Northern Ireland, that is not the case, which has led to the Social Democratic and Labour party councillor Máiría Cahill having to withdraw from fighting her seat. Will the Minister tell the House why in England legislation changed but we did not do that in Northern Ireland? When will that change be made?

[John Penrose]

This matter has come up in the press recently and I know it is causing concern to all parts of the House and in all communities in Northern Ireland. We are tremendously sympathetic. The difficulty is that changing the laws in Northern Ireland in time for the local elections will probably be impossible. We all want to try to ensure that this is dealt with so that the law is in line as soon as we can.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

8. What assessment she has made of the effect on Northern Ireland’s economy of hosting the Open championship 2019.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

As a former tourism Minister, I am delighted that in July the Open championship is making an historic return to Northern Ireland after 68 years. Tourism Northern Ireland expects up to 190,000 spectators will attend the event at the Royal Portrush golf club and estimates that the benefit to the Northern Ireland economy will be £80 million. Tourism in Northern Ireland is going from strength to strength. During the first quarter of 2018, visitors spent an unprecedented £180 million.

[Tom Pursglove]

What steps is the Minister taking to capitalise on this top international sporting event to promote Northern Irish tourism and showcase business opportunities?

[John Penrose]

My hon. Friend will know that tourism is a devolved matter, which is yet another reason for the Stormont Executive to reform quickly. I also urge businesses to use the event as a huge marketing opportunity. Portrush will be a target-rich environment for them, full of potential customers, suppliers and contacts for all sectors of Northern Ireland’s economy—not just tourism. I am sure they will grab it with both hands.

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

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I am happy to meet Invest Northern Ireland and anyone else who wants to bring more investment into Northern Ireland.

Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland: Legacy Cases

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

It is good to be under your capable hand, Mr Owen, because it ensures that we stay just on the right side of any court case rules and do not prejudice anything. You have been carefully doing that and steering us aright.

I start, as others have, by congratulating the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) not only on securing the debate but on setting out such a properly considered and careful exposition of his concerns, which are shared, I think, by many of the other Members from whom we have heard. Although the right hon. Gentleman had to steer a careful course around the sub judice rules, he was right to make the central point that behind every single one of the legacy cases that have been cited in the debate and mentioned elsewhere, there is invariably a human tragedy. We have heard some examples today, but it is essential to remember that there are many, many others that could be mentioned, on all sides of the community in Northern Ireland, and they all deserve justice and to be treated equally and fairly.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out the Salmon principles—I will not try to do a legal job on them, but broadly speaking they are the central points that many people would naturally reach for—of fairness, due process and equality before the law. It is essential, no matter what processes and institutions we apply, that those central principles are front and centre and are adhered to, otherwise the family and friends of the victims of the troubles will never get the justice that everyone here has called for.

Other Members contributed strongly to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has personal experience, as he rightly pointed out, of operating during the troubles in Northern Ireland. We also had cogent input from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The only remark of his with which I disagree was his description of his constituency as the most beautiful in the world, when clearly that applies to my own constituency of Weston-super-Mare. Beyond that, I suspect everyone agreed with many of the points he made. It was also good to hear from the Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), a high degree of cross-party unanimity and consensus.

[Bob Stewart]

I commend the Opposition spokesman, because I took from what he said that this job is too big for one person, and more resources are required to do it properly.

[John Penrose]

That brings me neatly on to a point that I think everyone agrees on: it is essential that we all mark our support for the principle behind the office of the police ombudsman. If there is to be confidence in the operation of the police on all sides of the community in Northern Ireland, it is essential to have an ombudsman with the powers necessary to investigate current concerns and cases regarding the operation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Without that office, it would be much more difficult to maintain confidence across communities in the working of the PSNI. I am sure that everyone here supports the operation of that office, its continued existence, and its ability, where necessary, to investigate fearlessly and even-handedly.

However, the point has been made on both sides of the debate that in Northern Ireland that role is much broader, applying also to some of the most difficult and sensitive issues surrounding legacy cases from the troubles. That is a very unusual position. It is, inevitably, unique, because the position in Northern Ireland is, for many understandable but tragic reasons, also unique. That is one of the most important reasons why people have said that the current arrangements for dealing with legacy cases from the troubles are not passing the test for many people, on all sides of the community and the debate in Northern Ireland. The arrangements clearly need to be upgraded and improved. It is not just about the operation of the police ombudsman’s breadth of current responsibilities; it is also to do with something that I think the Labour spokesman mentioned: the coronial system, some of the legacy cases going through the courts and the inquest process. There are many other examples, too, which is why we are currently working through the 17,000 responses to the public inquiry into how to take forward the proposals for upgrading and improving the legacy process.

The hon. Member for Rochdale rightly mentioned the historical investigations unit, but there are other proposals to round out a potential solution for the legacy process, including proposals for an independent commission on information retrieval, an oral history archive, and implementation and reconciliation groups. There are many different possible elements to getting this right and doing it better for all sides. However, it is essential that we listen to the 17,000 proposals because, as the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley pointed out, behind many of them is a grieving family, a victim and a case of personal tragedy.

I recently looked around the door of the team who are going through the 17,000 responses to the legacy consultation. On one side of the room, against the wall, was a very large pile of boxes of submissions that they had already gone through. They had to do so with enormous care and respect, because of the tragedies that lie behind many of the proposals. On the other side of the room, I am happy to say, was a much smaller pile of boxes of submissions that the team had not yet gone through. They are working through the submissions as fast as they reasonably and decently can, given the sensitivity and importance of the material.

Once the team are through, we will not simply be able to issue the Government’s response. We will be able to say that the proposals for the historical investigations unit and the other new institutions are a starting point that we need to overlay with the results from the 17,000 proposals and ask, “What is the final answer? What will allow a settlement, a conclusion and, perhaps, peace and justice, and what will allow us to draw a line under an awful moment in Northern Ireland’s history in a way that provides justice for all sides?” Only then will Northern Ireland be able, perhaps, to begin to put this awful moment of its history a little further behind it and continue the process of healing.

At that point, it will be fairly straightforward for many of us to say that the role of the Northern Ireland police ombudsman will, sensibly, become rather more normal. The responsibility for the legacy cases will rightly be passed to the new institutions and processes, and the ombudsman role will become much more akin to ones that we see elsewhere in the United Kingdom, dealing mainly with current cases.

To leave a little time for the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley to respond, I finish by saying that I am very reassured to have heard that everyone here understands, salutes and agrees with the principle that justice must be done, that fairness must be achieved—no matter who, and no matter what—and that everyone should be equal before the law. The difficulty, of course, is that these legacy cases are incredibly difficult and sensitive—perhaps more difficult than many other kinds of justice that we have to administer in the UK. I therefore hope that when we have finished with the 17,000 submissions to the consultation, we will come up with a set of proposals for which there is cross-party and cross-community support, which will allow us to move forward at long last and make progress in this incredibly important and sensitive area.

Exiting the European Union (Armorial Bearings, Ensigns and Flags)

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Flags (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 25 February, be approved.

I am delighted to move the motion, which deals with a narrow but important issue surrounding the flag-flying regulations in Northern Ireland. For most of the rest of the UK, vexillology—a new word I have learned today—which is the study of and interest in flag flying, is a relatively light-hearted affair and something that many people have as a hobby, but in Northern Ireland, for understandable and important reasons, it is a far more important and sensitive issue that we need to address with great care and consideration.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

The Minister has stolen my thunder. I was going to commend him for becoming an expert vexillologist. He has put us all to shame by saying he is only learning the trade. In Northern Ireland, it is something one has to learn incredibly quickly. He knows that we have supported this statutory instrument from its conception and that we understand the rationale behind it, but he also knows of our concerns about the continual deletion of flag-flying designated days under the Flags (Northern Ireland) Order 2000. Will he commit to engaging with us and others so that in future we get a replication of the decision taken by Belfast City Council and by the Assembly Commission itself to follow the guidelines from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and to make sure that there is a uniformity of approach when it comes to flying our national flag across our nation?

[John Penrose]

May I ask the hon. Gentleman to hold fire for a second? I will deal with his question and endeavour to ensure that I have answered it, but I am sure that if I do not, he will come back and pin me down.

Let me briefly explain what the statutory instrument will do. In most of the rest of the United Kingdom, the decision on what flags should fly on Government buildings is based on a relatively straightforward list issued by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Changing that and ensuring that when we have left the European Union Government buildings will no longer have to fly flags on Europe Day, 9 May, will also be relatively straightforward. However, in Northern Ireland, because of the sensitivities and because of the importance of flag flying and the symbolic issues surrounding it, it is an altogether more complicated matter.

Flag-flying regulations are baked into legislation that is ultimately the preserve of the Stormont Assembly. The SI therefore amends those regulations, using the order-making powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to delete the requirement to fly flags in Northern Ireland on Europe Day. If we do not pass it, we shall be left in a rather incongruous and, I am sure, unwanted position. The only place in the United Kingdom that would still have to fly flags officially on Europe Day would be Northern Ireland, and I am sure that none of us want that, for a variety of reasons.

Let me now deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson). He is right to suggest that the situation in Northern Ireland is much more complicated. Under the current regulations, Northern Ireland Government buildings follow the list of designated days in the regulations that we are, I hope, amending today, whereas UK Government buildings follow the list issued by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Local authorities are responsible for flag flying according to their own policies: some fly the Union flag throughout the year, while others do not fly it all. I believe that Belfast City Council follows the DCMS list of designated days. The flag-flying days for Parliament buildings, which the hon. Gentleman also mentioned—that is, the Stormont buildings themselves—are decided by the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission, not by our Parliament. As it happens, the commission has chosen to follow the DCMS list of designated flag-flying days.

Let me now provide an important piece of trivia for the benefit of anyone who is caught up in a pub quiz at any point over the next few weeks. Under the Police Emblems and Flags Regulations (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2002, police stations in Northern Ireland may not fly either the Union flag or any other national flag. They can only fly the Police Service of Northern Ireland service flag, except in the event of a visit by Her Majesty the Queen, when the royal standard may be flown in place of the service flag.

[Gavin Robinson]

I said earlier, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the Minister was quickly becoming a considered vexillologist, and you will have understood from what he has been saying that he is gaining a good understanding of the changes and the unique differences in Northern Ireland. I remind him, however, that some of the reasons for those differences relate to our history and to political will in different parts of our local government.

I was Lord Mayor of Belfast at the time of the decision to limit flag flying in Belfast City Hall, and I remember how vexed that situation was. I remember the strife and the division to which the decision led, the difficulties caused to community relations and the emotion that is always associated with the flying of flags. There is one arrangement when City Hall and Parliament buildings fly a flag, but the flying of flags on a Government building or the Royal Courts of Justice, for example, is governed by another provision which draws on the flags order but is contained in a justice order. Does the Minister accept that that leads to concerns and queries about why a flag is flying on two buildings but not on another, which is why we need a uniform approach?

[John Penrose]

The hon. Gentleman is right that it causes concerns and I doubt that many people will automatically and instinctively know or understand the various different lists of regulations that I have just explained to the House, and therefore why should anybody have anything like the level of expertise of the hon. Gentleman, who served as mayor of Belfast during a time when a very contentious issue had to be dealt with and debated? It was handled very carefully and resolved in the end, but he will know better than perhaps anybody how difficult that path was to tread.

The difficulty we have with the regulations we are debating and I hope amending today is that, other than the one we are able to amend today because we are amending it through the leaving the EU Act itself, they can only be amended through a very particular process that requires the Stormont Assembly to be in operation and sitting. In fact, to be precise, it requires the Secretary of State to refer to the Assembly any amendments to these regulations. The Assembly then has to report to the Secretary of State the views expressed on the proposed amendments and the Secretary of State has to have considered the Assembly’s report.

I therefore completely take the hon. Gentleman’s point that it would be hugely desirable to be able to address any upcoming changes and proposals that might stem from any sides of the different communities in Northern Ireland, but that would have to be done with great care in the same way as he has described happened in Belfast. That cannot only best be done but probably only properly be done with a functioning Assembly in Stormont, to make sure all sides of the community have their views represented and that difficult and sometimes painful path can be trodden as it was in Belfast when the hon. Gentleman was there.

[Gavin Robinson]

This is my final intervention. Does the Minister understand that tonight he is proposing a change to the flags order without going through that process?

[John Penrose]

Yes I do, and we are only able to do this without going through that process because it is just a change to the Europe Day regulations. It is a change that is consequent on us leaving the EU and therefore there is a different power in a different Act that allows us to change this in this way for this one purpose, but it does not, I am afraid, go any wider or allow us to make any other changes to any of the rest of those regulations, much though the hon. Gentleman might want me to.

I am conscious of the hour and do not want to take up anyone’s time, but I will make one final point: obviously, because we are proposing to make this change through the operation of the Act for leaving the EU, it cannot take effect until we have left the EU, so depending on the decisions made at the European Council over the next couple of days, it is possible that we will have approved this and then we will not actually have left the EU legally by the time the next Europe Day comes up. In that case, legally, I will have no option or legal powers to do anything other than delay signing this order to bring it into force until the day after we have finally left the EU. I can promise the House, however, that we will do so as promptly as possible once we have finally Brexited, to make sure this thing takes effect as quickly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I am delighted that both sides of the House are willing to support this motion, which is very helpful. It is always better for things that tread on contentious ground to be broadly and widely supported, so I thank everyone for that.

I join the shadow Minister, and I am sure everyone, in expressing sympathy for the victims in Cookstown—he is right to raise it. I welcome him back to the Dispatch Box. With his crutch, he turned up limping but determined to make sure he is here representing his party’s viewpoint, which is always good to see. He also gets points for a neologism, at least I think it is a neologism. I have certainly never heard of vexillomaniacs, which is a brand-new word for me at least.

I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), the Chair of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, is right to make a plea for tolerance and being laid back, if we possibly can, both on flag flying and on symbols more generally.

There is a second Europe Day that is not 9 May but 5 May, which is the Council of Europe’s Europe Day rather than the EU’s Europe Day. It is quite possible that some people might decide to fly a European flag on those days, and I am sure in many cases others will be entirely tolerant, but it is outwith the scope of this measure. I am delighted to record that everyone seems to be in agreement and onside.

Question put and agreed to.

Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill

John Penrose Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

I will try to address a series of specific points that various Members have made during the course of this debate. I will also try to address some of the broader questions, some of them quite fundamental, about the RHI scheme and its many and manifest problems and shortcomings. That is partly because those issues were raised in the debate, but also because we are going on to consider an amendment in Committee and it may help to have a bigger shared fact base. This will not answer all the questions that will, quite rightly, be raised in Committee, but it may at least lay the foundations of that debate and help us to address them at that stage.

As the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) rightly said, we have had quite a narrow debate although with widely shared views across the House. I strongly agree with one point that she made at the end of her remarks, which is that it is easy to forget, amid all the concern about the flaws in the RHI scheme, that it was introduced for a very noble purpose as part of an attempt to decarbonise our economy by increasing the amount of renewable energy in Northern Ireland. That is part of a broader tapestry of other initiatives that are being introduced right across the UK and, indeed, in other countries around the world. We clearly should not lose sight of that—it is a vitally important point.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the Minister agree that it is rather ironic that a scheme that is meant to decarbonise—for some people that is important; for others it is just an expensive burden on the economy—finishes up with wood being put into pellet form in North America, brought in ships across the Atlantic ocean, and then burned in boilers here in the United Kingdom? Does he really think that is a way of cutting down on carbon emissions?

[John Penrose]

The right hon. Gentleman said that he was not quite sure why burning wood was any better than burning other things, because the emissions are similar. If my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) were here, he would make the point that we have to be extremely careful about how we calculate the carbon footprint of some supposedly renewable fuels, because if we cut down virgin rainforests to grow things that are then pelletised and burned, the overall genuine carbon footprint is much worse than people like to pretend.

However, my hon. Friend would also make a sharp distinction between what I think is called long-cycle carbon—in other words, fossil fuels, where carbon has been locked away for millions of years, are a net release that makes an overall difference to the level of carbon—and short-cycle carbon, which is a sort of short-term recycling whereby things are grown in the course of our lifetime and burned. I will not try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, by going into the detail of the level of greenery, but I hope we can all agree that this scheme, with all its manifest flaws, intended to pursue a noble purpose.

Before I go on to the details of the RHI scheme, I will address a few other points. The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) asked a series of questions about Northern Ireland housing associations and, I think, was hoping to pin us down on when a piece of legislation might be introduced. I want to reassure him—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made this point, but I will repeat it—that the Government will take that forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) asked about the stronger towns fund and said that he did not feel he had enough of an answer yesterday; I want to ensure that we try to provide that today. He will be aware that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government made an announcement yesterday. The Treasury will apply the Barnett formula in the normal way and confirm the funding for each region in due course. We do not know that yet, but it will come out, and we will seek to ensure that towns in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland can benefit, building on the success of the Government’s growth and city deals.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the applicable costs of the RHI scheme. I will address that specific item before coming on to the broader points. The scheme guidance, which I am sure we are all itching to go through in huge detail, has been published, and it sets out clearly the eligible costs. They are primarily the costs of the boiler. He mentioned costs to do with installation, pipework and the like, and some of those are included as well. Interest costs on borrowing are apparently not included as an eligible cost in this scheme. I wanted to share that with everybody, so that we have a shared fact base before we go into Committee and discuss the detail of the amendment tabled by the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison).

Questions have been posed about the up-front payments and how they would be calculated for people who wanted to opt out of the scheme because they felt that if they remained in it, they would lose out too badly. Straightforwardly, an individual’s costs—that means the cost of installation, the capital cost of the boiler and other eligible installation and running costs—will all be included, and they will be reimbursed up to the 12% target rate of return for the revised scheme. All the additional costs of the renewable technology above a fossil fuel one will be reimbursed. That is crucial, because a number of Members have raised questions about what happens to people who are worried that they are going to lose out. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) read out an email he received from someone with precisely those concerns. If they are concerned that it will no longer be economic for them to stay in the scheme, they can opt out. It will be a free option for them, and they are guaranteed to have made 12% on their money if they decide to opt out at that stage.

[Lady Hermon]

The Minister needs to address the point raised by a number of right hon. and hon. Members about those who entered the scheme in good faith with the legitimate expectation that it would last for 20 years on a particular tariff. How do the Government square that and address that really key point?

[John Penrose]

I am very happy to address that point. There is one thing that I know a number of people have found shocking. In fact, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson)—I am probably slightly misquoting him, but this is broadly speaking what he said—was right to say that the RHI scheme as originally conceived has turned out, in spite of everyone’s best efforts, to be both a failure and a disgrace. Very sadly, he absolutely accurately describes what has happened.

It is also true to say—the hon. Member for Strangford was quite right to make the point—that very many did not go into the scheme with the intention of abusing it. Some of them were pastors in churches, and so on and so forth. The scheme was introduced for a good reason and, in the vast majority of cases, people entered into it for good reasons.

I therefore found it pretty shocking, and I am sure other people will share my shock, that of the participants involved—many of them with all the right intentions, as I have just described—80% have already, by today, received a 12% return for the entire 20 years of the scheme. If they did not get another penny piece, they would already have received a 12% return on their money. Even if there were another 14 years or however many years of the scheme left to run, since the day they entered it they have made a 12% return. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) is absolutely right to raise the question of legitimate expectations, but the participants have done incredibly well.

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[John Penrose]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman in a minute, if I may.

I remind Members that although the scheme as it was originally conceived was supposed to have an average return of 12%, the actual rate of return on average for people has been 50%—a 50% return on their money. That is extraordinary, particularly when we consider that that money comes out of taxpayers’ pockets. Quite legitimately, people have asked why provisions on the rates and on the RHI modifications have ended up in the same Bill. It is fair to say that there are only five substantive clauses in total for both those issues, but it is worth remembering that one of the reasons they are together is that the costs of this extraordinary bounty are not just magicked out of thin air or paid for by nobody.

[Ian Paisley]

rose—

[John Penrose]

I will take interventions in a moment, but I want to finish this point.

The costs are paid for by taxpayers, and by rate payers in Northern Ireland as much as by anybody else. It is important for us all to remember the fundamental injustice that this unintentional, but none the less very serious, miscalculation has caused. I will go on to talk about what the miscalculation was in a minute, but a number of colleagues want to intervene and I will go to the hon. Member for Strangford first.

[Jim Shannon]

I gave the example of one of my constituents, whose legitimate expectation was to have repayments over a 20-year period. He negotiated the loans accordingly at a bank—the bank is very strict when it comes to borrowing money—and invested somewhere between £250,000 and £500,000, as did some other constituents. Given the expectation of a 20-year roll-out, the impact on these small businesses and family farms will be extensive. Is it not right that the 20-year long-term plan should be delivered?

[John Penrose]

Some people will have done very well out of this scheme, but I think the House will have a great deal more sympathy with those who have received below the average. I think that is the point the hon. Gentleman is making. The average may be extremely high and some people have done extremely well, even including those who have not run their boilers all the time, lived with the windows open and so on, and he gave examples of people who have not done that. Those who have received well below the average and are worried that they are going to lose out because they are well below the 50% average rate of return that has been achieved so far will still be able to opt out and will be made good. None of the historical payments they have received will be counted if they decide to opt out, and they will basically be told, “You will have a 12% return based on the money you’ve invested so far.” There is a route out for people who are worried; they will still be made whole and should not lose out. They may not make out extraordinarily or become rich, but 12% is a return that many of us would be very happy to earn on most other investments.

[Tony Lloyd]

I am grateful that the Minister is being so generous with his time. None of us has any brief for those who have done extraordinarily well out of all this; they should not have been allowed to be so lucky, but we should not let that delay us. The reality is that it is accepted as part of the scheme that there may be losers, as is recognised in the buy-out clause that the Secretary of State and the Minister pray in aid. A 12% return seems quite a good rate, but the fundamental problem is that the cost that the Minister tells us will be allowable as the basis for that return is not the same as the cost of the boiler plus installation. We need a guarantee that the problems faced by the potential losers will not be compounded by an incompetently designed buy-out scheme that cannot work for them financially.

[John Penrose]

I am delighted to be able to set the record straight. I think that I have already mentioned this, but perhaps I can expand on it: the point about the buy-out scheme is that it will be a 20% return—sorry, it is minus payments already made; I misspoke. It is a 12% return on the capital costs of the boiler and the other eligible installation and running costs that I mentioned in my reply to the hon. Member for North Down. It will be tailored to individual circumstances, and obviously people will need to produce receipts and so on, but if they have ended up paying slightly more for their boiler, they will not lose out. The hon. Member for Rochdale raises a perfectly valid question, but people who might otherwise lose out should be made whole, as the hon. Member for Strangford pointed out.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate that the Minister is making the case that has been given to him by the Department, but the crucial thing is how we set the average, because that is the basis of the calculation. The shadow Minister cited a cost to a constituent of £76,237, which suggests that the average cannot be £35,000. The more general average cost of the scheme in Northern Ireland appears to be settling at £44,607, but the Department in Northern Ireland has set the average at £35,900. If that average is set wrongly, the Minister’s figures go out the window. The trouble is that we have to rely on what the Department is telling us, but—as the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee points out—we have no evidence for it. We should be able to challenge the figures, but we have not been given the evidence to enable us to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

We will have to come back to the question of how to get more evidence into the room, as it were, but I will try at least to answer some of the questions that have been raised today. I appreciate that I will not be able to answer every one—the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that—but I will try to cover as many as I can.

The averages that I am describing are average rates of return, which are calculated according to a whole range of things. Capital costs differ, because some people have bought bigger or more expensive boilers and because all sorts of other costs are involved, such as installation and fuel, but the target number is the average rate of return. As we have heard, the rates of return that are actually achieved will be distributed around that average; some people will do better, while some will do worse. That is why the buy-out scheme for those who will potentially lose out is so important. It is also worth while pointing out that the average rate of return is directly comparable across the rest of the UK. It will become 12% in Northern Ireland and it is 12% in Great Britain. As I understand it and for what it is worth—I appreciate this is of tangential relevance, but it is perhaps interesting information—the intended return of the Republic of Ireland scheme is 8%, not 12%.

[Lady Hermon]

The Minister, in response to a number of interventions, has repeatedly relied on data and detailed figures. Can he confirm that they are not in secret documents held in confidence within the Department for the Economy, and that they could be made public tonight and put in the House of Commons Library? I ask for the calculations to be published in the House of Commons Library within the next 24 hours. It is outrageous that we are being asked to approve a Bill tonight based on facts and figures that I certainly have not had sight of—perhaps others have—and I would like them to be made publicly available to the House within 24 hours.

[John Penrose]

There is an old saying that if you want something to be kept secret, you announce it on the Floor of the House of Commons and nobody will pay a blind bit of attention. I am trying to put some of the facts in, but I take the hon. Lady’s point. I will see if inspiration strikes me later on in my remarks as to whether that can be done, or whether my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can help in that regard. It is clear from everyone’s remarks on Second Reading that there is not just a thirst and an appetite but a genuine democratic need for proper scrutiny and for more details to be understood. That is what I am trying to do by what I am laying out now, but I take the hon. Lady’s point. Other Members have made a similar point. We had comments to that effect from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) the SNP spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), and the hon. Members for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), for North Antrim, for Strangford and for Bristol South.

I hope we have dealt with quite a lot of the points that were raised. The one point that I think remains at this stage—I am sure we will go into more detail in Committee in a moment—relates to process. Before I go any further, I should mention that a number of colleagues—there is clearly a political movement in North Antrim and in East Antrim—are pretty leery and worried about state aid rules. The hon. Member for North Antrim and the right hon. Member for East Antrim both raised this point and asked whether the state aid rules would continue after we leave the European Union. I am not sure if I am pleased or sorry to disappoint them both, but the answer is yes they will. We have agreed to port across, to begin with at least, all EU rules into UK law, including, obviously, state aid rules. They are both absolutely right to point out that it will then be up to this Parliament, rather than anybody else, to change them if we want.

However, we all need to be a little careful about what we wish for. For those of us who are free marketeers and free traders, or even those of us who are not but just want to see fair play, the changing of state aid rules needs to be approached with great care, because it can easily either slant the playing field in favour of foreign firms trying to export into Britain in ways that are unfair for British manufacturers and British producers, or alternatively create political favouritism and lobbying games. So we would need to approach that with a great degree of care. I know that it would be approached with a great deal of care on both sides of the aisle. It is theoretically possible, but on day one, I am sorry to tell the hon. Gentlemen from Antrim, they will not be changed and they will still apply.

Inspiration has just struck. I understand that the figures the hon. Member for North Down was asking about have already been published. They were published last May. We are trying to track down precisely where they are in order to make sure that they are properly available. I will come back to her, or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will come back to her, with the final version of the figures and make sure they are properly available. If we cannot track them down, we will try to come up with duplicates if we can.

[Lady Hermon]

The Minister said that the figures have been published. What I would really like are the calculations underlying those figures. We need to know how the figures were arrived at. Are those calculations in the public domain or can they be put in the public domain? That is what I would like to see.

[John Penrose]

I think the answer to the hon. Lady’s question is yes. I have not actually seen the figures—the ones published in May—but we will endeavour to clarify that and get them out there for her as soon as we can.

Let me finish by saying that there is a link between the decisions that have been taken by the Executive and where we are today. A number of colleagues asked whether the sunset clause will apply if we do not take a decision today. I remind people that back in March 2015, the Executive at the time took the decision to introduce some caps. Those were renewed roughly this time last year and expire at the end of March this year. That is the reason why we are so concerned about the timescale. I appreciate that this does not answer some of the questions about why we are having this conversation today rather than two weeks ago, or whenever it might be, but I reassure people that this is not something that someone has plucked out of the air. It has been extended on an annualised, fixed-term basis and is therefore due to expire at the end of this month. That is why this needs to be dealt with and sorted out, so that roughly 1,800 of the people who currently receive money can at least have the legal option of continuing to receive that money in future.

I should just say to the hon. Member for Gedling, who was muttering in concern, that when I said I had not seen the figures, I was talking about the precise figures that were published back in May. I have not seen those particular documents and therefore do not want to speak to what may or may not be in them at this stage rather than the broader point.

With that, I will sit down and let us move on to a more detailed conversation in Committee about the RHI scheme because there is clearly a material appetite to do that, and I do not want to stand in anybody’s way.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

2. What recent steps she has taken to support Northern Ireland’s business community.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

The Secretary of State and I have frequent discussions and meetings with Northern Ireland businesses; in the last few weeks I have met Newry chamber of commerce and trade, Thales, and Willowbrook Foods, and tomorrow I will meet Bombardier. The Government have provided £3.5 million for Queen’s Belfast precision medicine centre, £700,000 for Randox diagnostics, and £1 million for Northern Ireland SME research and development. This afternoon, we will legislate to hold business rates at a 0% real-terms rise as well.

[Tom Pursglove]

I very much welcome that work, but what specific steps has the Minister taken to promote Northern Ireland internationally as a successful business hub and first-class place to invest?

[John Penrose]

The numbers speak for themselves: over 900 international companies have already invested in Northern Ireland, supported by Government investments such as the ones I have mentioned in global sectors such as biomedicine and defence. Political stability has been a key foundation of this success, which is why restoring devolved government at Stormont is critical.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

How is the Minister going to reassure the business community today, after the very serious warning by the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, David Sterling, that there will be grave consequences if we have a no-deal Brexit?

[John Penrose]

I think a number of people will have raised their eyebrows at such politically charged comments from a civil servant. The point I would make is simply this: we have a meaningful vote coming up in this place next week where the Attorney General and the Prime Minister will be able to come back and tell us the fruits of their discussions in Brussels. The simple answer to avoiding any of the scenarios that people may or may not agree with which were being painted by David Sterling is to find a deal that will work and which therefore means we will not be in no-deal territory. That will, I hope, solve the problem for everybody.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Is the Minister concerned about the possible impact on small businesses of the changes proposed to non-domestic renewable heat incentives in the legislation that we are about to consider, and is he particularly cautious about advice he may be receiving from the energy Department, because it was that that Department that got us into this fix in the first place?

[John Penrose]

Without wanting to prejudge this afternoon’s debate—as my hon. Friend the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Chairman has said, we will be going through this in a lot more detail—he is absolutely right that the renewable heat incentive scheme has been the subject of a great deal of concerned commentary, because it has dramatically broken its budgets and is not a sustainable solution. I think everybody is treating any proposals with a great degree of concern and scrutiny because of that history, and I am sure we will have a chance to go through it in more detail, and we will try to ensure that any proposals that are legislated on do not suffer from the faults that existed in the previous version.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I have been married to a lady from County Armagh for quite some time. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Through my marriage I have come to know the image of Northern Irish food products, such as Black Bush, Tayto crisps and Flanagan’s most excellent sausage from the city of Armagh. Do the Government agree that marketing Northern Ireland’s special food could be one way to boost business in Northern Ireland, not just within the UK but to a world market?

[John Penrose]

Something that Britain and the UK have cottoned on to later than many other parts of the world is the notion of local food and its marketability, along with our ability to forge a local brand not just for food but for tourism more broadly as well. In congratulating the hon. Gentleman on his marital status, and his success in that regard, I am sure he is on to something important as well.

[Mr Speaker]

No reason to doubt that at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

5. What progress has been made towards the re-establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

We debated this point at some length in the Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) (No. 2) Bill yesterday, and the frustration from all sides at the lack of a Northern Ireland Executive was palpable. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned earlier, she has met representatives of the five main political parties in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government recently, and I can confirm that discussions have been ongoing since then.

[Christian Matheson]

Does the Minister share my concern at the increasing polarisation of politics in the UK, and particularly in Northern Ireland? Is he satisfied that there is sufficient diversity and pluralism within political representation there to make the re-establishment of the Assembly a success?

[John Penrose]

We elect the politicians we deserve. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there are periodic calls for a greater variety of representation and range of representation in this Parliament and, I am sure, in Stormont. The difficulty in Northern Ireland is that Northern Ireland’s politics has been far more polarised for a long time. We are trying, collectively, on all sides, to usher it back towards the centre ground and co-operation at least.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Will the Minister acknowledge that the lack in re-establishing the Assembly is not down to this party? This party does not have red lines; one party is causing the difficulty, and that is Sinn Féin. Will the Minister acknowledge that?

[John Penrose]

I will quote the Labour party spokesman, who said yesterday that the existence of preconditions or red lines was frequently a facet of talks processes. The point is to get a process that allows us to overcome those preconditions. If we allow ourselves to be sidetracked in the first place by their existence, we will never get anywhere towards succeeding.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

6. What steps she is taking to ensure that the process for addressing the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past commands public confidence and delivers on the objectives of the Stormont House Agreement. [R]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

7. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the backstop protocol in the EU Withdrawal Agreement.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

My right hon. Friend asks what discussions the Secretary of State has had with Cabinet colleagues about the Irish backstop. The short answer is, a lot. The country and this Parliament seem to have been discussing little else for weeks, and it is the same with knobs on for the Cabinet.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Surely, never has something so important, namely Brexit, been put at risk in preventing something that will never happen, namely a hard border in Northern Ireland. Why will the EU, the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom Government simply not attach an instrument to the withdrawal agreement, making it clear that we will never impose a hard border in Northern Ireland? That can be achieved in time and with good will, first with customs arrangements, then with a free trade deal backed by technology. It is so simple—let us do it.

[John Penrose]

My right hon. Friend raises a creative potential legal solution, which he discussed in an Adjournment debate two weeks ago. The whole House will know that the Attorney General is currently involved in detailed negotiations on how to modify the backstop in line with Parliament’s wishes. Ultimately, it must be for him to judge whether my right hon. Friend’s proposal gets him closer to a legally effective solution that will allow him to change his advice. I will make sure that the Attorney General is aware of the proposal so that he can incorporate it if it is worth while.

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

From the Minister’s discussions with ministerial colleagues, can he indicate whether they are indicating to him that, at this very late stage in our discussions with the European Union, a sliver of light is beginning to emerge that the EU understands the need for a fundamental change to the backstop?

[John Penrose]

I suspect that is well above my pay grade. I am sure we would all want to hear what the Attorney General and the Prime Minister have to say when it comes to the meaningful vote next Tuesday.

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

10. What recent assessment she has made of the security situation in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) (No. 2) Bill

John Penrose Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

Let me pick up from where my opposite number, the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), left off and say that I am pleased to hear—from, I think, everyone—that there is limited opposition to the Bill and that Members are willing to support it on a cross-party basis. That is incredibly welcome. This is perhaps an unusual example of cross-party unanimity and consensus; there have been some pretty stroppy debates in the last couple of weeks on a variety of subjects. It is lovely to be here on a day when agreement is breaking out across different parts of the House.

However, I do not want to overstate that degree of cross-party consensus and agreement because what was also widely shared was a sense of frustration. There was frustration at the lack of a Stormont Executive—we heard that from pretty much every speaker this afternoon—and inevitably, because it matches that lack of a Stormont Executive, frustration at the limits of the Bill. As we have heard repeatedly, the Bill is there to keep the wheels turning in Northern Ireland, but not to bring about much-needed reforms, because those reforms require a functioning Stormont Executive. We have also heard repeatedly a litany of things that are either not being done and need to be done, or are not being done as efficiently as they could be, simply because there is not the political air cover in Stormont that would enable much-needed decisions to be made to change what is happening.

I echo many Members—including the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison)—in saying that that is no criticism of the civil servants in either the Northern Ireland civil service or the Northern Ireland Office. They are honour bound to make decisions based on the last set of policy decisions available to them, some of which are two or three years old. They must try to draw a line between those policy decisions and remain true to them.

[Vernon Coaker]

May I repeat what I said earlier? I agree with what the Minister is saying and this is not meant to be critical. I accept that, given the lack of a devolved Administration in Northern Ireland, we cannot scrutinise the decisions of civil servants. May I, however, ask the Minister to reflect again on the fact that changes are being made in this budget on the basis of the advice of civil servants? While we may not want to scrutinise or criticise those decisions, no information is available to the House about why the changes should be made. Will he take on board what the Secretary of State has said and look again at what information is provided to the House so that we can base our decisions on more information than we have now?

[John Penrose]

I do take that on board, especially because I think that the hon. Gentleman was one of the last Ministers who had to deal with the issue of direct rule.

[Vernon Coaker]

No, I was not.

[John Penrose]

So I am giving the hon. Gentleman responsibilities that he never had to bear. Let me also mention to him that a Command Paper is currently available in the Library which gives a very detailed breakdown—it is well over an inch thick—of the way in which money has been spent in Northern Ireland during the financial year that is about to end. There is a huge amount of detail, but it is backward-looking. While it is helpful and, I am sure, welcome to all Members to ensure some degree of accountability, I think that all of us, including the Secretary of State, have agreed that we all hanker after a better process than this, but also that the fundamental and central problem is the lack of a functioning Executive in Stormont.

I was delighted to hear the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), clearly say that he did not think direct rule is justified at this stage. He is also right to say that, because of that and because of the shortcomings we have all been enunciating, there is a tariff for political failure at Stormont: I think that that was the phrase he used. The Chairman of the Committee quoted a reference to the “slow decay and stagnation” that is happening in Northern Ireland politics as a result, but rightly levelled the balance a little by referring to the restoration talks efforts made by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, and—again, rightly—was positive and full in his praise of both the Northern Ireland civil service and the NIO, and their unstinting efforts to do a professional job in an extremely difficult and increasingly challenging political environment.

[Sir Mike Penning]

Can I, in all fairness, challenge the Minister on the way he congratulated the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) in relation to direct rule? If direct rule is not the answer today, when will it be and, if it is not the answer soon, why?

[John Penrose]

A number of Members have said today that they would regard it as a last resort. I agree because we have to be incredibly careful about what we wish for here. We have to be extremely cautious about the notion of starting to take the drug of direct rule because it very swiftly leads to a very difficult and very precarious political position. I say to my right hon. Friend that there is a process laid out in primary legislation passed by this House—the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018—that says we have, first, five months and then, potentially renewable, a further five months in which to find a consensus and get an Executive re-established at Stormont. At that point, to answer his point about “If not now, when?” there are statutory obligations on the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that will require decisions to be made at those various different waypoints, but it is extremely dangerous and extremely difficult for us all to prejudge, or indeed to wish that those talks, stuttering though they are, but attempted though they definitely are, should not be given enough time to come to a sensible conclusion. I think everybody has been clear that that is what we want them to do; we want them to be successful if they possibly can be.

The SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), was of the same mind. He spoke about a paralysing political stalemate in Stormont that must not become the new normal, and I agree.

[Lady Hermon]

I am sure I am not the only one who blinked and drew breath when I heard the Minister use the words “the drug of direct rule.” Perhaps I misheard him, but I will give him the opportunity to pick a more appropriate noun to describe direct rule.

[John Penrose]

It was certainly not my intention to cause the hon. Lady to draw breath. The point I was trying to make is that direct rule is potentially extremely dangerous and can lead to a very difficult political situation if we are not all collectively very careful. It is not a step to be taken lightly, simply or frivolously at all.

[Tony Lloyd]

In agreeing with the Minister, it is probably worth pointing out that the last period of direct rule lasted five years. This was the total antithesis of the ambitions of the devolved Administration.

[John Penrose]

I strongly agree and I think there has been pretty much unanimous agreement across the House during this debate about that point.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Essentially, what the House understood by the Minister’s first remark and his reformulation is that short-term temptations can lead to situations that are adverse and undesirable.

[John Penrose]

Indeed.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) had a long list of local projects that are not happening and that he thinks could and should happen were there to be proper government led in Stormont, and so did the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson); he had a list of all sorts of missed opportunities—everything from mining to tourism was mentioned. Both of them had some interesting suggestions, which I will take away rather than react to now, about how we might perhaps exert more pressure through potentially changing rules in Stormont. I will treat them with the care with which they were offered, I am sure.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) was passionate in saying that Northern Ireland is on the cusp of a breakthrough—the economic performance and indeed the social cohesion in Northern Ireland are out-of-sight better than 10 or 20 years ago—but that it is being frustrated and that further progress could be made, but we are caught. I think he said that the governance of Northern Ireland is neither fish nor fowl—it is neither London nor local—and should this be solved, that would make a huge difference.

My opposite number, the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), spent some time talking about important issues to do with public services—health transformation budgets, for example—and how that money could be used to make some of the changes, because they were already agreed in policy before the Stormont Executive changed. But she was also right to point out, as others have done, that the amount of transformation that can be done is limited by the political constraints that everybody here has been describing.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

On the issue of health transformation, the permanent secretary at the Department of Health has made it clear that £100 million went into health transformation funding last year and another £100 million will go in this year as a direct result of confidence and supply money. He has welcomed this greatly, because it gives us an opportunity to roll out multidisciplinary teams and other things that can actually save money. These are not insignificant amounts of money. They are substantial amounts that are going to transform the health service as a result of the confidence and supply deal.

[John Penrose]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There is a significant transformation going on, and a significant amount of funds is going in to let that transformation happen, but it is also true to say that more transformation would be possible if there were political leadership as well. The civil service is limited not so much by the money at the moment; it is about the ability to take fresh policy decisions that would allow further progress to be made. That is the frustration under which we are all labouring during this Second Reading debate. On that basis, I plan to let us move on to consider the remaining stages of the Bill. I am delighted that there is cross-party consensus that it should proceed.

[Karin Smyth]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. In my remarks, I specifically asked, given the progress that the Government made on the Lord Chief Justice’s proposals, whether the Minister would give us an answer on progress towards having a medical school as part of Ulster University. The project is not only time critical but critical to the future provision of training places for doctors, particularly, in Northern Ireland, which would help to reduce the locum bill. We would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on that.

[John Penrose]

I shall respond swiftly, as I do not want to hold up the rest of the process. The hon. Lady is right to say that she asked that specific question. Let me make two comments in response. First, the judicial changes are not a Westminster Government decision. They are taken, rightly, by independent judiciary in Northern Ireland. Secondly, her question on the medical school needs to be addressed as part of the city deal discussions that are currently getting under way, and I would be happy to discuss that with local people and, if necessary, with her as well. With that, I propose to do something unusual for a politician: stop talking and sit down.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).

Draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Election Expenses) Order 2019

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Election Expenses) Order 2019.

It is good to have you in charge of us on this bright and sunny Tuesday morning, Mr Paisley. Given that you are the only person in the room who represents a Northern Ireland constituency, it is particularly fitting that you are in charge of our deliberations.

[The Chair]

Thank you for declaring my interest.

[John Penrose]

This is, I hope, a fairly straightforward measure, in that it is already in place for a great number of other elections in the United Kingdom. It is in place for parliamentary elections and Stormont Assembly elections in Northern Ireland, as well as for Scottish parliamentary elections and council elections in England.

Very simply, on the declaration of expenses that every candidate has to make, once the measure is in place those candidates will not have to count towards their election expenses control total any disability-related expenses. I hope everybody would agree that that is only fair and just. It will ensure, for example, that a candidate who has to incur extra expenses for mobility costs, or whatever it might be, is not at an electoral disadvantage as they run their campaign. [Interruption.] I see an intervention brewing.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

It has brewed. I just want a quick clarification. Is there a reason why the order refers to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and not to the subsequent legislation that has replaced it for the rest of the UK?

[John Penrose]

As I understand it, the important thing is to take whatever is currently operative for Northern Ireland piece by piece and clause by clause. In many cases, bits of Acts have been replaced by subsequent Acts, but on occasion old sections are still in effect for specific points. I can get the hon. Gentleman a more detailed answer if he absolutely needs chapter and verse and the marshalled list, but that is what is happening in general. The important thing is that the order has to work technically, and it therefore has to take on and amend whatever piece of legislation is currently in force.

I was part way through explaining that the order means not only that candidates who have disability-related expenses will not have to count them towards their election expenses total or declare them, but that personal expenses—this applies to everybody, whether they have a disability or not—will be exempt from the overall expenses control total, although those will have to be declared. As I said, those measures are in place for a wide variety of elections in the UK.

The order has to be made here in the Westminster Parliament because this is not a devolved matter in Northern Ireland. Therefore, constitutionally, it rightly falls to us to put it through. It will bring everything into line and, crucially, it will do so in time for the local elections. We clearly need to get it in place before the start of the election expenses control period, which will begin later in March.

With that, Mr Paisley, I propose to do something unusual for a politician, which is to stop talking and lay the room open to other people’s contributions.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I am delighted that there is cross-party consensus on this matter. I echo the hon. Lady in saying that there are many devolved matters that we all want to see dealt with by a properly constituted devolved Assembly in Stormont. Bring on that day! It cannot happen soon enough for all of us. That aside, since it is not directly relevant, I commend the order to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) Regulations 2019

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointment Functions) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to have your hand on the tiller for our proceedings, Mr Walker. I do not propose to take a great deal of time setting out the statutory instrument initially, because it is simply one of those that are forced on us by the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive at Stormont. This is not something that anyone here particularly wants to have to pass as an SI through the Westminster Parliament, but we have to do that simply because there are a small number of ministerial appointments for the smooth running and good governance of Northern Ireland that have become both urgent and important and without which good governance in Northern Ireland would be increasingly difficult.

The positions, ranging from the Attorney General for Northern Ireland through to member or chair of the Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Super- annuation Committee, are listed in regulation 2(2) and (3). It is notable and welcome that the SI is short, covering just two sides of a piece of paper. I am very happy to go through any one of those offices for anyone who has particular questions about why it is included and when the current incumbents’ terms of office are due to finish, if the Committee is interested, but the initial indications informally, before we tabled the regulations, were that this is relatively uncontroversial and straight- forward legislation. Therefore, I do not propose to go into lots of detail unless required, but of course other members of the Committee may feel differently—I feel an intervention coming on.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for letting me intervene. I understand why the Government have to introduce an SI such as this to cater for such appointments. As he rightly says, it reflects the absence of devolved government over quite a long period. May I ask him this? Apart from the piecemeal approach set out in such SIs, has there been a broader discussion in Government about the restoration of direct rule?

[John Penrose]

I can confirm that those meetings and discussions—sometimes very privately bilaterally, sometimes more broadly—are ongoing. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have primary legislation that we passed just over four months ago that is due to be extended, if Parliament feels that that is right, in order to allow time—two five-month consecutive periods—for the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland.

Until those two five-month periods have been completed, we are trying to create a space in which talks about talks and discussions about how to restore the Executive can be undertaken. If at the end of the first five months, we do not decide to renew for the second five months, or if at the end of the second five months we are still without a devolved Administration in Northern Ireland, at that stage that primary legislation lapses and at that point the Secretary of State’s existing legal duties to hold a local election in Northern Ireland come back into force—that is the purpose of the legislation—and therefore everybody, on all sides, has an interest in trying to ensure that the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland are restored as soon as that can be done.

I can see that the right hon. Gentleman wants to intervene again, but I will just make one more point before he does. These six examples of appointments are just the ones that are both urgent and important. There is a lengthening list of policy changes and other issues, which is growing every day, that would be far better served, for the people of Northern Ireland, if a devolved Executive were in place to take those decisions and to get government in Northern Ireland moving again. This is not something where pressure is going down; pressure is rising steadily. I am sure that I speak for everyone here—I hope I do—when I say that I am sure everyone wants to see the restoration of devolved government. That was central to the Belfast agreement. Everyone will understand that it is far better to have a functioning local democratic Administration in Northern Ireland, if at all possible, and with that I will give way once more.

[Mr McFadden]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his patience. I agree, as we all do, I am sure, with what he says about the desirability of restoring devolved government. Most of his comments in response to me have been about how much effort the Government have been putting into that, which is absolutely great, but my question was: has there been any discussion about what happens if that does not work? Will the Government end up having to make a decision they do not want to make and restore direct rule?

[John Penrose]

The legal position is that after the five months, which come to an end in March, Parliament must decide whether to grant a second five months, all the time working and hoping for and, we hope, supporting the notion of restoring devolved government in Northern Ireland. If at the end of the second five months, or if there is no renewal for those second five months, the Secretary of State has an existing legal duty that is currently in suspension to consider whether a further election in Northern Ireland would be required. That is the legal requirement, rather than a requirement to return to direct rule. I know that everyone would want to avoid going to direct rule and would, therefore, want us to consider direct methods of getting a local election going in Northern Ireland, if necessary. Clearly, the best option is to restore existing Members of the Legislative Assembly to their place in Stormont.

With that, I propose to do something unusual for a politician and that is to stop talking, sit down and see whether anyone wishes me to answer any questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I thank the Opposition for their kind support. I appreciate that I tempted fate by saying this is an uncontroversial piece of legislation, so I am grateful for their support to avoid my being proven too badly wrong. Incidentally, I remember fondly my excursion to Ealing, Southall, where I ate a great deal of curry, although I cannot say I troubled the scorers much more than that. It was a great time to learn the basics of campaigning. I think that the hon. Gentleman was first elected at the same time as I was not elected, but he was campaigning with a great deal more aplomb and certainly a great deal more success than I was at the time.

[Stephen Pound]

On a point of order, Mr Walker, the Minister and I both attempted to unseat the incumbent. In my case, it was Harry Greenway in Ealing North, and in his case, it was the late Piara Khabra in Ealing, Southall. One of us succeeded.

[The Chair]

I think that was a debating point, not a point of order. It was a very fine debating point.

[John Penrose]

Moving swiftly on, the hon. Gentleman asked about the process of appointments and what would happen in a couple of different scenarios, such as if incumbents were not going to stand or if people might not be reappointed. The simplest answer is that the process for all the appointments will be governed through the independent regulation process. That is either the Commissioner for Public Appointments for the UK or the Commissioner for Public Appointments for Northern Ireland. We are required to follow some very important and straightforward rules, and we will of course be following them in every case. I am not sure whether they necessarily require full consultation with Opposition parties, but they are designed to ensure a proper, independent and, as far as possible, entirely transparent and meritocratic process is followed. We will of course follow that wherever we can.

[Stephen Pound]

May I put down a marker and say that in the case of judicial appointments, we would very much appreciate at least being involved? I am not asking for a veto; I am saying that due to the serious and sometimes controversial nature of judicial appointments, we on the Opposition Benches would like at least to be in the picture.

[John Penrose]

The hon. Gentleman brings me neatly on to the second point he raised, which was about appointments other than those listed in the regulations. May I at this stage keep our collective powder dry and say that were we to need to add to the list in the regulations by bringing forward other SIs to extend it—everybody hopes we will not have to—that would inevitably be subject to the normal parliamentary process of scrutiny? I am sure that he will have an opportunity to raise that point and/or any others, depending on what other positions are listed in those potential SIs, as those other positions come forward.

I hope that has answered all the hon. Gentleman’s questions and that I have not tempted fate or tested anyone’s patience too much in our consideration of this uncontroversial piece of legislation.

Question put and agreed to.