Baroness Hoey
Main Page: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Hoey's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Villiers
I can outline the financial package, but it is a fair one. It was not a blank cheque. It recognises that Northern Ireland faces specific problems that the rest of the United Kingdom does not. In outline, it involves £150 million over five years to help to fund work on the past; flexibility to use £700 million of capital borrowing to fund a voluntary exit scheme for four years; a contribution of up to £500 million over 10 years of capital funding for shared and integrated education; £350 million of borrowing for capital infrastructure projects; and the flexibility to use the receipts from asset sales and capital funding to repay the welfare shortfall payments.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I welcome the replacement of the Parades Commission, which in my view has done more harm than good. May I take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds)? There is one parade that is causing huge long-term problems in north Belfast. Will the Secretary of State get involved personally? Will she talk to the Orange Order directly? Will she visit Twaddell avenue camp, as many of us have, and actually talk to the people there to understand why they feel so strongly about this very small amount of road that people are deliberately trying to stop them going back along? Until that is sorted, none of this talk about parades commissions or new bodies will work. She has the power to get this solved.