Northern Ireland Assembly Election

Lady Hermon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I have said that an election campaign that seeks to divide and to make it that much harder to bring people back together again afterwards is clearly a risk, and one that I am concerned about. Again, I encourage people to think about these issues very carefully. It is clear that the issues at stake here go much wider than simply the renewable heat incentive scheme, which was perhaps the catalyst that crystallised this. We need to be very careful, and we need to appreciate what is at stake here. Again, it is so important that people are able to work together and to maintain communication and dialogue so that we see the return of shared government in Northern Ireland for all communities at the earliest possible opportunity.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

The Secretary of State has quite rightly said that trust and confidence in the institutions in Northern Ireland have to be rebuilt. One of the best ways of doing that is transparency, including transparency on the renewable heat incentive scheme and, with the greatest of respect to him, on the political parties operating in Northern Ireland, and on the donations to them. Sinn Féin has precipitated this election. The people in Northern Ireland are entitled to know who is funding Sinn Féin, who is funding this premature Assembly election and, by the same token, who is sponsoring and funding the other political parties in Northern Ireland. Please do not tell me that that is a good idea and that the Secretary of State will reflect on it. What is he going to do about it?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Lady has rightly made the point on political donations and transparency over a number of weeks and months, and I have a huge amount of sympathy for the view she rightly takes. That was why I wrote to all the party leaders a short time ago to ask them to come back to me with their views by the end of this month so that we can move things forward. It is right that we look at that reform and start to put in place changes that give that greater transparency to politics in Northern Ireland. That is why I have written, and I look forward to receiving the responses so that we can move forward.