Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I offer my support to the Government for the broad thrust of the legislation this afternoon. I want to address two aspects. On the Northern Ireland Assembly Members (Pay) Bill, the Government have been very careful and have calibrated not to take action that would precipitately destroy the Northern Irish political class. On one level it looks vaguely absurd to pay people not to do their jobs, but we have a genuinely difficult situation in Northern Ireland and it is not the individual responsibility of a very large number of the Assembly Members that no accommodation has been reached between Sinn Féin and the DUP to allow the Assembly to be reinstated. The Government have taken a careful and wise approach to this. In particular, the point already made about research staff is a good one.

Having said that, I listened carefully to the Minister’s words and I understand completely why the Government do not want to do anything that smells of fully fledged, all-singing, all-dancing direct rule. On the other hand, he said that the Government will not ignore or walk away from their responsibility to govern Northern Ireland. A number of legacy issues have been discussed in this House this afternoon on which there is cross-party support in Westminster and Northern Ireland. There is also a smaller issue, of interest to quite a few of us, which is simply a decision on whether the Commonwealth Youth Games can take place in Belfast in 2021. It again has cross-party support in the other place. I should like to hear from the Minister whether, for example, on an issue such as that, the Government acknowledge that they may well have to take the decision themselves, although we all hope that they will not have to.

My most important point this afternoon concerns the transparency of this legislation. The Government have little choice but to move ahead on the budget in this way, but the Minister may be aware that there has been comment in the local press about the terseness of information. John Simpson, the distinguished economist, formerly of Queen’s University Belfast, made the point that it is difficult to assess some of these meanings without five-year tables and to work out exactly what we are talking about in real-terms expenditure. Indeed, he poses the question: seven of the nine departments are suffering real-terms cuts, so what does that actually mean?

The Government are entirely right not to want to move towards anything that looks like all-singing, all-dancing direct rule. On the other hand, to provide information about the public finances of Northern Ireland to the people of Northern Ireland is a positive thing, and more could be done here. The blog “Research Matters”, produced by the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service, again makes the point that the latest government statement makes proper full comparisons very difficult. In this interim period, it may be helpful to debate some of those issues to spell out exactly what is going on in the public finances of Northern Ireland.

By the way, there are difficult questions for the people of Northern Ireland. Why is our health service expenditure rising? We all know that health service expenditure rises in the rest of the UK largely on the grounds of the ageing population. We have a younger population, but still our health service expenditure rises. Why, when our unemployment is now so relatively low, are we spending 20% more on social security than the rest of the United Kingdom? Those are real issues—and, in the interim, the transparency debate and the production of more figures showing what the budget really means are not stopping the return of Stormont. Those are all things that will mean, when the new Ministers come back, as I firmly believe and devoutly hope they will, that they are better informed than they currently are. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, is right: one of the essential points about the RHI scandal is an unusual degree of illiteracy about the public finances that seems to affect the administrative and political class of Northern Ireland. This period should be used at least to address and challenge it more than we are doing. Certainly, the figures that are now being released are just too terse and do not perform the service that the public need. I have already raised with the Minister the question of knowing the education figures but not the balance between higher education and the rest of the sector. I look for some help from the Minister on this matter.