Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th December 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Coaker]

8: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Report on implementation of The New Decade, New Approach Deal
(1) The Secretary of State must lay a report before each House of Parliament and before the Northern Ireland Assembly no later than six months after the date on which this Act is passed.(2) The report under subsection (1) must set out—(a) whether, and how, each provision of this Act has been implemented, and(b) what plans the Government has to bring forward further legislative proposals to implement the remainder of The New Decade, New Approach Deal.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause requires the Government to report on what parts of The New Decade, New Approach Deal have been achieved under this Act, and what plans the Government has to implement the remainder of the deal.

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I apologise to the Committee for my late arrival. I was unavoidably detained. I will read Hansard to discover the various contributions that have been made. It was very interesting to hear the thoughtful contributions about the constitutional issues that are emerging as a result of different policy decisions.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, that, notwithstanding what she has just said, I hope that she appreciates the reason I tabled this probing amendment. I know that among all the huge constitutional clashes that there are at the moment and the deep concerns arising from the protocol, some may regard an amendment which seeks to lay a report after six months to see how far New Decade, New Approach has got may not seem to be of huge political relevance, but it is important that we discuss it. That is why I tabled my probing Amendment 8. I also support Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie.

I thought that the Minister would say that much of this is beyond the scope of the Bill. Since we are talking about the implementation of New Decade, New Approach, I thought the Minister would be interested in ensuring that I spoke only to Annexe A. It is the Government’s financial and economic commitments to Northern Ireland as agreed in New Decade, New Approach, so it is the document that underpins it. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, said. He spoke about the need for education, environment and health. All that is laid out in New Decade, New Approach. The purpose of my amendment is simply to ask the Government what happens to all this? The constitutional debate goes on, but alongside that there are the very real issues that the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, raised. Other members of the Committee will know better than me and understand the concerns of the people of Northern Ireland.

The annexe sets out the areas that the UK Government’s financial commitment will cover and the conditions that would be attached. Such a report in six months would no doubt detail the financial commitments that the Government have made to Northern Ireland in order to meet everything that is laid out in New Decade, New Approach. I will be interested if the Minister can lay out the financial package that has been made available to Northern Ireland and the additional money made available to ensure the delivery of New Decade, New Approach.

For example, it talks about

“Providing the Executive with additional support for 2020/21, and addressing the health crisis”


and

“Providing additional funding for the Executive in 2020/21 … to place Northern Ireland’s finances on a sustainable footing, and address its priorities, such as delivering parity with England and Wales for nurses’ pay”.


It would be interesting to know whether that is actually happening, is a government aspiration or is just on the back burner.

Under “transforming public services”, as well as health, it talks about

“a better and more efficient education system”

and

“Ensuring faster, fairer justice”.


Under “turbocharging infrastructure”, there is

“Essential sewage … ‘Better Connecting Dublin and Belfast’ strategy … A5/A6 roads”,


et cetera. These may be regarded as devolved matters, but what is the financial commitment from the UK Government to allow the devolved institutions to deliver them? I am not trying to impact on the decision-makers; I am simply laying out what the Government have said are important for them to support to enable the devolved institution—the Northern Ireland Assembly or whoever controls it—to deliver these things for the benefit of the people of Northern Ireland.

New Decade, New Approach talks about implementing the Stormont House agreement. For the benefit of time, we will move over that and assume it has gone or will at least be a debate for another day on legacy issues. That has been replaced.

It goes on to talk about

“Addressing Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances”.


I am sorry to take up this time, if the Committee does not mind. It is Committee and it allows this level of detail. This is particularly important, as the document was signed by all the major parties. I accept the point made by the Ulster Unionists that they received it late, but it was generally supported by all five major parties of Northern Ireland and accepted as a way of restoring the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is massive. To be fair to the Secretary of State, it was an achievement on his part, as it was for the five parties and the Irish Government.

We have all these different things, such as

“Additional funding to support mental health”.


The people of Northern Ireland will be interested in

“Additional funding for tackling paramilitarism”.


I read that there is a commitment to fund 7,500 police. Does the Minister know how many police officers there are in Northern Ireland? The latest number I could find was 6,900, so they are 600 short. Are the Government committed to funding that 600? That is in the financial commitment. The people of Northern Ireland would be interested to know whether the 600 will be funded to provide the additional police laid out in New Decade, New Approach.

It mentions

“A Culture and Community fund”


and

“Funding to support … the 2021 centenary and related projects”.


I accept that the pandemic has made some of this difficult. Again, I know that “languages and broadcasting” are difficult, but again it is laid out here. There is support for all that. They are huge spending commitments that the UK Government have made to the people of Northern Ireland. As laid out in my amendment, there should be a report to this Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly or the people of Northern Ireland to explain what has happened to this. Whether that is in three months, six months, a year or 18 months is irrelevant. What has happened to these commitments? It is no wonder people find themselves a little despairing or unsure of reality sometimes. What does this mean? Is it worth the paper it is written on? Of course it is, but how is it being delivered, what is going to happen and when?

Then it talks about the

“Conditions of the UK Government Financial Commitments in Support of a Restored Northern Ireland Executive”


and an “independent Fiscal Council”. People will tell me whether we have that or not, but I am interested.

“There will be regular (quarterly) reviews of UK Government funding provided under this agreement, and implementation of all agreements via a UK Government-NI Executive Joint Board.”


The Minister will tell me that that has been set up and has met quarterly. It will be interesting if it has, but perhaps the Minister will confirm whether that is going to meet, has met or is just something written on the paper.

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[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, for these amendments. If I may, I will on this occasion take them in reverse order.

As I mentioned at Second Reading, the Bill follows the standard practice of allowing two months before provisions come into effect following Royal Assent. However, I have listened to the arguments and I am very happy to repeat the assurance I gave the noble Baroness at Second Reading that we will go away and return to this matter on Report. She has my assurance on that point.

I turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. He raised a number of important points about the implementation of the agreement. He reeled off, if I may say, quite a long list from Annex A—

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Not all of it.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

No, not all of it, but I hope he will forgive me if I do not reply in detail to each and every point. I will look at Hansard and write to him on any that I have missed.

The noble Lord was particularly focused on a number of the financial commitments. I can tell him that, thus far, the Government have allocated over £700 million of the £2 billion funding in New Decade, New Approach, which had the impact of ending the nurses’ pay dispute he referred to in his comments. As I mentioned at Second Reading, we have already contributed towards the creation of the Northern Ireland graduate-entry medical school in Londonderry and supplemented the new deal for Northern Ireland with £400 million to promote Northern Ireland as a cybersecurity hub. The noble Lord referred to the fiscal council, which has been established. It was originally a commitment in the fresh start agreement, which was repeated in New Decade, New Approach. That has been established.

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I will say that, sensing the mood of the Committee and having taken on board a number of the comments and sentiments expressed, if the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment, I will commit to taking this issue away and exploring it further.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s response, particularly the last sentence or two. I think all noble Lords in the Committee today will be pleased with the response from the Minister and his commitment to do that; it would be very helpful and I thank him sincerely. The whole purpose of the amendment was clearly not to divide the House.

I am not as well versed as I used to be in issues with regard to Northern Ireland, Ireland, British-Irish relations and some of the broader issues, but I suspect—in fact I took a straw poll of the people around me—that much of what the Minister was saying was news to people, frankly, and a lot of it is really good news. As I keep saying, the constitutional debates will happen and are difficult, but some of the other matters are not as difficult. I was quite inspired by the New Decade, New Approach agreement, which, as I say, many people in this Room will have been privy to negotiating. It is an inspirational document, balancing all the different competing claims and narratives.

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but finish with this point. I noted that the Minister said that, so far, £700 million had been spent on the commitments in New Decade, New Approach and that £2 billion was the total commitment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.