Queen’s Speech

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, it is interesting where the applause for that comment came from. At this late stage in the evening, it is hard to say things that are unique, but I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, to the Front Bench, with the unbounded enthusiasm that we will no doubt knock out of him as time goes on.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, pointed out that this year we will have a Scotland Bill, a Wales Bill and a Northern Ireland Bill. If that sounds familiar, it is because last year we had a Scotland Bill, a Wales Bill and a Northern Ireland Bill. It is immediately obvious to everybody that we have a Lego kind of constitution, which we are putting bits into and pulling bits out of as we go along, and there appears to be no overarching plan. This is very disturbing.

The convention that has been lobbied for is one model. I think that my noble friend Lord Trimble and I are the only Members of this House who were members of an elected constitutional convention. That happened many years ago and was a great success, was it not? It took another 20-something years to get to the point where we had an agreement. However, whether it is a convention or a commission or the Lord Chancellor appoints an advisory group or whatever—I would not be precious over the methodology—we need to have constitutional coherence in our policies in this country, which unfortunately is missing. We understand the vagaries of the political process and why it is the way it is. Things have happened—Macmillan famously commented, “Events, dear boy, events”—and we have been reacting to events. We are not directing events, we are not controlling events, and we are sadly not influencing events, which is a matter of grave concern.

I shall turn briefly to the devolution side of things, because obviously we watch with very great concern what is going on in Scotland. I have no doubt that in his demure, quiet and diplomatic fashion the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, who follows me, will have a word or two to say on that. I believe that we are in severe difficulties, because ironically Nicola Sturgeon said that if a referendum were held on the European Union, all parts of the United Kingdom would have to tick the box to say yes. I did not see her go on to say that in the European Union if decisions had to be taken every part of the European Union would have to tick the box, because that is a totally different argument. We are not dealing properly with the Scottish question. We got so many things wrong. The question was wrong, the timing was wrong and the campaign was wrong. Everything was wrong, and we are reeling from that. As many Scottish noble Lords have said, we need to rethink our position.

My part of the country is Northern Ireland. As one of those who were able to assist my noble friend Lord Trimble in getting the devolution settlement in 1998, I am deeply disappointed at the way things have gone. I always felt that we could use the devolved Administration to do something different on behalf of the people. We are gradually reaching the tipping point where if things go on as they are at Stormont, one will be unable to say that it is helping the people of Northern Ireland. We are very close to that.

One of the reasons, and a mistake that we are making in devolution generally, is the idea of “legislate and forget”: in other words, we draw up a piece of legislation, devolve the issue and Westminster walks away. That is a mistake. It was made in 1921. If Westminster had kept an active interest in what was happening in Northern Ireland and if it keeps an active interest in Scotland and Wales, we will avoid problems. “Legislate and forget” does not work. It merely reinforces what I have said before in this House: that devolved Administrations become ATM machines, the local politicians spend the money, and if there is not enough of it the evil legislators in London are responsible. We are not linking this Parliament to the money and to the people there. I am for devolution, but it has to be within a context and not simply, “Hand over and then forget about it”. That would be a mistake.

Sadly, we are now facing another crisis at home. We have a Bill which the Minister has announced to implement the Stormont House agreement. As we stand here tonight, there is no Stormont House agreement. I hope that will change tomorrow when the leaders meet the Secretary of State and the Irish Government, and I wish them well, but I fear another press-gang coming along looking for more money. That is the mechanism that Sinn Fein has used to disguise the fact that what it is really doing in reneging from the Stormont House agreement is trying to protect its electoral interest in the Republic of Ireland next year, and it is prepared to sacrifice the interests of ordinary working people in Northern Ireland. We are losing at least £2 million a week, which is being taken out of our budget because of the failure to implement the agreement, and not only that: we are losing far more in what could flow from the Stormont House agreement. Hundreds of millions of pounds are being lost.

It is not purely down to the welfare issue. Sadly, I have to say, it is down to gross financial mismanagement by Stormont over a number of years. It was given its budget for the year ending March this year in October 2010, and this year’s budget in June 2013. Until the crisis last autumn, no action was taken to get the expenditure to meet the budget. For the first time since 1921, Stormont was about to default and had to go to the Treasury to get this Wonga loan to try to bail it out for this financial year, otherwise it would have defaulted. Now it is back in another mess. Not only is it not fully implementing the welfare but it is now borrowing hundreds of millions of pounds to pay off 20,000 workers, when it should have been gradually running the thing down over a period of years at effectively no cost because it would have been natural wastage. The reductions it is asking the Civil Service to make have not been made. It keeps asking it do more but then puts forward schemes to pay its employees off. It is paying them off, but at the moment it is only being allowed to borrow the money to do that. Now, because of the Stormont House agreement, it is not able to do that, so all those people have applied for a scheme that is currently endangered.

The voluntary and community sector is in an even worse position: some of the people have not had money for months because nobody knows what the budget is. That sector is doing such good work. It makes up 5% of the Northern Ireland economy and represents some of the most vulnerable people, yet it is living from hand to mouth. Some of the people who work for those organisations are in tears because they do not know what their future is and the money is locked up. That is not good governance.

I have to ask the Minister, and I hope he addresses this in the wind-up, whether more money is going to be paid to the parties, should they come here looking for it, or whether what we have in the Stormont House agreement is a solid figure that has to be stuck to. That is a fundamental question, and if we do not know the answer to that, what happens tomorrow may happen under false pretences. People need to know that and hear that. I hope that it works tomorrow, although I have my doubts.

The point I would like to emphasise and close on is this: we should not turn our backs on the institutions devolved from this Parliament. That was a mistake that was made before, and if we keep on going the way we are going we will repeat the same mistake again. I hope we will not do so, given the Scottish example. We need to fight for the union. We need to sell the case for the union and for togetherness, and to re-establish some British identity. I do not look upon myself as a separate unit that has floated off somewhere else. That is not what the union means to me. The whole purpose of it has to be set out clearly and articulated with some enthusiasm, and not simply left to others to articulate. I therefore ask the Front Bench to bear those things in mind.

Finally, I also ask the Front Bench to pay close attention to my noble friend Lord Bew, who made some excellent points. There are those who are trying to rewrite history. The number of victims whose names we never hear have just as much a case as those who happen to have support groups to push their case. If we go on trying to dig and tear at those scabs for ever, we will never get the peace that we seek and deserve.