Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill

Lord Lexden 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 Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, as we all know, these Bills are the inevitable consequence of the deeply unfortunate circumstances in which our fellow countrymen and women in Northern Ireland find themselves as a result of the failure of their political parties to agree on the means by which devolved government can be restored. Sinn Féin, buoyed up by electoral advance, has over recent months raised its terms for returning to government, prompting a widespread suspicion that it does not really want to return at all, while seeking to foist the blame for continuing deadlock on the Democratic Unionist Party. Political stability in Ulster is never likely to be a high priority for an organisation dedicated ultimately to removing Northern Ireland from our country. When power-sharing was first conceived, the possibility of Sinn Féin entering the seats of power did not feature in anyone’s worst nightmares.

Fortunately, in today’s very different conditions, we have a United Kingdom Government to whom the union is precious, as Mrs May has repeatedly made clear. It is the duty of Parliament, and of the Government accountable to it, to provide directly for the Province’s good governance if it cannot be secured in any other way. Exactly the same duty would arise if devolved government in Scotland or Wales ran into serious difficulties.

When the Northern Ireland Assembly is absent, Ulster lacks not only democratically accountable devolved government but an upper tier of local government answerable to elected representatives. Shortly before their suspension in 1972, the last Ulster Unionist Government passed legislation as part of their ambitious reform programme—now generally forgotten—which transferred all the principal local government services from county and county borough councils to Stormont, leaving only minor powers with a new set of district councils, now 11 in number. No other part of our country is in a similar position.

The logic of the reform was impeccable, not least because of the controversy that had raged since the partition of Ireland about the tendency of both unionist and non-unionist councils to show undue favour towards their own supporters. It was agreed that an all-Ulster institution would be better placed to discharge responsibility fairly, particularly since, in a very modest way, power-sharing was now beginning to be considered by the Ulster Unionist Party under Brian Faulkner, a man whom I greatly admired and who was all too briefly a Member of this House before his sudden death in a riding accident in 1977.

However, that important reform more than 40 years ago means that, today, Ulster has a very large democratic deficit. The fact that a Bill is before us to set a regional rate in the Province, which still retains the old system of local government finance—as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, reminded us—is a stark reminder of Ulster’s double democratic misfortune. Officials in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, highly regarded for the most part but now unanswerable to elected representatives in Ulster or to Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office, are in charge of all services above the district council level. Nothing quite like this has been seen in our country since the 19th century.

Plainly, Northern Ireland as it finds itself today needs these three measures. The pay of Members of the Assembly must of course be docked to an appropriate extent, as an independent review has advised, since they cannot perform their legislative role and are limited to providing an advisory service to their constituents and to acting as a conduit between them and civil servants in the Northern Ireland departments. Above all, Northern Ireland needs the elegantly phrased Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill. It provides full legal approval, as we have heard, for public spending in the financial year that is drawing to a close and will keep the money flowing into vital public services in the first part of the financial year that will begin shortly.

There is widespread agreement about the central question which now arises. As several Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies asked in the other place last week—the noble Lord, Lord Browne, raised the matter again today—who is to decide the allocation of money to ensure that sustained progress can be made in improving services: above all, education and health, where major reforms are so badly required? Acute controversy always and naturally arises in such circumstances. Are civil servants to be left to face it as best they can, or will serious reform once again be delayed in the continued absence of an Assembly, damaging vital services still further?

It was deeply disturbing to listen recently to a delegation of mental health experts from the Province who addressed a group of Members of both Houses. Issues that need to be settled so that an adequate service can be delivered to those suffering acute mental health problems are constantly deferred. Meanwhile, the suicide rate remains shockingly high. We have heard other serious instances from the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Empey, of important decisions delayed. The Government provide us with no assessment of the likelihood of restoring devolution and the upper tier of local government that is bound up with it. For 15 months they have kept on saying that they are working tirelessly to secure agreement among the Northern Ireland parties, and that they are focused entirely on that task, but nowhere is success keenly anticipated, to put it mildly. It is hard not to conclude that the impasse will continue unless Sinn Féin scales back its heightened demands, and of that there is, sadly, no sign.

Instead of waiting interminably for circumstances to change, is it not time to shift the focus so that it rests on the best means of securing the good governance of our fellow countrymen and women in Northern Ireland in the circumstances that actually face them and us today? Indeed, after 15 long months, is that not our duty?