Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, when you speak at this stage of a debate, there is not a lot left to say. I think some noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, have been reading some of the material that I have been reading. So, while I have it all here, I will not repeat it, because that might take away from it.

I was very struck by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, saying that the DUP was reacting disproportionately to the protocol. Well, I say to her that, when you tamper with the constitution of any country, having given a prior understanding and agreement that there will be no change without consulting the people of that country, you are asking for trouble—and that has happened in our country.

I am sure that as your Lordships have listened, you now have a fair idea of what is causing the severe hiatus in Northern Ireland. It is, of course, the Northern Ireland protocol. The Minister here should not be delivering this budget Bill. There is not one of us on these Benches who want it that way; we would prefer that it was done in Northern Ireland, by Northern Ireland Ministers. But the protocol is the wrecking ball that landed the Executive and Assembly in total chaos. We have to say, without any degree of satisfaction, that they will not be coming back until the protocol is dealt with. The sooner the Government apply themselves earnestly to that task, the sooner there is a chance that we will see the return of some semblance of democracy in Northern Ireland. We say to the Government this evening: please get your act together and deal with the protocol, and then the Minister will not be here at some future date delivering a budget Bill.

Delivering a budget Bill with a mandatory coalition is not a straightforward exercise by any stretch of the imagination. My own party held that position at one time, and Sinn Féin has held it, but the remarkable difference was that when my party, the DUP, held it, we were able to have consensus and get a finance Bill through the Assembly, but Sinn Féin could not get that. It is not just that Sinn Féin could not get it with the DUP; it could not get it with any of the parties, even the wonderful Alliance Party. That party could not agree to it either. The SDLP, I understand, could not agree to it, and the Ulster unionists could not agree to it. Any other party with any degree of influence in the Assembly could not agree to it, so it is not just that the DUP is being unreasonable.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, above any other Peer in this House, should have a clear understanding of how difficult it is to get consensus and how to bring things on board. I have to say to him very directly that what he has put down this evening is the very way to wreck the whole show. I do not know whether he speaks for the Labour Party tonight. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, will speak a little later and clarify whether the noble Lord, Lord Hain, is speaking for the Labour Party with this amendment. However, he did go on to amend it slightly, saying, “No, I’m not going to move it to a vote, but I am warning you here tonight: if you don’t behave yourselves over there and don’t join the diktat, this is what will befall you”. It has been well articulated that this was never said during Sinn Féin’s three years of holding government to ransom.

I remember distinctly the howls from the Lib Dems—not those who are here tonight, I might add; I have a distinct memory of who they were, but they are not in their places tonight. We did not bring government down, but the onus was put on us, and they said to us at that time, “Can you not get on and get government done?” No, because we were not holding it up. I do accept, of course, that we are now, because of the protocol. The protocol has to be dealt with. If there is no other message that gets across tonight, I hope at least that those who have stayed for this debate will go home with a clear message: the protocol is the problem.

As I speak this evening, I do so in the knowledge that the Minister is a strong supporter of the police and of law and order. However, I must say that if the resources are not available, the police cannot deliver the service on the ground. The one bedrock and stability of any country is law and order. If you do not have law and order, you have very little. If you want to talk to us about the lack of it, and if you have a couple of hours after this debate, we will go through it all with you. We have endured 30 years of recklessness, murder and mayhem—but none of us wants that to revisit Northern Ireland ever again.

I had much to say on policing but the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and the noble Lords, Lord McCrea and Lord Rogan, have stolen my thunder. All the facts and figures they have given, I have here too. I will spare your Lordships the repetition—I can see you thinking, “Thank goodness for that!”

The budget the police have been landed with will determine a smaller, less visible, less accessible, less responsible police force. I ask the Minister please to take that into account. I know that he will; I know that he cares about these things and about Northern Ireland, as passionately, sometimes, as we do. However, the impact this will have on the police force will be catastrophic.

Your Lordships will be pleased to know that I have nearly finished, but I want to refer you to what Liam Kelly, the chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, said in today’s paper:

“The difficulty we have in the police is that we have no choice but to accept it. We can’t take industrial action. There is no other process for us. We get what we are given and we are expected to be grateful for it on every occasion … Over the last ten years policing salaries have gone backwards. The starting salary [for a student officer] before this £1,900 uplift was just over £21,000, and our probationer officers were on just over £24,000.”


Yes, £24,000 is a lot of money, but not for the risks that police have to take, and they do have to take immense risks, even in what has already been described here as relative peace. Mr Kelly continued:

“It would take a police officer five years to get to £30,000. In the Northern Ireland context, and the threat to them on and off duty … there is no incentive for officers to stay in service and put their lives on the line when they are not being paid properly.”


As my noble friend Lady Foster mentioned, he said that the police are increasingly going to

“do other things for a lot less stress and hassle.”

Our health service is creaking at the hinges. Our education system, which produces excellent results far ahead of other regions of the United Kingdom, has to be financed properly if we are going to have an educated people who will take our country forward in the future.