Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege and pleasure to be able to take part in this very important debate on a very small Bill. First, however, I welcome the Minister to his position. I think that this is the first speech he has made in the Chamber regarding Northern Ireland, and I think he did a great job of it, bearing in mind the circumstances in which it was delivered.

I shall touch on the issues affecting security in Northern Ireland that occurred over the weekend. It was particularly unfortunate that it occurred in Omagh, which has seen such terrible devastation in the past, and was so reminiscent of what occurred in Enniskillen. It shows that if there is no progress politically in Northern Ireland, vacuums are created that can sometimes be filled by men and women of violence.

Of course I support the Bill; we cannot do anything else. There has to be a Budget in Northern Ireland. I was for two years the Finance Minister in Northern Ireland and I understand the issues. We have to pay for public services, so I doubt whether there is anybody in this Chamber who would disagree with the fact that the Bill is necessary.

I think that there is an issue of accountability. This is a Westminster Parliament and a United Kingdom Government bringing in a Bill on a Budget for Northern Ireland without any political involvement from elected politicians in Northern Ireland so far as the Assembly is concerned. In his wind-up, will the Minister address the issues of accountability? He has mentioned the auditors and the Comptroller and Auditor-General, but they are not politicians. They are civil servants who have to draw up and then check their own budgets, in a sense, even though they are from a different department. If this continues for any length of time, there may be a role for, say, the Select Committee on Northern Ireland in the other place to look at the Budget or for Parliamentary Questions to be tabled in both Houses. I will be grateful for the Minister’s views on that.

I want to touch very briefly on the Secretary of State’s role in all this. He has done a very good job. He has been extremely committed, very sincere and very hard-working and has done his level best to try to bring, particularly, the two main parties in Northern Ireland together. No one can fault him on doing that, but I think that all would agree that today is a major turning point in events in Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom for those of us who are interested in and committed to the future of Northern Ireland. It may not be de jure direct rule, but it may be de facto direct rule and that we are almost drifting towards direct rule and the end of devolution. That is a stark warning to everybody involved in Northern Ireland and to the political parties, particularly the two main parties. To be fair to the DUP, it has always supported devolution. It has been a devolutionist party. It wants devolution to occur in Northern Ireland, but it ought perhaps to look again at the issues, for example with regard to the Irish language Act.

I understand the issues—I come from an English-speaking part of Wales. Roughly 25% of the population of Wales speaks Welsh, but not in my area. Ironically, it was a Conservative Government who brought in the Welsh Language Act, and there were difficulties. But I hope that the DUP negotiators and those who have been involved in these matters can look towards another part of the United Kingdom with regard to how we deal with language issues and see that the union has not fallen apart because there was a Welsh Language Act in Wales.

So far as Sinn Fein is concerned, of course it is right to worry about parity of esteem for both sides in the community, but one has to ask whether it is worth dismantling the whole apparatus of government—the Executive, the Assembly and everything that goes with it—when you can have talks with the Government in parallel? Why on earth should we not have an Assembly and an Executive in Belfast who deal with health, education and all the other issues, but at the same time have parallel talks rather than bringing it all down?

Of course the other irony in this is that Sinn Fein—like other parties in Northern Ireland, but particularly Sinn Fein—has argued for the last 20 years or so that the Good Friday agreement is something by which all should abide. The Good Friday agreement includes the establishment of an Executive and an Assembly. I chaired the strand 1 talks, and it was an integral part of the whole agreement. When the people of Ireland, north and south, voted on that agreement, they voted on the establishment of an Executive and an Assembly. The sooner and the quicker those are up, the better. The Government need to perhaps have another look at the way in which they deal with the negotiations in the coming weeks, negotiations which I am sure will continue. My honourable friend Owen Smith, the shadow Secretary in the other place, has touched on some of the issues, and I would like to touch on just one or two before I conclude.

The first has been mentioned many times—I mentioned it to the Minister last week. There is a case for the Heads of Government—the Prime Minister and, where appropriate, the Taoiseach in Ireland—to involve themselves more directly in trying to solve this problem. Quite frankly, telephone calls are not good enough. Given the weight of the positions of Prime Ministers, actually going to Belfast, getting the parties together and talking to them would be hugely symbolic and hugely positive. It might not work—sometimes it did not. In Leeds Castle, that approach did not work. But with the Good Friday agreement, the St Andrews agreement and other agreements, it did. However, it simply has not been tried. That should be looked at really seriously from a Heads of Government point of view.

There should also be round-table, all-party talks in Northern Ireland. Yes, of course the DUP and Sinn Fein are the two biggest parties. Yes, of course they should be talking to each other all the time. But there are other parties in Northern Ireland too. There is a point to bringing them all together, because they can interact with each other, give ideas to each other and embarrass each other. They can get round a table and try to resolve these things. Again, could the Minister liaise with his right honourable friend the Secretary of State to try to achieve that?

There is also a case—it might take legislation but it would be worth it—for the Assembly itself actually to meet and deliberate. When I was Finance Minister, in 1999 I think it was, I went to the Assembly and presented the Budget. For a whole afternoon, Members of the Assembly from all parties were able to question me about the contents of that Budget. Why can they not do that on this occasion? Bringing together Members of the Assembly in Stormont means that they are again coming face to face and might be able to come up with a resolution of the issues that divide them.

Direct rule, if it comes back, will not be a solution but a tragedy. It is so very easy for it to return, but so very difficult then to restore devolved government. I was five years as a direct rule Minister in Northern Ireland, and although I thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciated the political role that I had, I was always embarrassed at being a direct rule Minister. I was a Member of Parliament for a Welsh valley constituency: not one person in Northern Ireland had voted for me, but I had to take decisions on health, schools, roads and local government. It is wrong. Those decisions should be taken by people in Northern Ireland elected by people in Northern Ireland, particularly given that in the House of Commons there are 650 Members of Parliament, but only 17 come from Northern Ireland, and not one nationalist voice is heard in that Chamber. That cannot be right when it comes to bringing the Government to account for what they do for Northern Ireland. I do not think direct rule is an answer.

Nor should this Bill be an excuse to give up. The issues that we had to consider 20 years ago—prisoner releases, the police, the courts, the establishment of institutions, relations between the north and south of Ireland, and many others—were resolved by talking. There is no reason in this wide world why we cannot do that again.

Overhanging all this mess is the business of Brexit and the fact that in only the past week or so, the European Union has again raised the issue of the border: a huge issue for everybody, north and south—and for all of us in the United Kingdom and in Europe generally. There is no voice from Northern Ireland. There is no Minister, not one person elected from Northern Ireland, who is addressing these issues. The sooner that is done, the better.