Northern Ireland (Welfare Reform) Bill

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, I am pleased that welfare reform in Northern Ireland is at last being addressed and is moving forward. However, I deeply regret that it is happening in Westminster rather than Stormont, where it should rightly be legislated for. Nevertheless, it will allow a log-jam created by the intransigence of Sinn Fein/IRA to be broken. It will, I hope, permit the Northern Ireland Executive to move forward and at last provide opportunities for that devolved Administration to begin to address bread-and-butter issues, which, for far too long, have not been properly addressed in Stormont. Those are issues such as how we attract more overseas investment, how we help home-grown businesses to develop and expand, how we rebalance our economy with a greater private sector and more manufacturing jobs, how we better educate our young people and thus create an even higher skilled workforce, and how we provide an improved health service and healthcare—and, in doing so, reduce the lamentable waiting list. These matters should be addressed by the Northern Ireland Assembly, as should the whole matter of welfare reform. Why has welfare reform been given back to the sovereign Parliament in Westminster to legislate for? Is it because Sinn Fein/IRA could not be seen to weaken their stance on austerity, or is it, as the Member for North Antrim stated in another place, that the Northern Ireland Assembly is dysfunctional, unworkable and incapable of making decisions? It is here that these matters are being discussed and I regret that we have to legislate for what should have been a devolved matter.

We are where we are but let it clearly be noted that, yes, the Northern Ireland citizens are getting a better and fairer welfare package than the rest of the citizens of Great Britain, but these extra benefits are not being funded by the United Kingdom Exchequer; they are coming out of the Northern Ireland block grant. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Mr Ben Wallace, stated in another place, while,

“those flexibilities may turn out to suit the people of Northern Ireland … The UK Government will not fund on top of the existing UK roll-out”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/11/15; cols. 1104-05.]

It is clear that around £600 million will have to come out of the budgets of other Northern Ireland departments to finance this now-agreed welfare reform package. Who will bear this cost? Will it be, as I mentioned earlier, areas that desperately need improvement? Will it be education, the economy or health? It is regrettable that due to this rushed legislation these matters and other important issues could not be debated fully and clarified.

Much time and money have been wasted by the intransigence of Sinn Fein/IRA but I am glad that it has now done a complete U-turn and allowed this process to begin. I would much have preferred it if we could have achieved this in our own devolved Assembly, but that was not to be. So tonight let us collectively move forward and help all the people of Northern Ireland to have a fairer, better and, I hope, more prosperous and settled future.