Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands).

I seem to be one of the few people in the Chamber who feels uncomfortable with the legislation. It is now two and a half years—a world record—since the Assembly last sat. Every week since then, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has heard about the impact that having no devolved government is having on the ordinary lives of ordinary people in Northern Ireland, whichever community they are from. We have heard about Police Service of Northern Ireland funding; about the fact that Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom without a cancer strategy; and about the suicide strategy. Suicides have doubled since the Good Friday agreement, yet the Protect Life 2 strategy is gathering dust on a shelf somewhere in Stormont, while young men in particular are taking their own lives.

We have heard about equal marriage and abortion. I think most people know my views on abortion, but the devolved Assembly must be the place to make such decisions. The absence of any decision making means that people who want to spend the rest of their lives together are not able to do so.

We have heard about air passenger duty, which may seem a minimal issue by comparison to some of these life-and-death decisions, but it is an area of co-operation under the Good Friday agreement. The Select Committee recently heard about the impact of air passenger duty on short-haul flights and the difference that is making to Northern Ireland’s economy compared with that of the Republic of Ireland, where there is no air passenger duty. That might seem a trivial example, but it is a massive issue for the economy of Northern Ireland.

On school reforms, we have heard from Sir Robert Salisbury himself about the imperative to reform schools, particularly rural ones, in Northern Ireland, but the civil servants there cannot make a decision because political judgments need to be made.

Although necessary, this legislation is just kicking the can down the road. The Select Committee heard from MLAs from various parties that there is unlikely to be an Assembly. We have to be realistic here: we can keep saying that we wish they would get back round the table, that we want them to get back round the table and that we want an Assembly, but the reality is that MLAs are saying to us that it is unlikely that there will be a functioning Assembly before the end of the year, so we are heading towards three years without an Assembly for the people of Northern Ireland, with no decisions being made.

What are we saying to the civil servants in Northern Ireland? We have heard about the Buick ruling. Every day, the civil service there is making difficult decisions that they could be challenged on in court. These civil servants did not go into their jobs to have to make political decisions in the absence of Ministers. With the can kicking we see with this legislation, we are enabling parties such as Sinn Féin to keep going round in circles and not to get back seriously to the table.

I fully agree with the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) about MLAs’ salaries. It was £9 million and it is now £12 million that has been spent on their salaries, although the Secretary of State has reduced their salaries quite significantly. They say they are doing constituency work, but while they are being paid a decent salary—probably more than the average man and woman in Northern Ireland—they have no incentive to get back round the table. There are MPs in Northern Ireland who can do that constituency casework, and there are now MEPs in Northern Ireland who can do that constituency casework. Until MLAs’ salaries are reduced significantly, if not completely, they have no incentive to get back round the table.

We are now starting to see cross-community marches throughout Northern Ireland. We had the “We deserve better” marches: 14 organised protests with thousands of people joining rallies to demand that their elected representatives get back to work and get back to running Northern Ireland. The people of Northern Ireland absolutely deserve better.

In this place, we need to show leadership. We need to take hold of the situation and look at the various issues. For me, there are three options on the table for us here. I am not in favour of direct rule in any shape or form, but we have to look at some of the significant issues and, in the absence of an Assembly, ask the people of Northern Ireland which issues that matter to them they want legislation to be passed on first.

We passed some small-scale legislation on the renewable heat incentive, but because we had to do that in such a rushed, emergency way, we did not make a very good fist of it. We now see farmers in Northern Ireland being paid significantly less for their tariffs compared with competitors in the UK and southern Ireland.

On institutional abuse, David Sterling has begged for this place to pass legislation because, as we have heard, more than 30 people who were affected and abused have died waiting for compensation. People want justice and they want compensation.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the issue of historical institutional abuse. Does it concern her that there are people in this Chamber who are perhaps more concerned about other issues that divide people in Northern Ireland than about something like historical institutional abuse, which unites all the political parties? It is something that we could be doing together, united, rather than some of the issues in tomorrow’s amendments that are going to divide people very much.

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[Maria Caulfield]

I fully support what the hon. Lady says, because issues such as historical institutional abuse have cross-party support in Northern Ireland and in this place and would be quick and easy to deal with. That would bring justice to those people who suffered at the hands of institutions over many years.

[Ian Paisley]

I wholeheartedly agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). Other issues include the contaminated blood scandal, which is another issue on which there is cross-party support. It would not be controversial and could be done, but it is not being done; instead, people seem to want to pick at a particular crisis point that causes great anxiety and, indeed, great opposition across parties and across the community in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Lady agree that some of the proposals and some of the amendments would result in really bad legislation on issues that people care passionately about?

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree that it is important. We know from the emergency legislation on the renewable heat incentive that we passed in this place a few weeks ago that, when we rush through legislation and attach it to other pieces of legislation, it does not work out well. There is absolutely no scrutiny of what is happening in Northern Ireland. It is only the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that is doing any scrutiny at the moment, so this is a case not just of who is passing the legislation, but of what scrutiny is happening to ensure that that legislation is effective.

Although from my perspective—as someone who comes from an Irish nationalist Catholic community in the south of Ireland—it would break my heart to see direct rule imposed on Northern Ireland, we cannot in all honesty let the current situation go on. The history books tell us about the civil rights movements in Northern Ireland in the ’60s when Catholic Irish communities fought for one man, one vote. We celebrated 100 years of women getting the vote, but the Catholic communities in Northern Ireland have only had a vote since the ’60s. They have one man, one vote, but no representation in this place and now no representation in Stormont. I would prefer that we were passing legislation in this place on issues that unite people, such as those related to contaminated blood and historical abuse—issues that make a real difference and that have a real impact on people’s lives.

I have already touched on the suicide strategy. Death rates from suicides have doubled in the 20 years since the Good Friday agreement was signed. Establishing a strategy would make a real difference and save lives. There is no mental capacity legislation in Northern Ireland, and yet, a few months ago, we replaced the existing mental capacity legislation here with updated legislation to protect healthcare professionals, who make difficult choices for people who have lost the ability to make decisions, and to protect the most vulnerable patients who no longer have the capacity to make decisions for themselves. In Northern Ireland, if a person lacks capacity, there is no legislation to protect them or their loved one, and there is no legislation to protect the healthcare professionals looking after them.

Then there is the issue of public sector funding. Time and again, we hear about health funding and about education. Teachers had to fight tooth and nail and almost had to go on strike because no one could make a decision about giving them a pay rise. We hear about the PSNI from the chief constable, who, from one month to the next, does not know if he has the budget to pay the wages of the staff. Two and a half years on, that is no way to be running a country. We must show some leadership here. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road when we know that parties such as Sinn Féin are using this as an opportunity to score political points. They have no intention of getting back round the table.

Apart from this legislation, I have three options for the Minister. The first is that we start to pass laws in this place that have cross-party support in Northern Ireland and in this place that can make a real difference to people’s lives. The second option would be to have an election. The longer that we leave the situation as it is, the closer we get to when the natural elections would be held. It is now two and a half years—three years in January. If an Assembly suddenly got up and running, they would have only a year and a bit to make any policies and to come to any decisions, so let us look at that as an option. The third option, and we have touched on it before in this place, is the Assembly of the willing. There are parties across the community that are willing to get back round the table in Stormont, form an Assembly and an Executive and start running the country. We seem to manage fairly well in this place without members of Sinn Féin taking their seats. I am pretty sure that the same would be true in Stormont. When there are MLAs from across the community and from parties such as the Alliance party willing to take their seats and willing to make those decisions, we should get them working. The only people suffering at the moment are not those of us here in this place, but the people of Northern Ireland. Whether we are talking about abortion, on which everyone here knows my views, equal marriage, the renewable heat incentive or air passenger duty, it is the ordinary people in Northern Ireland who are suffering every day that ticks by without an Assembly.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

The hon. Lady talks about Sinn Féin. Does she agree that, although its members do not take their seats here, we seem to do fairly well without them? The door is open for them to come in. In the absence of their doing so, when there has been much talk about, and reference to, other politicians who do not carry out their full range of duties and who are getting paid, we should remember that this House has a decision to make about the members of Sinn Féin who do not attend here and who claim hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. That does not seem to be raised half as much as other issues.

[Maria Caulfield]

I do not want to attack any political party, but we do have to call out those Members, particularly when communities who fought civil rights movements in the ’60s to get representation do not have representation in this place or in Stormont. We should call them out. If anyone else was not turning up at work, their wages would be stopped pretty quickly. If people want to make points of principle, fine, but do not take the money that goes with the job.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My very good and hon. Friend is talking absolute sense. It is about time that we imposed option one, which means, despite our not having direct rule, making some laws that will help the people in Northern Ireland. We should also impose option three, which is creating a Stormont of the willing and getting on with it. We have mucked around for two and a half years. That is a disgrace, and it is time that we showed some leadership. It is also about time that the Government showed some leadership on that, too.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

I do feel quite strongly on this matter. I would bet a lot of money—not that I am a betting person—that we will be back here in October, looking to extend things further, and then again in January. There are other political reasons why some parties do not want to get round the table, and their focus is not necessarily on the Assembly. My hon. Friend is quite right: we need to show leadership in this place for the good people of Northern Ireland. We are a United Kingdom, and it cannot be right that, week after week, we see in the Select Committee that Northern Ireland has been left further and further behind, whether it is in health, education, police and many other issues that we will be debating tomorrow.

I am starting to feel uncomfortable about voting for more can kicking and about allowing this process to go on much longer. The people from all communities of Northern Ireland deserve much, much better than this. If the politicians and the MLAs will not get round that table, we either start an Assembly of the willing with those who will do so, or we need to start making some decisions in this place.

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[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I absolutely agree. I have worked very closely with government over the past 10 years and more of devolution—since 2007—and we have had to get through some very difficult and challenging issues, including bad behaviour by a number of parties, one of which was Sinn Féin, and what it was implicated in. We tried to keep the show on the road and the institutions going. It was not the DUP that collapsed those institutions. We were, and still are, prepared to sit down and talk.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) has outlined our reasonable proposition, which is, “Get back into government now and we will set the parameters to ensure that you have confidence that we will genuinely and in good faith engage with the issues that you want to talk about. If you feel that we are not doing that, we are prepared to put in place, at this stage, a mechanism that would allow you to collapse the Assembly.” There are no risks for them in getting back into the Assembly under that arrangement. My party leader had barely sat down after making his speech before Sinn Féin issued a press release rejecting that completely. If it wants change, there is a way to get that that actually delivers for the people of Northern Ireland. People are angry and frustrated, because they want basic services to be delivered by the people they elected to deliver them.

During these types of debates, a small number of issues are repeatedly discussed that I know are incredibly important to people. Day in, day out, a number of issues are continually raised in my constituency surgery, and I know it is the same for my right hon. and hon. Friends. Before I touch on them, I want to make it absolutely clear that we need to be realistic. I hear people across Northern Ireland saying all the time, “If only there was an Assembly, I wouldn’t be sitting on this waiting list,” and “If only there was an Assembly, I would have this or that, and the Government would be doing this or that.” I am not naive. I do not believe that all those issues will suddenly disappear if the Northern Ireland Assembly is restored in the morning; of course Governments will still have constraints.

We need to be very careful about the expectation we give people. However, if the Assembly is restored, people will be there to make the decisions; the people of Northern Ireland can approach their elected representatives and make their case; policies can be scrutinised by the Northern Ireland Assembly and its Committees; and we can develop policy. Importantly, this Bill does not provide the capability to make a range of required legislative proposals; it does not allow civil servants to do that.

Before I go into a little detail about some of those policy areas, I want to pay tribute to the many civil servants operating under incredibly difficult circumstances. I say that with a little bit of a smile because my husband is a senior civil servant in one of the most challenging departments, the Department of Health. It is fair to say that I would not like to be in that situation. It is a very difficult set of circumstances. The Department of Health is in a slightly better situation—ironically, it may seem—because the Northern Ireland Assembly agreed the Bengoa recommendations and a transformation plan prior to the collapse of the Assembly, so my husband has been able to make decisions under the terms of that policy. He has been able to carry out consultations, some of which are controversial, and the findings will have to be considered. However, there are many things that he cannot do, and it is the same right across our civil service. I pay tribute to the incredible work that civil servants have done in very difficult circumstances that they should never have found themselves in.

I want to touch briefly on education. Recently, I started special autism clinics and surgeries right across my constituency, because so many people who come through my door face challenges on special educational needs and autism in particular—everything from trying to get their child statemented, to being on the school waiting list for up to a year or two before they can get their child seen. Parents know the help that their child needs, but they cannot get it at the moment. We need a fundamental review of special educational needs and autism services across our education system. The system is not just creaking; it is breaking, and it is children who are suffering.

I challenge the hon. Member for St Helens North: what about the human rights of a child who is waiting for an autism assessment, but cannot get it for years because there is no Government to carry out the fundamental review? Those are rights, too.

[Maria Caulfield]

Children in Northern Ireland still have statements, whereas children in the rest of the United Kingdom have education, health and care plans. The hon. Lady is quite right to say that the system is not working for children in Northern Ireland with special educational needs.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. That issue is under discussion. In the talks process, we are talking about a whole range of policies that could go into a programme for government, and one of those must be the reform of educational provision, particularly for those with special educational needs. I have been fighting very hard for that, and I think there is consensus across all the parties, but we need the Northern Ireland Assembly back to get that in place.

I speak to many teachers and, in particular, headteachers. Their budgets are under incredible pressure. I know that the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs has taken evidence on the issue, but it needs to be resolved. Schools are crying out for financial help. That is the type of issue that DUP Members of the Legislative Assembly, and MLAs right across Northern Ireland, want to talk about.

Often in Northern Ireland, particularly at this time of year, politicians get criticised for talking about flags and bonfires. I and the vast majority of people I know agree that those issues need to be addressed, but what we want to talk about and focus on is education, public services, affordable childcare and tackling health issues. At the moment, we are prevented from doing so meaningfully, because those issues are, on the whole, devolved and there is no Northern Ireland Assembly.

We do not have 30 hours’ free childcare in Northern Ireland. Just before the collapse of the Assembly, work was under way to introduce a comprehensive affordable childcare programme, but that does not help parents in Northern Ireland at the moment who cannot access the same support, tailored for Northern Ireland, that people get across the rest of the United Kingdom. These urgent issues are impacting on hard-working families, whose household budgets are really feeling the pressure.

On health, we have a GP crisis. I was not feeling that well last week and phoned up my GP. I was told that the waiting time for an appointment was two weeks. Frankly, I felt that by then I would hopefully be feeling okay. There is a GP crisis across Northern Ireland; we do not have enough of them, practices are under huge pressure, and waiting lists are growing. It is the same across the entire health service. We need decisions made on the budget, and health transformation that will fundamentally tackle our huge waiting lists. People come to my constituency surgeries and my constituency office with letters saying that it will be two or three years before they can access a pain clinic and get some help.

I want to challenge the idea that those issues do not relate to rights. These are fundamental rights. What about the person on a cancer waiting list? What about their fundamental right to life when, because there is no Northern Ireland Assembly, they are sitting on a waiting list and could well die before they get the intervention they require? This is rights denied—rights to basic public services. That is wrong, and it must be addressed. There is a party denying rights in Northern Ireland across health, education and fundamental support for ordinary human beings, and that party is Sinn Féin.

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[Mr Lewis]

I have enough problems expressing opinions on the state of politics in the UK without intruding on private grief in the south of Ireland. I am not really qualified to judge. I would say this to the hon. Gentleman though. There is no doubt that a massive factor in Sinn Féin’s unwillingness to participate in government in Northern Ireland is its unwillingness to make tough and difficult decisions because in the south of Ireland it wants to give the impression that such decisions are not required. If it participated in government in the north of Ireland, it would have to be part of making such difficult decisions.

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman is making some excellent points. Does he agree that with the prospect of a general election looming in southern Ireland, Sinn Féin will not get back round the Assembly table until after that election, because it would affect its electoral chances? We are making concessions for it here and holding out hope of it getting back round the table, but the southern Ireland scenario is affecting its behaviour.

[Mr Lewis]

The hon. Lady is probably absolutely right. It is realpolitik. If Sinn Féin is consistent in how it has behaved over several years now, it will not make any move to help reconstitute the Executive and the Assembly until the election in the south of Ireland is done and dusted. The hon. Lady makes a fair point.

I want to raise a final factor that I think has changed the dynamic. It will be uncomfortable for some, and some will not agree, but it is a factor that should not be underestimated. I had the benefit of working with some of the individuals concerned. Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, however people might have disagreed with them, in their roles as First and Deputy First Ministers were leaders of calibre and pragmatism. I do not believe that such leadership exists at the present time.

I now want to turn to issues that are inevitably divisive and that other Members have touched upon.