Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 Section 6

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Emma Little Pengelly

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank my hon. Friend for that valuable contribution. One of the interesting aspects of the proposal is that it has been so long in gestation that the debate, knowledge and evidence of the impact of the psychological injuries has grown. The original proposal was for the severely physically disabled victims, but I welcome the recommendation in the commissioner’s report that both physical and psychological injuries should be covered. The key point is the impact on the ability to gain employment and thus an employment-related pension.

On the Victims Commissioners’ advice, I was vocal at the time about my deep disappointment that it did not reflect the strong feeling among many thousands of people across Northern Ireland that the pension should not go to victim-makers. Throughout the many years I have been involved in this project it has been clear that that was a significant view among the victims and in the wider population. I have spoken with the commissioner on many occasions and I have huge respect for her. She does many things well, and I know that many victims have respect for her. I met her monthly or bi-monthly over several years and repeatedly raised with her my concerns that if the victims pension included the victim-makers, many people would be deeply hurt by that. What I said was that surely we have a responsibility first of all to do no harm. In this case, the issue is to do no further harm and cause no further hurt to the very genuine victims who are desperately in need of this proposal. I acknowledge that this tricky issue has held up discussions for some time, but the biggest impact on progress has been the lack of a Northern Ireland Assembly. I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to ensure that this pension does not go to those who were victim-makers.

The Commissioner for Victims and Survivors has defended her report and said that she is caught by and operates under the definition of the 2006 order, but I find it unacceptable and I was deeply disappointed that the report made no reference to the existence of those other views. If I were a Minister or the Secretary of State and I was asking for this advice, I would want the advice to be clear: “There are these views on this matter, but also be aware there are that a significant number of other views, and if you progress down this recommended path hurt will be caused, victims will come out and say that they will not receive it, and that they are deeply upset by it.” That exists as a view and it should have been reflected in the commissioner’s report.

I find the fact that that was missing from the commissioner’s report deeply disappointing. I genuinely feel that it has led to her losing the confidence of a huge number of victims across Northern Ireland and that her position is unsustainable. That is the position that I have outlined to the Secretary of State, and I was therefore disappointed to see that the commissioner’s term was extended. It is key that any commissioner should have the support and confidence of the people she is supposed to speak about, and in this case what has happened has led to her losing that.

I want to move on to the specifics of the proposal in the report, which is the special pension for victims and survivors, and to touch on a number of very technical issues. As I mentioned, I am concerned about the proposal to introduce this through regulations because there were a number of aspects that need to be debated and aired for potential amendment. The proposal from the Victims Commissioner deals with the method by which people will be assessed, and she has asked very strongly that this is done in a way that is victim-centred. I asked the Minister and the Secretary of State to look carefully at the Victims and Survivors Service process. I was involved in the setting up of that new institution, and there was a lot of genuine intent about some of the mechanisms to assess the level of need of the victims and survivors, but within a very short period of time it became absolutely clear that victims and survivors were being re-traumatised or troubled by the process of questioning and assessment. They felt that this was a test that they either failed or succeeded at.

In due course, we have to change that process, so I ask the Secretary of State and the Minister to look very carefully at it and to ensure that however people submit their applications and however the assessment is done, it takes account of the types of evidence and documentation already in the system—perhaps with the Victims and Survivors Service—to avoid victims and survivors having to go through the process again. It should be a victim-centred, sympathetic and empathetic environment, not a questioning environment or one in which people feel they are in the witness box giving evidence.

The Minister and the Secretary of State should also ensure that it is done swiftly. One of the big challenges with the Victims and Survivors Service was that the assessments take time, and dealing with hundreds or thousands of applications could risk people waiting six or 12 months before getting their assessment. Perhaps the Secretary of State or the Minister could put their mind to how that can be done in a way that ensures victims and survivors can get financial help quickly while they are going through the process and waiting for it to end.

The Minister referred to the fact that we have had 1,000 days without devolution, and that to me is an absolute travesty. It comes back to the point that I raised in the earlier debate: this House has broken the precedent that it does not legislate on devolved matters. This House has legislated on devolved matters. Victims and survivors of the troubles—and the survivors of historical institutional abuse, those who are sitting on waiting lists, those who are dying on waiting lists, people who are waiting for their child to get an autism assessment, and people who are in desperate need of public services—ask me why those issues were picked for this House to decide to legislate on, despite the convention. Why pick those issues on which to break precedent and the convention of this House by legislating on them, while in this case the victims and survivors are suffering pain every hour of every day, and they have done so since they got their injuries 20 or 30 years ago?

These are victims in pain saying, “Why do we have to wait? Why are we being told, ‘No, no, this House doesn’t deal with that’? This House can only do that by regulation. This House does not legislate on that.” This House has legislated. It has legislated on cases that are considerably less urgent, where people are not in pain, where people are not in real financial need. As I said about the historical institutional abuse inquiry, I urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to take swift action. This House and its legislative timetable, whatever is announced in the Queen’s Speech, could all fall. Who knows what will happen in the next few months? But this is the important point: the Minister can do this. He can introduce this provision as a piece of legislation. He can get the time to do that and he can do it very quickly. The message needs to go out to people in Northern Ireland—the victims and survivors who are suffering—that this is not a case of can’t; it is a case of won’t. I ask the Minister to make a promise to this House and those victims and survivors that he will decide to no longer go with “won’t” but to move to “I will”. I ask that he introduce it as quickly as possible to ensure that those victims get a special pension by and before 31 October, because he can do that.

[Maria Caulfield]

May I echo the hon. Lady’s point? I think there is a nervousness in the Government caused by a fear that if this place legislates it is offending the nationalist community, but members of the nationalist community were victims of institutional abuse or victims of terrorism and they all want compensation and need pensions and to have justice for what they have suffered. We need to be bold and brave about this. We will do no favours for the nationalist community by not legislating on either historical institutional abuse or victims compensation.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank the hon. Lady for that very valuable contribution and I absolutely agree. This is so difficult to explain to victims and survivors. I know that the Minister will have found himself in this position as well—it is so difficult to explain to people a point of constitutional theory or purity. Quite frankly, given what has happened in this place over the course of the past few weeks and months, people have no time for that. What people want is action and what victims and survivors need is help to support them in their pain. They need financial security as they get into their older age and they need the Government to act. They can act, and I am asking the Government today to please commit to doing so as quickly as possible.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Emma Little Pengelly

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

[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.