Business of the House

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I accept that we have confirmed a settlement for local councils that is flat in cash terms, but we have also delivered what local authorities were asking for in certainty over a four-year funding period. We are planning legislation, which will be before Parliament soon, that will enable local government to keep all the business rates that it collects by the end of the Parliament. We have provided the power for local councils to levy a social care precept to help them with the challenges that they undoubtedly face in dealing with social care.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The terms of your earlier statement, Mr Speaker, mean that “happy birthday” is not a mere wish but an observation of fact. In passing, may I mention yesterday’s landmark 80th birthday of landmark statesman, John Hume, the pathfinder for our peace process?

Will the Leader of the House talk to Northern Ireland Office and Treasury Ministers to clarify that there is legitimate locus for the House, its Ministers and Committees in the renewable heat incentive debacle in Northern Ireland? There is no basis for pretending that the dimensions of abuse in the uptake of that scheme are confined to devolved expenditure and do not involve the annually managed expenditure from the Treasury. There is also a question about a period when the regulations for the scheme had run out, spending continued and it was not covered by the Northern Ireland budget. Did Treasury funding cover it in the period when there was no regulatory basis for that spending?

[Mr Lidington]

First, I join the hon. Gentleman in sending belated birthday wishes to John Hume. We all salute the heroic role that he played in helping to start and drive through the peace process in Northern Ireland.

On the renewable heat incentive scheme, the Northern Ireland scheme is fully devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive and is now the subject of an open inquiry by the Northern Ireland Public Accounts Committee. It is therefore in their remit to investigate it. The scheme in Great Britain has budget management mechanisms in place to stop the sort of overspending that was experienced in Northern Ireland. If the hon. Gentleman has evidence that Treasury money was in some way involved in supporting the Northern Ireland scheme and that money was misplaced, I urge him to write with the details to Treasury Ministers and I am sure that they will respond.