Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Tony Lloyd

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Minister on making a 20-minute speech in just over eight minutes? He has been on his feet all day. This is an important report and he has raised a number of important issues.

I will begin where the Minister began. I hope he will at least be able to help the House in response to some of my questions. Under the legislation that this House passed to provide safe and legal abortion for women in Northern Ireland, the UK Government are obliged to make provision for that service in Northern Ireland by 31 March. As the Minister told the House, the consultation on the matter has concluded. Will he guarantee that if the House has to discharge that legislative duty, the consultation will be brought to the House in time for us to examine the results before taking the necessary legislative steps? I hope we recognise that by that time, the Stormont Assembly may well be back in operation, and if the Assembly were to legislate contrary to the UK Government’s establishment of a process for safe and legal abortion, our efforts would have been futile. I ask for the establishment of the closest possible working relationship between the Westminster Government and a newly formed Executive in Stormont to ensure a smooth transition, so that we can deliver to the women of Northern Ireland what the House dictated: safe and legal abortion from 1 April.

The Minister spoke about the prosecution of those who perpetrated violence during the troubles. I quote from the report that is before the House tonight, in which the UK Government quite rightly say that they

“will continue to seek better ways of dealing with legacy issues that provide better outcomes for victims and survivors”.

I am grateful for the Minister’s comments about the potential for payment to victims of the troubles. That is right and proper. Many of those who suffered are no longer with us—some of them for obvious reasons, but some simply because of the passage of time—so they cannot avail themselves of any compensation, but a group of people depend on progress being made in this area. The Minister’s words will be welcome, but we need to see real progress.

Of course, outcomes for victims and survivors include, where appropriate, the prosecution of those who have perpetrated violence against them or their families; that is a legitimate demand. Although we want, as the Minister rightly said, to avoid vexatious prosecutions, let us be absolutely clear that we in this House are not turning our back on the rule of law. Those who are guilty of the most heinous crimes, such as murder and manslaughter, must still face the full force of the law. There can be no statute of limitations that provides an artificial form of protection, because that would be unacceptable to the House and the public and incompatible with our obligations under international law.

I move on briefly to an allied question—payments for victims of institutional abuse. The Minister may not be able to give me a full answer tonight, but it would be helpful to see what the process of payments for victims of such abuse will look like. The Opposition were very happy to work with the Government on the matter before Christmas. Generally speaking, I am against the overly rapid emergence of legislation, because it can cause problems later on, but we quite rightly conspired to insist that that legislation was put on the statute book before the House was dissolved for the general election.

We now need to know how that process is working out. Where are we up to with interim payments for victims of institutional abuse? Where are we with the creation of a redress board to develop a well-worked formula for those who suffered, some of them because of the incompetence of the statutory authorities and some, sadly, at the hands of those who were there to offer care?

One way or another, our society owes support to what is now an ageing population. Their numbers are decreasing day by day, and I hope the Minister can give us some satisfaction.

The Minister may not be totally apprised of the question of business rates, which has emerged in recent hours. The announced business rate revaluation seemingly results in severe increases in payments, particularly for certain parts of retail, small shops and the pub and hotel trade. There will ultimately be an obligation on a reformed Assembly to deal with this issue, but I would like the Minister to take on board the fact that this can have a detrimental impact.

Looking to our own constituencies, most Members know that a small shop, a pub or a hotel can be central to keeping our town centres and communities alive. It is important in my constituency and it is obviously important in Northern Ireland that we have some sense of proportion in any change to business rates.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

One issue that the Minister did not mention is that of those born in Northern Ireland who identify as Irish and as Irish citizens, and therefore as European Union citizens, as exemplified by the DeSouza case. Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that it is now time that the report promised on the Floor of the House by the previous Prime Minister, and which many of us have asked for, is presented and put in the Library?

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Member is absolutely right in his demand. The DeSouza case shames us as a society. We ought to resolve the issue not only for that particular couple—I have met them, of course—but more generally. This matters to those who consider themselves to be Irish. It is part of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement, and it is something to which every party in this House is committed. We ought to make sure that our obligations are translated into something of practical value to the DeSouza campaign. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

Health service pay in Northern Ireland has now reached crisis proportions. A hospital porter or cleaner in Northern Ireland, for example, is paid a wage of some £16,943, whereas their comparator in England and Wales is on £17,650, some £700 more—the pay is better again in Scotland. I could go through the situation for healthcare assistants and administrative workers, and it is the same for nurses and paramedics.

The Minister used senior nurses as a reference point. A senior nurse in Scotland, England and Wales is paid £30,401 a year, whereas a senior nurse in Northern Ireland is paid significantly less, £27,772, which cannot be acceptable. I know of nobody who accepts that there is justification for that position. None of the parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly accepts that position, and the Opposition do not accept that position. This has to be resolved.

The Minister began by saying that the Secretary of State is in Belfast to try to make sure that the all-party talks come to fruition so that we see the Assembly restored, which is the conclusion we all want to see. If it happens, the Minister can say that the issue will be translated over to the Assembly, as is right and proper. However, I warn him that if the Assembly is not back up and running in a short time, and if we face the possibility of prolonged delay for an election, it will be incumbent upon the Westminster Government to look at the situation. Those nurses, administrative workers, hospital porters and cleaners should not have to wait for an indefinite amount of time in the future, particularly given that, almost uniquely, nurses have gone on strike because of the length of time they have faced this disparity of income and unfairness. It is always convenient for Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office to say, “This really ought to be a devolved issue”, but this is not necessarily a devolved issue. Clearly, if the Assembly is back up and running, there is a strong argument that it should be resolved by the Assembly, as long as the resource base is there for it to make those pay increases. If the Assembly is not up and running, the legal basis exists for this to be delivered by Whitehall and the Westminster Government. I am happy to go through that with the Minister and the Secretary of State in due course. It is important that the signal is given now to people in the health service in Northern Ireland that their long struggle for fairness will shortly come to a conclusion.

I will conclude with one further remark. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Wales became a grandmother this morning. Her grandchild Jesse Kearney has an Irish father and a Welsh mother—a mother from Great Britain. I would like to believe that the Jesse Kearney generation will grow up in a world very different from the one we have at the moment. I hope they will grow up in one where we have a robust Stormont Assembly and system of governance in Northern Ireland, one that allows us to put the history we are talking about tonight, be it the history of violence or the legacy of abuse, so far in the past that a generation can grow up in hope, in a transformed society. That is what this House has to be about, and it is why we cannot have excuses from those on the Treasury Bench or from the parties in Stormont. We now have to see the Secretary of State’s genuine efforts, which I applaud, brought to a conclusion so that Northern Ireland can begin to move forward again with a properly working Assembly, which can begin to deliver the transformation it needs not simply for hospital workers, but for the people of Northern Ireland.