Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Mike Kane Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

First, let me say that the Secretary of State is being very optimistic if he thinks this is the last time he will be bringing such a Bill to this House. I have listened to every Secretary of State over the past three years who has brought the budget Bill to the Floor of the House say that they hoped it would be the last time. They have even had the same Northern Ireland Office line in their speech that, “We are close to getting an agreement on the restoration of the Assembly.” I really do think it is time that instead of listening to the Sinn Féin spin that comes from the NIO, he looks at the reality on the ground, which is this: despite the fact that the absence of an Assembly hurts Sinn Féin’s constituents greatly, Sinn Féin still refuses to go back into the Assembly.

We have heard here today about the mitigations on welfare reform. A recent survey found that most of the people who will be hurt will be in Sinn Féin constituencies, yet Sinn Féin is still happy to plough on and face the end of this financial year, when people will be hit with huge bills because housing benefit will be reduced and some of the other mitigation measures that were put in place will no longer be there. Yet still Sinn Féin says that we are not going to have the Assembly.

We have heard here today about something that would benefit a Sinn Féin constituency. I happen to think it is a wrong decision, although I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) will disagree with me on this—I am referring to putting a medical school into Londonderry. There are good arguments—including the economies of scale and other benefits—for saying that we should just enlarge the one at Queen’s University. I guarantee that had Ministers been in place in the Assembly, we would already have the medical school in Londonderry, yet Sinn Féin are quite happy to sit it out and see a Sinn Féin constituency without that important facility that would bring a lot of benefits to that constituency, although it might not be the best thing for Northern Ireland as a whole.

We have heard time and again in this place about the victims of historical abuse. Martin McGuinness drove that work forward, yet the closure of the Assembly has denied those people the justice and support that they thought they would get. Sinn Féin are still unmoving and will not go back into the Assembly.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. It will not come as a galloping shock for him to hear that I have been campaigning for the medical school in Londonderry. Does he agree that what Sinn Féin are really worried about is having a whole new electorate that would not vote for them in a tight marginal seat?

[Sammy Wilson]

That may well be the case. On the face of it, Sinn Féin say they support the idea, but they are quite happy to sit out the Assembly so that no decision is made on it.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) pointed out, the Assembly met recently because of the whole issue of changes in respect of abortion law, which exercises tens of thousands of Sinn Féin supporters who come from a Catholic tradition, yet Sinn Féin sat out the Assembly rather than go in to address the issue. If the Secretary of State thinks Sinn Féin are just on the brink of going into the Assembly then, to use a Northern Ireland colloquialism, his head is full of sweetie mice. It is not going to happen. They have shown time and again that they are not prepared to make that decision, even when it is unpopular with their own electorate.

That brings me to the inadequacy of what we are doing today. The Secretary of State has made it quite clear that there is no additional money for Northern Ireland; the Bill will simply ensure that, of the money allocated in the budget, the remaining part that was not allocated when we last debated these issues will now be made available to see us through to the end of the financial year.

The Bill does, though, have a substantial impact on Northern Ireland. People have mentioned the lack of scrutiny. Of course, this is not the only way in which the budget is scrutinised. Had the Assembly been up and running, the permanent secretaries, Ministers and officials of each Department to which money is allocated in the Bill would have been brought before committees and asked about how the money was being spent. Is it being spent efficiently? It there the transparency mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly)? Is the money being spent on things that are relevant, or should it be allocated in different ways? But none of those committees is meeting.

We then find that, for example, in the Department for Communities, there are at a rough count 51 different heads of expenditure. Are they all necessary? Have changes occurred in Northern Ireland over the past four years that mean we perhaps should have focused spending in different ways? In the Department for the Economy, there are more than 60 different heads of spending. Some of those may have been relevant four years ago, but are they as relevant today? Should some of them not be raised in priority and some dropped in priority? That scrutiny does not happen. The global sums are given, and the civil servants will spend them as they see fit.

Of course, the civil servants do not have the decision to make and cannot make decisions on huge changes. All they can do, even with the legislation available to them, is spend money on the basis of decisions that were made four years ago. Any new initiatives cannot be taken by civil servants. For example, the £140 million that went on mitigations in welfare reform would have to be found by cutting back on other programmes. Civil servants are not going to make those decisions; Ministers must make those decisions. The Minister cannot run away from that. He must accept that those changes and that stepping in will be necessary, which is why we must get a grip on this.

The one point that the Minister had promised to make during his speech and did not make—this has been raised time and again by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and myself with Treasury Ministers and with the Secretary of State—is to do with the whole issue of housing associations and the fact that they cannot currently access financial transactions capital of which the Northern Ireland Executive does have surplus, but cannot spend, because there is no outlet for it.

Have we not yet had the legislation because various Northern Ireland Departments—the Department for Communities, the Department of Finance or the Northern Ireland Office—have been dragging their feet? Or does the problem remain here at Westminster, with the Treasury not taking this matter forward? It is important that we find out, because this issue will affect capital spending in Northern Ireland.

I know that you want me to finish, Mr Deputy Speaker, but let me just say to the Secretary of State that the Government cannot dodge the issue. If we do not have an Assembly, or any prospect of an Assembly—Sinn Féin have no intention of allowing us to have an Assembly—decisions will have to start being made here.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

It is a source of great sadness to me and, I think, to everyone both inside and outside the Chamber tonight that such an important piece of legislation is being discussed so briefly. It is also a source of sadness that we have to legislate in this House for matters, which, entirely, should be the province of Northern Ireland. I am also concerned that we are probably failing in the scrutiny process. I am not sure that we reach the highest standards. I understand the need for fast-track legislation, but I was intrigued to see in the explanatory notes that, because of the urgency, there was no opportunity for the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to consider the matter in full; instead it has received an informal technical briefing from the Northern Ireland Office. I think that we should place on record our concern that this form of consultation, by way of a technical briefing, is something that we should resist except in extremis.

I pay credit to the officials in the Northern Ireland Office for producing an extraordinary, well-made piece of work here. The amount of effort that has gone into this is quite remarkable and it does bear examination. It is extremely interesting that, over and again in the Bill, we see that expenditure is required as a result of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union and related services. Some of them are quite extraordinary. The Northern Ireland Assembly Commission requires a modest £11 million, which has to go towards

“enhancing public awareness and involvement in the working of the Assembly”.

That is money well spent. Then we have £3 million for the Northern Ireland Audit Office, and £868,000 for the Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation—I wonder whether there might be a quango in there for me somewhere in the months ahead. Who knows?

The fact remains that this is crucial stuff, and in the extraordinary, passionate and well-informed speech of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), he absolutely put his finger on it. We should be talking about the issues that matter to the people of Northern Ireland. We should not be allocating funds to the Assembly Commission; we should be talking about the health service, about social services and about education.

[Mike Kane]

Talking about being passionate and well-informed, I think the whole House will join me in paying tribute to my hon. Friend, as he is at the Dispatch Box today for possibly the last time. He has been one of the finest Members to grace this House and a friend to many. He will be sorely missed once he finally leaves this Chamber.

[Stephen Pound]

I am not entirely sure that I accept that. I am obviously grateful to my good friend and colleague. However, I was slightly knocked back by the extraordinary comment of the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who compared me with a prehistoric ruin on the North Antrim coast. I am quite proud to be compared with the Giant’s Causeway, but if I were to be any feature of the Northern Irish landscape, I prefer to think of myself as Carrickfergus castle, a doughty defender of Northern Ireland. That would also enable me to keep an eye on the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) on a regular basis.

Time is very short. We have heard excellent contributions, not just from the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for North Dorset, but also from the right hon. Members for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), for Lagan Valley and for East Antrim.

As has been intimated, this will be the last occasion at which I stand at the Dispatch Box. I am delighted that it is on an issue that means so much—an issue that has come to dominate my life in many ways, but one that I willingly allow to so do. If there is one thing that typifies what could be best about this House, it is the way in which we are so often united on this subject. Equally, this issue typifies the House at our worst, because we seem to be incapable of resolving it. I would have hoped that my last appearance at the Dispatch Box would have been to say that a restored Assembly and Executive are now taking the lead in Northern Ireland. It may be said that I have my head full of wee sweetie mice; I do not know. I like to think that I am an optimist, and I like to think that the great people of Northern Ireland can respond to that optimism, step up to the mark and show what they can achieve.

My colleagues and I will not oppose this Bill tonight. Reluctantly, we support it. We pay tribute to the Ministers who have brought this legislation forward, all the Northern Ireland Members and particularly the officials and officers of the NIO, who have done such an extraordinary amount of work. May they soon be able to return to the work that they should be doing, where they should be doing it. In the meantime, all I can do is to say thank you and goodnight.