Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Mike Penning Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I said that the hon. Gentleman was persistent. The decision to allocate spending from the capital budget to the revenue budget was taken to make sure that the budget balanced. It was taken after consultation with all the main parties in Northern Ireland, which all understood that that decision was taken to ensure that the budget balanced and that additional revenue raising from the people of Northern Ireland was not required.

Let me turn to the second important issue to which I would like to draw the attention of the House. As well as placing all Northern Ireland Audit Office audits and value for money reports and the associated departmental responses in the Libraries of both Houses—to be accessible and visible to all interested Members and Committees—I will also write to the main Northern Ireland political parties to highlight the publication of the reports and encourage them to engage with the findings. This is as robust a process as is possible, but the best form of overall accountability and scrutiny of Northern Ireland public finances would of course be that undertaken by a fully functioning Executive and a sitting Assembly in Northern Ireland.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I am sorry to intervene in these sensible discussions, but the Secretary of State has been very generous in taking interventions. Surely one way in which the budgets could be balanced—this would be better and might provide a bit of impetus—would be if the salaries of those in the Assembly who are not doing their jobs were suspended. Perhaps we would get a little bit of movement, and we might have some spare money for the Department of Education.

[Karen Bradley]

That point has been raised with me on a number of occasions. My right hon. Friend will know that I legislated to stop the increase in salaries that would have happened automatically on 1 April, and we are considering the position with regard to ongoing salaries. I know that he will be surprised, but I am afraid that even cutting Northern Ireland Assembly pay would not quite reach the figure of £100 million that we needed to reallocate from capital to revenue.

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[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I would just like to make a few comments on Second Reading and then perhaps try to catch your eye in Committee, Mr Deputy Speaker.

First, I would just say to the Secretary of State that I was not indicating earlier that all the financial problems in Northern Ireland would be resolved if we did not pay Members of the Legislative Assembly for not attending. The point I was trying to make was similar to the point made by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) in relation to Sinn Féin: people are being paid for something they are not doing, and I think that in a democracy that is fundamentally wrong. It is about not the capital but the enormous message it would send. The Secretary of State was quite dismissive at the Dispatch Box, but my point is actually very serious. That point has been addressed in previous times when the Assembly has gone down, and it needs to be looked at again. On the point about Sinn Féin Members being paid and not being present in the House, I know that they stand on that manifesto promise in elections, but I do not think that many people in this country—in these great islands of ours—would understand that situation.

I am a Member of Parliament for Hertfordshire, which needs more police and more funding for police—as a former Policing Minister, I understand that side of things a bit—but there is a difference in Northern Ireland. Policing in Northern Ireland is not like policing in any other part of this country. I have had the honour and privilege of being with NI police on patrol—in uniform as a young soldier and then as the Minister of State for Northern Ireland. We do not have armed police officers on the streets—doing community policing, every single one of them. Our police officers do not have pipe bombs thrown at them on a regular basis. In Northern Ireland, we had side-impact IEDs, threatening behaviour and people needing protection in their homes. Serving officers were moved from their homes, sometimes at a minute’s notice because of the threat against them. A lot of people from England, Scotland and Wales who are listening to this debate will say, “Why is an English MP standing up and asking the Secretary of State not just to look seriously at this, but to find some money for the Northern Ireland police force?” The answer is that it is different, because the police manage to keep a peace in Northern Ireland that the rest of the United Kingdom would not understand as peace. However, that peace in Northern Ireland is a million miles further forward than it has been before.

Previous Governments of both persuasions have found money for Northern Ireland for that reason—to keep the Good Friday agreement. My fear is this—it was my fear when I was in post in Northern Ireland, and many colleagues across the House will have heard me say this: we need momentum and we need to go forward, and stagnation takes us backwards. What we saw in the Bogside in Londonderry at the weekend is an example of stagnation and going back to the old days.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

As the police try to move into a much more community-orient role in Northern Ireland, we all support that, but as we speak tonight, police officers in Northern Ireland are having to be deployed to the small enclave of the Fountain estate in Londonderry, where they are under constant attack from petrol bombs, acid bombs and stones. That is not the type of policing we ought to have, but it has to take place, and the police in Londonderry and the Chief Constable need the additional resources to cover that.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I completely agree. Knowing that part of the world as well as I do, and having meetings there as well as having been there many years ago, I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. But there is a problem: we have recruited a lot of police into the PSNI over recent years who have never seen this sort of terrorism and barbaric attacks on our officers, and it has come as a huge shock to them. I remember vividly the terribly sad event of David Black being murdered. I remember speaking to the young PSNI officers who were in and around the area in the aftermath, and they could not comprehend what they were seeing. I remember some of what was written while I was there as a Minister, and people were saying to me, “I didn’t join the force for this.”

We talk about recruitment. We would need 300 officers for a hard border, if it happened—chief constables always come up with figures for these things. We are short of officers now without any situation on the border, and we have to remember that 10,000 troops could not keep a hard border in Northern Ireland throughout the troubles. I have said before in the House that we can try as much as we want to have a hard border and it will not happen. We will have to use technology, and some of the best automatic number plate recognition is on that border now. There were no customs posts anywhere near the border, particularly in Monaghan and the areas of Middletown where I was. They were way up the road and actually were closed most of the time.

The point I am trying to make is that it is not just about recruiting numbers. They have to be the right people and they have to have explained to them very early on, before they sign on the dotted line and we commit money to training them, that policing in Northern Ireland is very different—they know because they live on the island. I consciously say “the island” because there are officers from the south. They live in the south and are very proud members of the PSNI.

[Ian Paisley]

The point that the right hon. Gentleman is making is compounded by the fact that each month, the Police Service of Northern Ireland loses 50 officers for the very reason that he identified. For a force the size of the PSNI, that loss is hugely significant, because we are not getting in the experienced officers we need with the skills to deal with the issues. Does he agree with the point that the Chief Constable made to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee earlier this month, which was that nationalists and nationalist leaders in Northern Ireland have to step up to the plate and encourage their community to join the police and to see it as a career for all the community?

[Sir Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. If we are going to have a community police force, and we created the PSNI for that reason—we abolished the RUC and created the PSNI—it has to be a force of all the people. For that reason, I completely agree that politicians on the nationalist side have to step up to the plate. Let us be honest about it: there are Catholics serving in the PSNI, but they are continually under threat.

[Karen Bradley]

I start by apologising to my right hon. Friend—I was not making light in any way of his comments about MLA pay. I know exactly the point that he was making. I also want to put on record my tribute to him as Policing Minister when we worked together in the Home Office. He understood policing in a way that very few Policing Ministers possibly can. I believe that he was Policing Minister when the National Crime Agency started to be able to operate in Northern Ireland, thanks to his work as the organised crime Minister.

Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the news that assistant chief constable Drew Harris of the PSNI has been appointed as the next commissioner of the Garda in the Republic? That is excellent news, and it demonstrates the point that my right hon. Friend made earlier about the whole island of Ireland working together.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I thank the Secretary of State—I must have a moan more often if I get such nice comments. I know Drew really well, and a lot of colleagues in the House will know him well, too. It is a fantastic appointment, and he will do fantastic work for cross-border policing and community policing.

The Garda police very differently from the PSNI, and I have to respect them—theirs is a sovereign state. However, I was about to come on to the point that if we want to recruit the right sort of people more often, from the cross-border areas and cross-party, we must make sure we protect them. One thing that I hope the Secretary of State will raise with her opposite number is that the Garda do not put in place protection in the south for serving police officers from the Garda or from the north. That is a real concern, which was raised with me many times when I was a Minister. If people were coming from the south who needed protection, the only thing that we could do was take them out of the south and bring them into the north, which is obviously wrong. The Garda do not have the same policies as we do and do not support their officers in the same way. That is not a criticism of them—they just do it differently—but perhaps the Secretary of State could raise that point with her opposite number.

I know that others want to speak, and I do not want to drag the debate out.

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene at the end of his comments. Out of respect, including for the memory of my late husband, who was the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary for 10 years, I wonder if I might just ask the right hon. Gentleman to correct what he said earlier—that the Police Service of Northern Ireland took over after the RUC was abolished. The RUC was incorporated into the Police Service of Northern Ireland and many, many distinguished RUC officers still serve proudly in the PSNI.

[Sir Mike Penning]

If the hon. Lady had not asked me to correct the record, I would still have done so—I spoke inappropriately, and I apologise. I also pay tribute to her husband for the work that he did in getting us to where we are today. Sadly, he is no longer with us. I absolutely agree—I had ex-RUC officers in my own close protection when I was out there. Interestingly, I had former British soldiers who had fallen in love with Irish girls and stayed.

I just want to touch on the G8 summit at Lough Erne and the volunteers we had coming across from the mainland—from Great Britain. I remember Steve White of the Police Federation—he has left the federation now, but he is a good friend—telling me, “You will not get officers going over”. How wrong he was. Police officers from Scotland, Wales and England want to go and help their colleagues. I am still struck by what happened at the first briefing when I was there, when those green uniforms walked in and every other officer from around these great nations of ours stood up out of respect. It was not once; it happened again when I went to the Police Federation conference, simply because of the massive respect that other police forces have for the PSNI. As we know, quite a few of them get recruited out of the Province and into the other forces. Surely the sensible thing would be for them to go back and serve with the PSNI.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The House will recall that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in her opening remarks that this Bill is a limited but necessary intervention in Northern Ireland in the continued absence of an Executive. The Bill will put her Northern Ireland budget statement earlier this year in March on to a legal footing and provide the necessary certainty and legal authority for Northern Ireland Departments to access all available public finances, ultimately safeguarding the continued delivery of public services in Northern Ireland.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members across the House for their contributions today. In particular, I thank those on the Opposition Front Bench for their continued support for the Bill. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), referred to oversight of Northern Ireland civil service spending. I can assure him that the Audit Office will oversee the spending. If there are any irregularities, they will be brought to the attention of the Secretary of State, and she will certainly ensure that all those who need to know about it are made aware.

The hon. Member for Rochdale also spoke about health funding. He will be mindful that the confidence and supply agreement provides for £100 million for health transformation. In terms of education, he will be aware that two or so weeks ago, the Government announced £140 million for the six schools based at Strule, for integrated education, so there is optimism in that area.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) spoke from personal experience and raised a number of issues. He was an excellent Policing Minister and was one of my predecessors in this Department, where he served with distinction. I want to put on the record the fantastic work that is done by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. These very brave women and men daily put their own safety at risk so that the rest of the community in Northern Ireland can go about their daily business safely. Let us not underestimate the important work they do. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, we have only recently received the PSNI business plan and proposals, and we will of course consider them carefully.

[Sir Mike Penning]

The Minister quite rightly mentions the work of frontline police officers, but we must not forget their families and loved ones. By committing themselves to being in the PSNI, police officers put their friends and loved ones at risk, and we must make sure that we protect them and give them our gratitude, too.

[Mr Vara]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The families have the daily worry and concern of their loved ones going out to make sure that the rest of community can get about safely, and it is quite right that they too are recognised and acknowledged.

May I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) to his post? I add my good wishes to his predecessor, the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), who did an excellent job. I do not know what new role she has, but whatever it is, I am sure she will serve in it with equal diligence. I echo the hon. Gentleman’s comments about wanting the devolved Assembly to be up and running, which I think we all want in this House. It has been raised consistently by many Members, and I will come on to that later.

The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) spoke with his characteristic passion. He is right to speak about the additional funds for Northern Ireland pursuant to the confidence and supply agreement. It is important to recognise that that money will be spent for the entire community of Northern Ireland—all the people there—not on any particular category of people. He spoke about spending on education being flat, but there is actually a real-terms increase for education and health in the budget. I want to put that on the record.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) of course speaks from experience both on the Front Bench and in a previous life when he was involved in Northern Ireland matters. On his references to our being under direct rule, I want to make it absolutely clear that we are not. It is important to recognise that we have oversight at the moment, and it is our duty to ensure that there is proper governance. In pursuance of that duty, we are pushing through the legislation that is absolutely necessary to ensure good governance, which means proper public services. The money we are providing will ensure that those public services have the funding to go with them.