Stormont House Agreement

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

I expect the House to receive news on legislation on corporation tax in the very, very near future. We are working on how the structure of legislation in the Assembly and Westminster on the rest of the package is precisely to be formulated. The procedures for review and monitoring are set out in paragraphs 73 to 75. In relation to inquests and the provision of information to families, it is crucial that we all work on this. The agreement has a commitment to reform. There is an acknowledgement that the current inquest system is not meeting the needs of the families effectively enough and not delivering the Government’s obligations under article 2 effectively enough. That will be a hugely important priority for the UK Government. We hope to work closely with the Department of Justice in the work that it will no doubt be doing on this.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that an agreement was reached, but will the Secretary of State set out exactly how much extra money has been given to the Northern Ireland Assembly to make the deal happen? Does she regret that, yet again, we have shown that if the parties of Northern Ireland hold out for long enough, Westminster will eventually cave in and send more money over?

[Mrs Villiers]

I can outline the financial package, but it is a fair one. It was not a blank cheque. It recognises that Northern Ireland faces specific problems that the rest of the United Kingdom does not. In outline, it involves £150 million over five years to help to fund work on the past; flexibility to use £700 million of capital borrowing to fund a voluntary exit scheme for four years; a contribution of up to £500 million over 10 years of capital funding for shared and integrated education; £350 million of borrowing for capital infrastructure projects; and the flexibility to use the receipts from asset sales and capital funding to repay the welfare shortfall payments.