Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Owen Smith Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful and important point about the impact on victims, but nothing in this Bill gives that authorisation to me; nothing changes in the day-to-day operations of decision making in Northern Ireland. This Bill is firmly not direct rule; we are seeking to give the headline approvals for Departments to operate within their usual flexibilities. The Northern Ireland civil service has published separate estimates, and we have published separate estimates on its behalf, but this is in that space that exists. I have met the victims and survivors groups on two occasions, and there has not been a response to the recommendations as yet. It is right that an Executive, having asked for that report, should be the one that responds to it. I know that this is something of great hurt and great pain, which is why I hope earnestly that we are able to see a resolution of it quickly. I believe the families want that sense of progress against the recommendations.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I hesitate to intervene, as I am about to make a speech, but I seek further clarity on this point. We have all met the SAVIA people today. Notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s support for devolution and his desire not to start direct rule, is there anything stopping him legislating, as he is going to in respect of the extra moneys provided as a result of the Democratic Unionist party deal, for an interim payment in order to heal, to some extent, the wounds suffered by people who have been subject to historical abuse?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but it presupposes that there is broad agreement on the recommendations from the Hart report—

[Owen Smith]

There is.

[James Brokenshire]

I am talking about all the recommendations contained in it. My understanding is that we do not have that formal response back, because we have not had the Executive in place. Therefore, this Bill is not about specifying how the Northern Ireland civil service should operate and take certain actions—that takes us down the pathway on day-to-day decision making and what the Northern Ireland civil service should do. That is why I say firmly and clearly that what needs to happen is that we have that Executive back in place to receive that report. I know, from what the head of the Northern Ireland civil service David Sterling has said to me, that it had been preparing advice and a response that an incoming Executive can take up very quickly. That is the right way to respond, but of course I recognise keenly the frustrations that victims and survivors have felt. I know that from the direct exchanges I have had with them.

[Owen Smith]

It is clear that there is cross-party support for the Hart report recommendations—certainly for the compensation and for the notion of an interim payment. I believe all the party leaders sent a letter to that effect in the summer, and we have heard again here today support from representatives of the DUP. Only today I have seen an email from David Sterling to SAVIA saying that he wants to act quickly, so may I ask the Secretary of State to do all he can, including potentially legislating, so that he does indeed act quickly?

[James Brokenshire]

I am sure David Sterling will hear keenly what is being said across the House today on the points that SAVIA has been making to all of us in its meetings and on the desire to see the Hart recommendations advanced, responded to and, where they have been accepted, taken forward. I am sure this House has given that message to David Sterling in relation to what has been said. As I say, and as the hon. Gentleman will know, David Sterling has equally been receiving representations from political parties in Northern Ireland and from SAVIA directly. We have heard about the response he has given and the situation we are currently in—not having an Executive or other means by which to provide direct political instruction. None the less, I know that the Northern Ireland civil service takes its responsibilities and its duties within the law—within the framework in which it is operating—keenly to heart. I am sure it will act appropriately, recognising the points that parties in Northern Ireland have made on this issue, and will do what it can to advance this issue in the difficult and frustrating circumstances we find ourselves in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I join the Secretary of State in condemning the actions of the people who left a viable pipe bomb in Omagh on Remembrance Sunday—on a day and in a place designed to cause maximum harm and shock. It is truly contemptible of those people. I equally condemn the actions of the men who conducted what can only be described as a knee-capping last night in Londonderry-Derry—a city where, even as we speak, there is apparently another incident involving what the police believe to be a viable pipe bomb.

All these awful events are a timely and salutary reminder of Northern Ireland’s past—a past that we all hoped that we had long since left behind, but which I fear we have not always left behind. These events are also a reminder of the propensity of violence in Northern Ireland to fill a vacuum when politics fails, and I am afraid that we are here today because politics has failed. This Bill is, unfortunately, a testament to political failure. It is a failure by the majority parties that were in government together, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and that have fallen out and been unable to come back together. I am afraid that it is also a failure of the Secretary of State’s Government to bring about the restitution of trust and the reconstitution of the Assembly and its institutions.

The Secretary of State has been at pains to say that this is not direct rule. I understand why he wants to emphasise that point—technically, of course, he is right—but that is not what nationalists in Northern Ireland will see in today’s events. That is not how they will characterise it, and that needs to be reflected as they unfortunately now lack a voice in this place for the first time in a long time. The reality is that we are living in something of a twilight zone between devolution and direct rule, with real problems for accountability and transparency, as so many Democratic Unionist party Members described earlier in the debate.

Today’s budget is only a quick fix until the end of March, so there will be a further one. It is difficult to credit the Secretary of State saying that this is the budget that the Northern Ireland Executive would have brought forward in the event of devolution and that this is effectively a continuation of the trajectory set in the budget in December last year. Twelve months have now passed, and it is quite hard to see a direct line of accountability between that indicative budget and the sums before us now.

Let me be clear that we will support the Bill tonight. We absolutely believe that the Secretary of State has no choice but to bring forward this budget, and we accept all the arguments he has made in that regard. Northern Ireland’s public services need to be supported. The roads budget is running out of the money to fill the potholes, and there are significant problems in housing, health and education, all of which need to be addressed with extra resources in Northern Ireland. However, this budget does raise questions about the transparency, accountability and sustainability of this approach. DUP colleagues who raise such questions are right to do so, and other hon. Members across the House will also raise these points.

[Lady Hermon]

The hon. Gentleman has signalled his support for the Bill. Will he also signal to the House his support for the issue raised, quite rightly, by the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds)? When the matter is brought before the House, will the hon. Gentleman, his colleagues and the leader of his party firmly support the termination of representative money to Sinn Féin MPs, who do not take their seats and represent their people in this House?

[Owen Smith]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, that is a slightly separate issue from those we are discussing today. We can discuss that matter on another day, and I will be happy to address it at that point.

I hope to address the profound concerns about the Government’s mishandling of the wider political process, but I will first talk a bit about the budget. The Secretary of State has effectively said that this is a flat budget for the Northern Ireland Departments in aggregate, with perhaps a 3% uplift to reflect inflationary pressures over the period. But within that headline figure, there are shifts between Departments, with cuts for some and increases for others. I cannot help but bring to the attention of the House—although my thunder was stolen—the quite extraordinary 32% increase on last year’s figure received by the Executive Office, compared with a 3% reduction in the budget for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and a 0.3% reduction in the budget for the Department for the Economy. Those are curious decisions that the Secretary of State was not able adequately to explain away to the House. I accept that this is complicated, but those decisions seem to be fairly fundamental.

Such decisions raise real questions about the accountability of decision making in this twilight zone. It is true that there is an increase for education in this budget versus the education recommendations made by the Secretary of State in April and the summer, but that raises a question that the House should ask: who has made the decision to increase education spending in Northern Ireland? There was a decision to cut it, and I am very pleased that that decision was reversed and that there has been a slight uplift in education spending. But someone made that decision. If it was not a Northern Ireland Executive Minister or the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, it was a civil servant. That civil servant is wholly unaccountable and does not have a clear line of accountability now to elected politicians in Northern Ireland or to the Secretary of State. So while we may well support the decision, we must ask questions about it.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is easy to blame the Secretary of State or the civil servants? Does he also accept that if, this time last year, the then Sinn Féin Minister, who was responsible, and who should have taken responsibility, for laying out the budget for this year, had done his job, it would have been clear who was responsible for the ups and downs of spending in that Department, and that the same is true of other Departments? The fact that Sinn Féin was scared of making budget decisions, and brought the Executive down rather than take hard decisions, means that we are in this situation today. I know that the Labour party has an association with Sinn Féin, but could the hon. Gentleman find it in his heart to at least acknowledge that Sinn Féin is responsible for the problem we face today?

[Owen Smith]

I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman is referring to in terms of a connection between the Labour party and Sinn Féin—that is certainly not something I recognise, and it is certainly not a connection I speak to. I am not blaming the Secretary of State, and I am certainly not blaming hard-working civil servants, for making these decisions. I am merely pointing out, as the hon. Gentleman did, that decisions have been taken, not by Ministers and not by the Secretary of State, but by civil servants, and we have no means of questioning those civil servants or holding them accountable for those decisions.

A further decision—it is not included in the fine print, but I understand it is on the stocks in Northern Ireland—involves closing four out of the eight children’s outdoor education centres there. That is an important decision for the children of Northern Ireland, and it is apparently to be made by civil servants in the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly. The question for the Secretary of State is, does he support that decision to cut outdoor education centres? If he does not, is he at least lobbying David Sterling and his colleagues in the Northern Ireland civil service to tell them that he is not in favour of it?

The Secretary of State talked earlier about SAVIA and the need quickly to bring forward changes and interim payments for the victims in the historical institutional abuse inquiry. Is he lobbying David Sterling to say he should get on with that and find the money for those people, who have joined us today in the Gallery? If the Secretary of State is absolving himself of responsibility for these decisions, or if he is accurately presenting the fact that he does not have responsibility for them at present, what is he doing to influence the decision making that is taking place?

I gently put it to the Secretary of State that people in Northern Ireland will not accept it as entirely credible that Northern Ireland Office Ministers have no influence over these decisions, especially in this twilight zone. In the invent of a major economic or security crisis in Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State would, of course, expect to be held accountable for helping to solve it—Northern Ireland Ministers would not be responsible for that. I hope that the Secretary of State would recognise that. I also hope that he would recognise that, in this curious period we are in, he will need to step up to the plate and take more responsibility.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman is making the point that commenced this debate: from tonight, there is effectively no political accountability for the head of the Northern Ireland civil service. No matter how good or objective he is, he is not answerable to the Northern Ireland Assembly or the Northern Ireland Executive. More importantly, from tonight, he is not answerable to this place or to the Secretary of State. That is not tenable for any more than a few days, let alone weeks or months. I urge the shadow Secretary of State to join in urging that we appoint Ministers urgently from this place and get on with administering Northern Ireland and accounting for it properly.

[Owen Smith]

I accept the point the hon. Gentleman makes—that the NICS is currently effectively unaccountable is an unarguable fact—but I do not share his view that the remedy is instantly to bring in direct rule Ministers. The answer we have to seek, in keeping with the guiding light for us all in this process—the Good Friday/ Belfast agreement—is to get devolution back up and running. That has to be the key focus of the Secretary of State and us all, because he is right that direct rule will be a massive backward step for Northern Ireland. Some parties may be more sanguine about the prospect of direct rule Ministers stepping in in Northern Ireland, but I am not. We in the Labour party are not sanguine about that, and we think it would be a hugely retrograde step. Experience tells us that as soon as we have direct rule Ministers back in Stormont, it will be the devil’s own job to get them out, and we will want to get them out, because the hon. Gentleman will want Northern Ireland’s local politicians to take local decisions.

[Conor McGinn]

Can we be clear about this? The alternative to a functioning Executive and Assembly is not a consultative Assembly and not direct rule; it is the onward implementation of strands 2 and 3 of the Good Friday agreement. There will not be direct rule in isolation. An intergovernmental conference will have to be convened, and Northern Ireland would be governed in partnership between the Irish Government and the UK Government, as envisaged in the provisions of the Good Friday agreement.

[Owen Smith]

I would not put it exactly like that, but my hon. Friend is right to say that we are in untried, untested waters. We will need to see that the letter and the spirit of the Good Friday agreement are preserved, however we take forward the talks process, and that means, crucially, that a way must be found for those north-south institutions, and for east-west institutions, to work. That may require a greater role for the Assembly than we have had in previous periods of direct rule. We may need to be imaginative about that, and I hope that the Secretary of State is thinking about that.

[Ian Paisley]

The shadow Secretary of State knows my personal commitment to devolution. I would love to see it working, but at some point we have to stand up and say, “The emperor has no clothes.” That is essentially what is happening in Northern Ireland. The worst thing this Parliament can allow to happen in Ulster is for a sense of drift to take hold. Leadership has to be respected. A firm grip has to be taken of the situation, and it must be taken by Her Majesty’s Government. I urge the shadow Secretary of State to urge that that happens quickly.

[Owen Smith]

I am encouraged to hear the hon. Gentleman remind the House of his support for devolution. I remind the House that the DUP has always strongly supported devolution, even in periods when some in Unionism were less keen on the prospect of devolution. History is important in all this.

The question for us, therefore, is how we see devolution restored, and there is a question here for the Secretary of State. It is not a matter of blame but a statement of fact that we are almost 11 months on from the collapse of the Northern Ireland institutions: 11 months of dialogue, largely behind closed doors, between the two largest parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP, which has come to nought; 11 months, effectively, of banging our heads against a brick wall and failing to make substantive progress. The Secretary of State will tell us we have made progress, but people in Northern Ireland want to know where it is, because it has not been spelled out to them—or to me—at any point over the past 11 months. It is clear that what we have been doing repeatedly over those 11 months has not being working, and there is no reason for us to assume that it will be 12th time lucky.

The question for the Secretary of State, therefore, is what is he going to do differently—not what is he going to do the same as he has been doing for the past 11 months —to take this process forward? My colleagues and I would like to urge him to do some specific things and to consider some extra ways in which he can take the process forward. We do so built on the experience we have with our proud record of helping to facilitate breakthroughs in devolution, including the establishment, of course, of the Good Friday agreement and all the institutions that stem from it.

I urge the Secretary of State, first, to set out a road map for how he is going to get the institutions back up and running and how he is going to provide us with some clarity on the steps he plans to take over the next few months. Keeping us in the dark and, out of thin air, having a series of meetings behind closed doors between the two parties is not working and is not delivering a breakthrough.

Secondly, and most importantly perhaps, will the Secretary of State consider the prospect of an independent chair to come in to help to give new energy and impetus to the talks? Labour Members know that that was incredibly important as a vehicle for taking things forward. Indeed, I think that it is true to say that without Senator George Mitchell, in particular, we might not have seen the Good Friday/Belfast agreement—that is how important independent eyes have been in this process. If he is not prepared to learn from the experience of George Mitchell and others, such as my right hon. Friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, why not? Why are we not considering that step, because it has worked in the past and should be considered in the future?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

As a veteran of many talks processes, I urge caution on the part of the hon. Gentleman about the idea that an independent chair would be a panacea in resolving these issues. That has not been so in the past—I have sat under independent chairmanships —and it is unlikely to be so now. In fairness to the Secretary of State, the current impasse is not of his doing. Other parties really do need to step up to the mark and show their commitment to devolution in Northern Ireland. In that respect, the DUP will not be found wanting.

[Owen Smith]

The right hon. Gentleman is right, of course, that the Secretary of State is not exclusively—or, indeed, primarily—responsible for the impasse. That is down to the political parties in Northern Ireland that have failed to come to an agreement—that, too, I am afraid, is a statement of fact. The right hon. Gentleman is also right that independent chairs have not always taken things forward. As he will know, the Haass talks, for example, were an attempt to get someone with experience of making progress in Northern Ireland to do so again, but that failed. However, there are other instances from the past. George Mitchell, the example that I cited, was important in taking things forward, as indeed was Richard Haass in his first incarnation in Northern Ireland.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. However, we have indicated, in our willingness to break the current impasse, that we would form an Executive today and continue the negotiations in parallel. The problem is not that the DUP is holding back the formation of an Executive; it is that Sinn Féin refuses to form an Executive until its demands are met. There is a clear difference, and the hon. Gentleman does a disservice to the talks by failing to make that distinction.

[Owen Smith]

I am not sure that that is entirely fair. As I said, in the absence of a nationalist voice in this House, we need to make sure that we seek fairly to represent both sides of the debate. The nationalists have argued that an aspect of the current impasse is the failure to make progress on the issue of the Irish language, and in particular on a stand-alone Irish language Act.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

rose—

[Owen Smith]

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to tell me that we will make progress on that and that the prospect of a stand-alone Irish language Act is on the cards, that would obviously be a breakthrough, but I am not sure that he is going to do so.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

What I am going to say to the hon. Gentleman is that for me and my constituents, health and education are far more important than the Irish language. They want our Assembly Members back in there taking decisions while they work through outstanding issues such as the Irish language.

[Owen Smith]

I would not disagree with that. I am sure that that is the view of constituents from all parts of the community in Northern Ireland. It is certainly a reflection of what I hear from constituents from all parts of Northern Ireland.

I say to the right hon. Gentleman, to his party and to the Secretary of State that this perhaps illustrates that we are not making a breakthrough by simply relying on dialogue between the two major parties. Those parties clearly have a mandate—a commanding mandate—in Northern Ireland, but they do not have a veto on the process, so one of the other options that the Secretary of State should be considering is roundtable talks. Such talks have also been difficult. They have sometimes been unwieldy and sometimes very, very problematic, but they have also been the reason for breakthrough. They have been points at which pressure and public scrutiny have been brought to bear. They have allowed the smaller parties to have their say and, perhaps more importantly, to bring in their ideas and put pressure on the other parties. I urge him to consider whether roundtable talks could have the role in the future that worked in the past.

Thirdly, such roundtable talks have worked particularly well when the authority and power of the office of the Prime Minister has been brought to bear to try to bring about a breakthrough. Whatever power and authority the current Prime Minister might have—some might think that she has a little less than some previous incumbents in the role—she should be deploying every last ounce of it to try to achieve a breakthrough. We are often told that she still persists in her difficult role at this difficult time because she has a great sense of duty and public service. I can think of no greater public service that she could do right now than serving the peace process in Northern Ireland by intervening personally —getting her hands dirty—to try to bring about the breakthrough that we all so desperately require. If she will not do so—if she persists in having only long-distance telephone calls, which, as I have said, I fear are neither use nor ornament in this process—why not? Why will she not invest more of her time and effort in trying to bring about a breakthrough? If this Government are so paralysed by the debacle that is Brexit that they cannot deploy their Prime Minister, it says something pretty damning about them.

[David Hanson]

I support my hon. Friend’s comments. He will know that I was one of the last direct rule Ministers. The then Prime Minister, the right hon. Tony Blair MP, as he was at that stage, spent five whole days at St Andrews with all political parties, with junior Ministers, and with the Foreign Minister and Taoiseach of the Irish Republic to try to get devolution restored. Devolution was restored because of the intensive effort of the Prime Minister of the day to barter on some of the difficult challenges. I urge the current Prime Minister, even in these difficult circumstances, to set aside a period of time to meet the parties and hammer out some of the difficult issues that all parties face so that we ensure that devolution is restored and that people like me are not direct rule Ministers again.

[Owen Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks, because he speaks with real, lived experience of this. He knows exactly what happened at St Andrews, and he knows that it has been precisely the role of Prime Ministers in trying to push through change and to get people to find agreement that has led to a breakthrough.

It is entirely true that not all the instances when we have deployed Prime Ministers have been successful. It may be that Prime Ministers in the current era enjoy less power and influence. Indeed, the Taoiseach may enjoy less power and influence over some of the players in this, too. However, this is another tool in the Secretary of State’s armoury, so I cannot understand why he will not deploy it. It is utterly inexplicable that the Prime Minister has been to Northern Ireland only once—and then for a scant 20 minutes—during her entire period in office. It is beholden on her now to get involved. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is interjecting from a sedentary position. I do not think he has said anything that would lead me to believe that the Prime Minister has engaged personally in any of the talks process. She has made a few phone calls, but she has not, in any substantive fashion, sat down face to face in Belfast with any of the leaders of the parties, and she is not involved in a roundtable. There is a duty on the Secretary of State to lead—

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

Surely the importance of the Prime Minister bothering to visit Northern Ireland is that it would give hope to the people of Northern Ireland that someone beyond the failed Executive—from the highest level in this Parliament—has their best interests at heart, and is prepared do something about the abhorrent situation that we are facing.

[Owen Smith]

I think that people in Northern Ireland will not understand why their Prime Minister—the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—seems so distant from this process. I cannot understand why she is not getting stuck in. I think she ought to, and I think the Secretary of State should urge her to.

If the Secretary of State fails, and if the other avenues that I propose do not work, he needs to start spelling out what he is going to do. DUP Members have stressed that they want him to spell out when he is going to introduce direct rule Ministers. If he does that, he will also need to spell out what he is going to do to try to keep the institutions alive, to allow such things as the north-south arrangements to persist and to be properly served, and to enable proper input from the Irish Government during direct rule. That needs to be considered so that the spirit as well as the letter of the Good Friday agreement is adhered to.

I point the Secretary of State to the experience of the previous Labour Government in the period before d’Hondt had been deployed and before we had Ministers and an Executive in Northern Ireland. In 1999, a budget was given to the Northern Ireland Assembly by the then Minister, of whom questions were asked beforehand. The Secretary of State could perhaps deliver the next iteration of this budget in April to a shadow Assembly so that he could be properly scrutinised, with people with a really detailed understanding of the minutiae asking him the correct questions. I think that that would be a step forward.

Let me make some suggestions about the priorities that the Secretary of State should have in the event of his failure to bring into being the new institutions. First, he should consider the victims of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland, some of whom are sitting in the Gallery tonight. This is a desperate state of affairs. Just two days after the Hart report came up with clear recommendations, the Assembly collapsed. The victims have sat for 10 months without any progress being made on those recommendations. I put it to the Secretary of State that there is widespread agreement across the parties about the way forward, particularly in respect of the notion of an interim payment for the victims. I cannot understand why he will not deploy all his best efforts to bring about quick action. As I have said, David Sterling has indicated in an email to the victims today that he wants to act quickly. I urge the Secretary of State to support him in doing so.

Secondly, may I ask the Secretary of State to consider the plight of another group of victims in Northern Ireland: the victims of the troubles? He will know that there has been a very live debate about the notion of a victims’ pension for the 500 or so people who are most mentally and physically scarred by the troubles. There is political disagreement about whether we can afford to allow that to capture a few people who were injured, as it were, by their own hand. That is controversial in Northern Ireland, but I think there is a moral imperative to look beyond the political difficulty. If the Secretary of State is in the position of being a direct ruler, I urge him to act on that moral imperative and provide a pension for all victims of the troubles in Northern Ireland.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but if the Secretary of State were to act on the hon. Gentleman’s advice about a pension for people who injured themselves by their own hand, it would be met with absolute dismay by the innocent victims in Northern Ireland. They would not be able to understand or countenance the use of taxpayers’ money to pay a pension to people who went out to commit murder. That would simply be wrong.

[Owen Smith]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point—indeed, I mentioned the political disagreement. Equally, however, many victims on all sides of the troubles find it difficult to accept that the actions of a few people who injured themselves by their own hand should hold up the process for all victims—including the many hundreds who are innocent—and preclude them from getting the pensions that they need to support themselves, especially as they get older and more infirm. I understand his point, but a moral argument needs to be made. Perhaps it will take a period of direct rule to introduce that argument.

Thirdly, may I raise something else that I suspect will prompt some interventions: the so-called moral issues in Northern Ireland, particularly equal marriage and abortion rights? Those two areas are incredibly divisive, complex and politically parlous, but I urge the Secretary of State to think hard about them, not least in the light of the referendum that is being held in the Republic. He needs to think about how he might consult in Northern Ireland so that progress is made on those important issues.

One of the greatest tragedies of the recent period of impasse in Northern Ireland is that Northern Ireland does not have a voice on the thorny issue of Brexit and the border. Northern Ireland is likely to be strongly affected by Brexit economically, socially and politically, and perhaps even in terms of the peace process. It is tragic that Northern Ireland has remained voiceless throughout the process. I fear that the Government have engaged in reckless gunboat diplomacy on Brexit, and although the Northern Ireland Secretary voices platitudes about not wanting a hard border on the island of Ireland—we all support that view—he has unfortunately not proposed any substantive ways of preventing that from happening—[Interruption.] He says that that is nonsense. If he wants to stand up and tell us exactly how he will prevent the introduction of a hard border on the island of Ireland, I will be pleased to take that intervention, because I have heard nothing substantive from the Government.

[James Brokenshire]

I point the hon. Gentleman firmly towards our proposals on customs and agriculture, as well as on issues such as the common transit convention. On a whole raft of issues, we have set out our determination to achieve that aim and how we believe it will be achieved. We are engaging in the first phase and into the second phase to make sure that that happens.

[Owen Smith]

None of those proposals has been taken remotely seriously by our interlocutors in Brussels. None of them answers the question of how we avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. None of them is currently thought to be a serious runner—[Interruption.] Well, I wait to see the Brexit negotiations reaching the conclusion that the Secretary of State is right and we do not need to consider some sort of special arrangement for Northern Ireland. At the moment, the country can see that no progress is being made on the matter, that the Government are employing gunboat diplomacy and that, unfortunately, we are not in a position to tell the people of Northern Ireland that they can remain safe and secure in the knowledge that a hard border will not replace the current porous border.

[Nigel Dodds]

Will the hon. Gentleman spell out his party’s Northern Ireland policy? In order to avoid the hard border that he talks about, does he agree with the EU and others that Northern Ireland should remain in the customs union and single market while the rest of the UK departs from them? Is that his policy?

[Owen Smith]

I agree with the EU that it is absolutely essential that we avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland—that is absolutely clear. I agree with the EU that the Government do not seem to have serious or realistic proposals for fixing the problem. I agree with the EU that one potential outcome that would solve the problem would be if Northern Ireland remained in the customs union and had some sort of special arrangement. That is a very interesting idea that we ought to consider.

[Dr Murrison]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise, as the Northern Ireland Committee found out on its recent visit to Newry, that the bulk of Northern Ireland’s trade is with Great Britain? What does he think his proposals would do to that?

[Conor McGinn]

rose—

[Owen Smith]

I will give way to my hon. Friend and then I will respond to the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison).

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has to do one and then the other.

[Owen Smith]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I stand corrected.

In no way, shape or form should we damage trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland through Northern Ireland. Nor should we damage trade across the border. Both would damage the Northern Irish economy. At present, we have no clarity from the Government about how they are going to square that circle. It is for the Government to tell the country and the people of Northern Ireland how they will fix the problem that they have created.

[Conor McGinn]

Of course there is a very simple way to meet the DUP’s stated objectives—two objectives I share—of not having a hard border on the island of Ireland and not having a new border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain: for the whole United Kingdom to stay in the single market and the customs union.

[Owen Smith]

I have some sympathy with that very interesting idea, but I am not sure that it is entirely within the purview of this debate. Perhaps we will debate that in the Chamber tomorrow.

If this is not direct rule, it is getting perilously close. We are getting close to the landing strip on the Secretary of State’s famous glide path. If the Secretary of State is to have one more go, as I believe he wants to and must, at getting Northern Ireland’s Assembly back up and running, he has to consider the changes that we have outlined today. He must think about whether he needs an independent chair, lay out a real road map, get the Prime Minister to get her hands dirty in Northern Ireland, and make sure that we have a clear indication of what his priorities will be if he fails. We heard at the beginning of the debate about a bomb being placed in Omagh on Remembrance Sunday. We know that there is a bomb in Derry right now and that there was a kneecapping in Londonderry last night. These are echoes of Northern Ireland’s terrible past, but they must not be harbingers of its future. It is for us in this generation, and for the Secretary of State and his Government, to make sure that they are not.