Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Ian Paisley

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

[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is one of the things that has apparently fallen into a black hole, because there has been no real explanation why the position has shifted from the situation under the previous Labour Government, when we had direct rule as a consequence of the collapse of politics in Northern Ireland. Under the current state of affairs, we effectively have direct rule, or at least direct rule-style decisions from this place, yet MPs and Assembly Members do not have the capacity to scrutinise decisions. That cannot be allowed to continue, but it has continued for over 18 months.

Over those 18 months, there has been extraordinary and spectacular inactivity on the Government’s part either to provide a greater degree of accountability or to try to bring about the restoration of the institutions in Northern Ireland. It seems as though pushing things down the road and kicking the can into the distance have been the Government’s preferred modus operandi, which is not good for the people of Northern Ireland or for governance across the whole UK.

[Ian Paisley]

I was always taught that the purpose of the study of history was to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. One of the mistakes made in the 1950s and ’60s was that this place became disinterested in what was happening on the ground in Northern Ireland, and we know what happened then. If we do not learn from the past, we will, through the disinterest of this place, repeat what happened then.

[Owen Smith]

That is a good point well made, and it applies not only to Northern Ireland, although it is particularly important there. Post devolution, the different constituent parts of the United Kingdom are becoming strangers, and there is all too often insufficient understanding of, or interest in, the differences in policy and practice between the different parts, which is not good for our democracy. That is potentially not good for peace or for the prosperity of the people of Northern Ireland—people who have suffered more than most in our country.

There is another lesson of the past that we must learn. It is a more recent lesson from the previous Labour Government, and former Prime Minister Tony Blair deployed the phrase on many occasions. In Northern Ireland, we have to keep the bicycle moving forwards, otherwise it falls over. In recent months, the bicycle seems to be in serious danger of being left on its side on the roadside, because there is no sense of forward momentum in the peace process. There is no sense that the Government have a concerted plan to get things up and running.

We have repeatedly called on the Prime Minister to get more stuck into the talks in Northern Ireland. I think that she is planning to go there next week, and I know that there is a British-Irish intergovernmental conference coming up, but such things have been called for endlessly over the best part of two years, and this is too little, too late. We may well be reaching the point where something starts to go wrong, because the truth is that just as the gaps between the political parties are growing wider, so too are decisions being left unmade.

We have already heard about the need for health reform. I cannot remember how many years ago the Bengoa report came out, but we have seen no movement towards its implementation. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), the Opposition spokesman, mentioned some of the pressing matters that desperately need to be dealt with, such as the Hart inquiry into historical institutional abuse. There are people who suffered horrendously at the hands of others in institutions and who are desperate to see justice and compensation. All parties agree that that is their right, but there has been no movement on that. There has also been no movement on the issue of pensions for victims, but there is a significant degree of agreement across political parties and across the House about how to take things forward. What about the legacy issues—not just the legacy inquests, but how we deal with the legacy of the troubles? Again, there is significant agreement in this House and across Stormont on how that should be taken forward, but we are not seeing the fruits of that agreement.

The problem with all that is that we run the risk that the apathy in Northern Ireland that many people have talked about will harden into cynicism. On this side of the Irish sea, it hardens into long-standing disinterest. That cannot be allowed to happen. I say to the Minister, the Conservative Front-Bench team and, indeed, to my own Front-Bench team that one of the lessons of history we need to learn is that if we have what is in effect direct rule, we cannot afford to be, as the right hon. Member for East Antrim put it, squeamish about calling it direct rule.

Even those of us in this place who are devolutionists must accept that enough will be enough at some point. What will we do if something goes wrong in Northern Ireland? What if there is a problem with safeguarding in a school? What if there is a crisis in the health service in Northern Ireland? What if a problem such as we have seen in Derry/Londonderry over recent days and hours expands into something more problematic? Who will the people of Northern Ireland hold to account? Who will they turn to for answers? Who will we ask questions of, to satisfy ourselves that the right decisions are being taken? The truth is that the Minister cannot answer those questions, because David Stirling and the civil servants in Northern Ireland are the only people holding the baby and carrying the can. That is not fair to them, and it is not good governance.

Not only am I a devolutionist, but I also served as an adviser under the previous Labour Government in the period when we called a spade a spade and realised that, in the absence of the political talks delivering the restoration of the institutions, we needed direct rule and to call it direct rule. My direct challenge to the Minister is to tell us why the Government are so concerned about acknowledging the situation. I would understand it if he were to stand up and say, “We think that would make it much more difficult to bring about the institutions.” I would understand if he stood there and said, “We think it would deeply damage relations with the Government of the Republic.” However, I suspect that he is not prepared to accept either of those things.

I suspect that the Minister is not prepared to say that we are going to see, as a corollary of introducing direct rule, lots and lots of BIIGCs, because that will not please some Members. However, I think we had 25 BIIGCs when the Assembly was last in abeyance. That would be the corollary, and it would be absolutely the right thing to do to ensure that the co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement—the UK Government and the Irish Republic’s Government—had a say in things. I do not understand why the Government are so loth to call a spade a spade, to acknowledge that we have direct rule by stealth and to get on with putting in place either direct rule or a plan to get us out of the twilight zone in which we currently reside. It is not good for governance; it is not good for the people of Northern Ireland; and, to put it plainly, it is not sustainable.

Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Ian Paisley

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

Before the Secretary of State intervenes, let me quote her own words to her. She has said that the Government have responsibilities to

“provide better outcomes for victims and survivors—the people who suffered most during the troubles.”—[Official Report, 20 February 2018; Vol. 636, c. 33.]

She has an opportunity to make good on those words and legislate, and I hope she is going to tell us right now that she will do so.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am at a loss to understand what the point being made has to do with the RHI or rates in Northern Ireland.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) is speaking to the Second Reading, and I am sure he is consistent and will ensure he sticks to that.

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Ian Paisley

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

That is precisely right; that is the point that I was coming on to. I was going to say that this is a poor substitute for a proper budget process. What we do not have today is any real insight into how the money will be spent, or where the priorities lie beyond those broad headings. We have had some confusion around HIA funding today. Clearly, there is an implication that 45% of the money for the HIA is available to the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to deal with in this coming year, so some clarity on that would be helpful. I will come on to the HIA in a little more detail later. This is a poor substitute. I think that we can all see that we should have better scrutiny, transparency and accountability, but we can only have that if we get the Executive back up and running, because this place cannot properly form a substitute for Stormont.

All this places Northern Ireland’s excellent, hard-working and diligent civil servants in a very invidious position. They are taking responsibility for providing services and are making increasingly autonomous decisions about services without really having a political master to serve, or a political backstop to watch their back if there is a crisis in any of the services that they are providing. We can all see that that is not a situation that we would wish to place civil servants in, and it is not a situation that can continue ad infinitum. I know that the Secretary of State is mindful of that, and I hope that it is one of the things that will spur the Department on to redouble its efforts in this matter—and indeed spur the parties on to try to find the wherewithal to build trust between one another, because they, too, will be effectively leaving those civil servants to carry the can unless we are able to get an Executive back up and running.

Three areas of public expenditure are not included in the budget today or are only referred to obliquely in the case of the HIA that could be included in the budget and could have been dealt with more fully today and in the coming months. The first is the HIA inquiry conducted by Sir Anthony Hart that several right hon. and hon. Members have already mentioned today. The inquiry reported before the Executive collapsed, recommending that the hundreds of men and women who survived historical abuse in some 20 institutions in Northern Ireland should be commemorated and, crucially, compensated for the abuse that they experienced.

[Ian Paisley]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that his taxpaying constituents in Pontypridd, mine in North Antrim and those of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) should pay the compensation, or does he believe that the institutions that carried out the abuse should be made to pay the compensation, given the vast amounts of money that some of those institutions possess?

[Owen Smith]

It will be for the Government and, I hope, for the Executive to make a determination about the balance of payment. My view is that both will have to bear some costs. Some of the Church institutions that were involved will have to bear some of the cost, as happened in the Irish Republic. I think that the costs will be borne by the taxpayers where state-run institutions are involved. The reality is that we all have to recognise—I know that the hon. Gentleman does—that the abuse suffered by those individuals was heinous, and a way must be found for them to be properly compensated. This impasse in Northern Ireland cannot get in the way of that; we need to move forward. In fact, I have a particular question on this matter for the Secretary of State that she might want to listen to.

When I listened to David Sterling, the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs just a month or so ago, my impression was that he is preparing legislation in respect of the HIA. He said explicitly that if there is no Executive in place—he implied by the summer, as that is when the legislation will be ready—he will ask the Secretary of State to introduce legislation in Westminster to give effect to the recommendations of the Hart inquiry. The Secretary of State left a gap at the end of addressing that question, so I just want to be sure that she will introduce such legislation, notwithstanding the fact that we would, of course, like Stormont to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

No, there are 500 civilian victims. As the hon. Gentleman says, there are separate provisions regarding injured soldiers. The reality is that many of the 500 have received some form of stipend or financial compensation, but for many that money has long since run out. The loss of earnings over a protracted period has left significant hardship as the daily reality for many men and women in Northern Ireland. This is another area where we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Notwithstanding the difficulties, the Secretary of State in particular right now should be thinking about how we provide for those people.

[Ian Paisley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s genuine concern about this issue. Is he equally concerned about the military covenant and its full implementation in Northern Ireland? Will he be pushing the Secretary of State to ensure that that occurs?

[Owen Smith]

Of course, that is another very important issue. It is not necessarily related to the substance of this Bill, which is largely about financial measures, but I am sure that the Secretary of State has heard the hon. Gentleman’s point. I will be continuing to talk about the military covenant and its importance to all communities in Northern Ireland.

On pensions, the Secretary of State should know that some of the victims, particularly those represented by the WAVE group, will be here to listen to our proceedings tomorrow. I urge her to show leadership and find the resources to provide them with the amount of money that they need. It will be a tiny amount of money for the state in the grand scheme of things—£2 million to £3 million a year—but it will be a lifesaver for individuals.

Draft Transparency of Donations and Loans etc. (Northern Ireland political parties) order 2018

Debate between Owen Smith and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 19th December 2017 General Committees

[Owen Smith]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I can very easily describe the money as shady. The Constitutional Research Council is not a body that has on its books access to the best part of half a million pounds’ worth of resources. It is not a body that has made political donations other than one other self-declared donation of £6,500 to an hon. Member who campaigned for Brexit. It is not a body about which we have transparency—the person who is responsible for running the CRC has not said where the money has come from, and it has refused to reveal who its donors are. That may be its right under the nature of its unincorporated association, but I think it is shady. Given the suspicion that the DUP was used as a vehicle to channel money that could not be deployed elsewhere during the Brexit campaign, these are the right sort of questions that anybody who is interested in transparency in this House ought to be asking.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, no matter what he proposes, the information that has already been made public voluntarily is no different to what the registered interest would be; that the transparency he seeks is already there; and that he could not ask for any more information than has already been revealed? Unless he is proposing a change—

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

As my right hon. Friend says from a sedentary position, why not backdate it then? Why not accept the view that is now uniformly held by all other political parties in Northern Ireland save the DUP? The hon. Member for North Antrim is right that the DUP revealed—I think it was voluntary—that the Constitutional Research Council made the donation, which would be in line with the legislation. However, he does not want any more scrutiny on that money because there are serious questions about where the CRC got the money from. If it was not from Richard Cook, the man in charge of the organisation, who was it from? Can the hon. Gentleman tell us?

[Ian Paisley]

Once again, is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would change the law and get the Electoral Commission to do that with all donations to all parties? What has been put out voluntarily is more than the Electoral Commission likes to be revealed. The name of the donor and the amount of the donation are available, and the Electoral Commission has the address and other such details. The hon. Gentleman is making a specific difference between this donation and any other donation made to any other political party, including his own. He has accepted that nothing else would be revealed under the changes that he has suggested.

[Owen Smith]

In that case, I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman or any DUP Member should object to this measure being backdated to 2014. If there is nothing to hide, everybody should simply get on with revealing it and he can agree on that point.

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right that it would have to apply across the board for all political donations. Séamus Magee, formerly the head of the Northern Ireland Electoral Commission, tweeted:

“Every party in Northern Ireland understood that the publication of political donations over £7,500 was to be retrospective to Jan 2014.”

I presume that anybody who made a donation in Northern Ireland after January 2014 did so in full knowledge of the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014, which made it clear that their donations would be revealed if the Secretary of State were to pass an order in this place, which he could have done in January 2014.

[Ian Paisley]

If that is the case, why did Labour members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee subsequently vote to block that? Why did they support not revealing that information?

[Owen Smith]

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but the Labour party’s view is that this measure should be retrospective and should be backdated to 2014. We agree with the head of the Northern Ireland Electoral Commission that it is deeply disappointing that the Government are choosing not to do that. In truth, the issue is important beyond Northern Ireland, not least because the money was used to prosecute the Brexit campaign outwith Northern Ireland, and because it speaks to a broader issue of transparency and honesty in our politics.

Politics has come into malodorous disrepute in recent years, and all new generations of politicians bear the onus and have the responsibility to clean it up and bring us back into good repute. Unfortunately, this affair stinks. It stinks because the Government have chosen to come up with a date of July 2017 that deliberately excludes from publication the DUP donation—the largest donation and biggest item of political campaigning expenditure in the history of Northern Ireland politics. There must be a very simple reason for that if the Government are genuine about wanting further transparency and are honest about feeling that Northern Ireland needs to be brought into line with the rest of the UK. It will not have escaped the notice of people across the country that it is deeply ironic that the DUP, which only last week was protesting that Northern Ireland had to be absolutely in line with the rest of the UK, is unable to accept that Northern Ireland should be in line with the rest of the UK on this issue. The DUP wants special dispensation and special status for Northern Ireland on political donations.

That irony will not have escaped people. What must equally not escape people is that we need to move into a new era of openness and transparency. That is why Labour will be voting against the draft order and asking the Government to go away and think again or, if not, to justify why they have come up with the arbitrary date of July 2017, which precludes publication of important public information.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Ian Paisley

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

[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.

[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?