Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Paul Girvan and Peter Kyle

2nd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful for the hon. Member’s intervention. He will know my personal view, which is that the outstanding issues relating to the Windsor framework and the protocol could be resolved from within the Executive and the Assembly. However, there are clearly outstanding issues. I hope that the Government will help to resolve them. They have said in various forms that they are willing to engage with different measures from legislation through to other sets of negotiations. I hope that they will happen apace and that the hon. Member and members of his party and all parties in Northern Ireland are as involved as is physically possible so that there can be the engagement that I believe was lacking in previous negotiations.

As an Opposition, we always want to be constructive when it comes to Northern Ireland, and I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s acknowledgment of that. We are concerned, though, that the wrong lessons have been learned from the Windsor framework negotiations. On Wednesday 21 June—for the benefit of our friends in Hansard, who are working so hard, I refer to volume 734—the Secretary of State said:

“The one thing that I did learn from the Windsor framework negotiations is that confidentiality in modern-day British politics and western politics is key in trying to get anything over the line.”—[Official Report, 21 June 2023; Vol. 734, c. 779.]

I am not sure that that holds true in the present circumstances.

There is a strong argument that the secrecy of the Windsor framework, after months of secret talks, left it lacking local ownership and local legitimacy. I understand that the Secretary of State is not going to spell out every detail of what the Government are doing, but providing some basic information would reassure Parliament, the public and, above all, people in Northern Ireland and those who represent them here in Westminster and in Stormont. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State confirmed whether he intends to bring forward primary legislation to address the Windsor framework. Is that still on the cards? He has mentioned it several times. I noticed in his answers to recent oral questions that that is still open for debate. It would be really good to know whether the House will be getting primary legislation—it has been requested and he has hinted at it—and when we could expect it. Are the Government instead seeking a renegotiation with the EU?

There is also the question of whether the Irish Government have a part to play in this. I was interested to read that student nurses in Northern Ireland will now be funded by the Republic. Is the Secretary of State having discussions about other financial contributions in these extremely challenging times?

Another option available to the Secretary of State is calling an election, but I am sure he agrees that it is highly unlikely that that course of action would resolve the current impasse. We do need to know what the way forward will be and what the Secretary of State believes will see Stormont return to active service on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland.

Returning to the Budget before us, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee inquiry into the funding and delivery of public services has been extremely informative. I join the Secretary of State in thanking those who serve on the Committee for the work they do. The Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), has always said that we should decouple the issues surrounding the protocol from the public finances and restoration of Stormont. The evidence before his inquiry has been illuminating. Even before Stormont collapsed, the inquiry found that long-term pressures on public services were not being addressed.

I also pay tribute to the excellent work of the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council, which has moved the debate forward on the sustainability of public finances. It is impressive that such a new institution has already become such an authority. In its report on this budget, it says that

“the NI Civil Service believes that Departments may still need to find £800 million in cuts and additional revenues not to overspend again, given other budget pressures.”

That is a huge amount of savings to find when Northern Ireland is facing the same challenges as the rest of the country. We should put on the record the views of some of those who have already been most affected by those decisions. In particular, the challenges facing the Department of Education highlight the deficiencies in setting a budget from Westminster in the way we are today and as we have previously.

Following the intervention by the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), I will go into a little more detail on that. I hope that the Secretary of State or Minister of State will respond in winding up. These comments, by the Department of Education permanent secretary, Dr Mark Browne, come directly from an extraordinary press release on the Department’s very own website:

“The Department’s vision for all children is that they will be happy, learning and succeeding. Delivering on this is particularly challenging in the current budgetary context, especially in terms of addressing the needs of our most disadvantaged children and young people.”

In its assessment of the budget, the Department said that the 2023-24 allocations result in a non-ringfenced resource funding gap of £382 million, equivalent to 14.8% of the final budget allocation required for 2023-24. It states:

“Managing resource shortfalls of this magnitude will undoubtedly have a significant and adverse impact on the Department’s ability to deliver educational services in 2023-24.”

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Member has highlighted an area in which I have serious concerns—the policies being put forward relating to our civil service, our Department of Health and the contracts that are costing not just Northern Ireland but the United Kingdom a fortune. We are tied in by that. The Departments depend so much upon monitoring round funding during the year to make up some of the shortfall. Our monster Department of Health has swallowed all that, and will continue to do so until we have major reform, not just in Northern Ireland but in the UK too, because the same contracts apply all over.

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Gentleman highlights the chronic need for investment and reform in Northern Ireland. One in four people in Northern Ireland is on an NHS treatment waiting list. We have already examined in some detail the challenges in the education system. We really need to get things moving and modernised in Northern Ireland. In my view, that should come from a partnership between the Westminster Government and Stormont. We should all be working together to focus on the big issues, because people’s needs depend on it. That is why we must urgently get over the hurdles to restoring Stormont as quickly as we can, to focus on those primary issues, which are also the primary concerns of residents across Northern Ireland that Members here tonight represent.

To return to the quote from the Department, in practice that means the ending of a wide range of schemes meant to benefit children. So far, that has included Engage, Healthy Happy Minds, the school holiday food grant scheme and many more. However, significantly, a range of early years programmes will continue—thank goodness. That is after the Department produced an analysis of the impact that ending them would have on people’s lives. In the words of Dr Browne:

“In considering the scale and cumulative impact of the proposed cuts, which represent a major change to long standing Ministerial programmes and policies, I am of the view that such a decision should be taken by a Minister, not a Permanent Secretary.”

In effect, that is a senior civil servant saying that it might not be possible to work within the budget without a Minister taking decisions. That is not just an issue for the Department of Education. A recent report from BBC Northern Ireland said:

“DfI officials believe they lack the legal authority to take measures necessary to balance their budget.”

I will not take up much more time because I want to allow voices from Northern Ireland to have their say on what the Budget means for them and the residents they represent. The Minister needs to be clear with the House whether we will need more legislation to provide clarity on the decisions being made as a result of this budget. We will not oppose the budget, as Departments have been working to its allocations for months already, but the best solution remains the restoration of Stormont, so that local representatives can get on with the budget and political accountability there. I urge Government to get on with the measures that would make that a reality.