Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Robert Buckland Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for setting out the measures in the Bill. It is needed to allow public services to function in Northern Ireland and we on the Labour Benches will not oppose it. The Bill will not provide new money, but allow Departments and public bodies in Northern Ireland to spend within the limits set out by the Secretary of State in his written ministerial statement in November.

Once again, we are legislating on Northern Ireland budgetary matters here at Westminster. This is not a step that any of us would want to take. Unfortunately, in the time available to us today, we are not going to be able to scrutinise the Budget properly. One hundred and forty-eight pages of a supporting memorandum detail the decisions that the Secretary of State has made. The Government have rushed the Bill forward at such a pace that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has not been involved in pre-legislative scrutiny in the way it normally would.

The explanatory notes for the Bill state:

“As Northern Ireland Ministers remained in office until 28 October 2022, it was not possible for the UK Government to take steps to set a Budget before this date.”

I have sympathy for the Government here. It was right to prioritise trying to restore power sharing last year, instead of preparing for a prolonged absence. The last time Westminster took through a Budget for Northern Ireland was in 2019. Of course, at that time, the Executive collapsed for three years before the New Decade, New Approach agreement was reached. I hope that the Minister can update us today on the progress of negotiations on the protocol, which we hope will allow power sharing to return.

I am pleased that the Government have taken on board the Opposition’s ideas and that the Prime Minister has now finally visited Northern Ireland. We have now passed the latest deadline for the appointment of Ministers, and the Secretary of State has 12 weeks to decide whether he will call elections again.

There has recently been an abundance of optimism on the direction of the protocol negotiations—on which, I think, the Minister just poured a bit of cold water. We are now nearing the 25th anniversary. This is not just an issue within the United Kingdom; it is one that our allies around the world are looking at, particularly the United States and our friends and partners in the Irish Government, who are looking on closely. The clock, as we used to hear, is ticking. I hope that that cold water can be mopped up and we get back to the point where we not only have optimism in these negotiations but can —finally—get something across the line. We stand ready to support any deal that the Government strike that delivers in our national interests and for the people of Northern Ireland.

To return to the Bill, the Government previously said that the totals in the Budget are “difficult choices” that are the result of political failure. It is only fair that we put on record some of the reactions of stakeholders to the difficult choices that the Secretary of State has had to make. Paul Mac Flynn of the Nevin Economic Research Institute said:

“the UK government intend on contracting public spending in Northern Ireland and have no interest in understanding how that will impact on the delivery of services here”.

Last week, the leaders of seven bodies representing all schools and the four main Churches in Northern Ireland highlighted a similar concern. In a letter to the Secretary of State, they warned of

“a crisis in education funding”

and requested a meeting. Let me remind the House that Education was the Department that the Secretary of State said would be required by the Budget to make

“significant reductions in current spending trajectory levels”.

Difficult choices have difficult consequences. It is the view of school leaders in Northern Ireland that

“Without question, reduction in funding and ongoing under investment will negatively impact the quality of education of every child and young person”

living in Northern Ireland. We are reluctantly supporting the Bill, but it is right to highlight the real-world effects that these allocations will have. I hope that the Secretary of State will arrange a meeting to discuss the school leaders’ concerns.

The health service in Northern Ireland will also require more long-term thinking than is possible with this Budget. It is noticeable how little progress has been made since New Decade, New Approach promised to transform the healthcare service in Northern Ireland. Waiting lists in Northern Ireland are the worst in the United Kingdom. I was shocked by a recent report by Channel 4 which laid bare the experiences that patients are facing. Since 2011, the number of women in Northern Ireland who have had to wait more than two weeks to see a breast cancer consultant has risen 55-fold. Let me repeat that: it has risen 55-fold. In 2011, 10 patients a month would miss this target; now the figure is a staggering 569 every single month. In response to the report, the Northern Ireland Health Department said:

“In the absence of an agreed multi-year budget for health and a significant overspend for this year, the ability to strategically plan beyond 22/23 is extremely challenging.”

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk of the inability to set out multi-year plans. We were being told about that when the Committee was in Northern Ireland last week, in a range of different areas. This is the problem: without a functioning Executive, there cannot be that multi-year longer-term thinking. The Government are doing everything they can year on year, but that will not replace a strategy and a plan that would help women with breast cancer and help children to get a decent education.

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful for that intervention from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I am grateful for the fact that his Committee, or the majority of it, made it to Northern Ireland last week, while the shadow Foreign Secretary and I were snowed in. I know that some members of the Committee were struggling to get there. I am pleased that he did and that the Committee was able to complete its inquiries.

We have six hours of protected time here today, but it would take six hours to prosecute what landed us in this situation. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is correct —as is the Minister—to say that the best way to move forward from this particular moment in time is to have Stormont, and devolution, up and running, carrying out the required scrutiny of public services and with long-term strategic planning and political oversight and processes also up and running. However, I remind him and others, in fairness to those in the DUP, that they were raising these concerns about the protocol from a position within a devolved Administration long before they withdrew the Executive and then again failed to appoint a Speaker last year. There was a fantastic six-month window of opportunity in which to resolve these issues before the Executive collapsed, and that is the missed opportunity that has led us down the path on which we find ourselves today. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is correct to say that we need to get the institutions up and running, but I cannot forgive the negligence that allowed this state of affairs to emerge in the first place—and that negligence, I am afraid, started here, and in Whitehall and Downing Street.

This Bill will legally be considered a Northern Ireland Assembly Budget Act, but it serves only as a sticking plaster until the Assembly returns. If we keep passing Budgets for Northern Ireland in this way, the problems facing public services will keep building. We are also asking a huge amount of the civil servants in Northern Ireland who are now effectively running Departments. They are the ones who will have to make the choices about where the savings that this Budget requires can be found.

I want to raise the issue of education again, as it is the Northern Ireland Education Department of which this Budget is asking the most. I am sure that everyone here follows the reporting of BBC Northern Ireland. Last week, its education correspondent Robbie Meredith revealed that the Education Authority, the body that delivers school transport, meals, maintenance and support for special educational needs, is struggling to find £110 million of savings. In the authority’s view,

“The majority of the options available to save £110m in less than three months of the remaining current financial year would lead to highly unacceptable and detrimental risks to our children and young people and therefore could not be recommended for implementation.”

The fact that these discussions are happening behind closed doors and not receiving the attention they deserve from politicians shows that something has gone very wrong. It is my view that education is the greatest way of levelling up any part of our country, so any cuts should receive so much more scrutiny than is available here today.

To sum up, we need to accept the need for this Bill to allow public services to keep functioning for this present financial year. This process, however, is unsatisfactory for everybody across Northern Ireland. As the Secretary of State has said, he will start preparing a Budget for next year. I would welcome discussions with him about how to improve the scrutiny of taxpayers’ money. Of course, the best solution would be that Stormont is restored and that local representatives can agree on a Budget with political accountability. I would welcome an update from the Minister on progress on addressing the issues that are holding that back.