Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful that the hon. Lady finished with an encouragement to resolve the issues in the protocol. I have to tell her that I think the sense among all parties at the moment—including the Government of Ireland, the parties represented here in the House, Ministers and the European Union—is that we all want a deal. We want to move on. We want a deal that respects the legitimate interests of Unionism, that keeps the whole UK together and out of the European Union, that respects the Acts of Union and so on. My sense is that through much-improved constructive relations between the UK and Ireland and the European Union, we may well be able to get a deal, but I have to say to people watching this debate that right now there is no deal on the table. There is a large gap to be bridged, and we are working intensively to do just that.

With respect to the hon. Lady’s earlier remarks, she knows as well as I do what the devolution settlement is. I can tell her that the responsibility that we bear certainly sits heavily on the shoulders not only of Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office, but of our officials. She will know that our officials often have friends and family in Northern Ireland or who come from Northern Ireland; I am grateful that she acknowledges that. All those people, I dare say, will feel as acutely as she does the implications of the situations that she has set out. She will know that it is very difficult today to see a Government moving into direct rule. In the absence of direct rule, we simply must make progress on the protocol.

As we approach the anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, I really hope that this exchange will be heard in the European Union, because we all want to be able to celebrate that agreement and 25 years of peace—and to celebrate it with the Executive up and running. DUP Members have made it very clear what is on the table, and I think that it is a moment of considerable gravity for us all. But in terms of the real effects on everyday people in Northern Ireland: yes, I am acutely aware.

In conclusion, the Bill is essential to deliver spending for Northern Ireland Departments within the Budget limits that have been set. It will not be an easy task; it will take place in difficult circumstances. People in Northern Ireland rightly expect to see decisions being taken in Stormont, and I agree. Once again, I must state my continued disappointment that it is necessary for the Government to step in and legislate for this Budget, and once again I urge the Northern Ireland parties to find a way back to forming a Government. However, until a functioning Executive returns, the Bill will allow public services to continue functioning and help to protect public finances in Northern Ireland. I therefore commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I very much agree, and I wrote to the PSNI only today, following our visit, asking it to put in writing in more detailed terms what we heard last week, so that the Select Committee and this place can better understand the implications of that for policing in all its guises. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that those on the Treasury Bench need to step up and honour the agreements reached in “New Decade, New Approach”.

I have always felt that the slight fault line is that when there is a problem or impasse, people say, “I know—we’ll have an agreement! It will promise almost all things to all people; there will be something in it for everybody.” Then they say, “But, you know, we didn’t really mean it. We were just using it as a device—a negotiation stepping stone to get us from one side of the river to another,” and, “Oh, you mean that we will be held accountable for delivering that?” I think in this instance they will be. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues from across the parties in Northern Ireland need no lectures or lessons from me on the huge damage that would be done to community safety, and the criminality that would arise, if the PSNI was not functioning. He can rest assured that as soon as I receive that missive from the PSNI, either the Committee will look at the matter still further and go into detail on it, or I will raise the matter with the Treasury and the Secretary of State.

Let me conclude by picking up a thread from the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention—and this points to what was said by the hon. Member for North Antrim. There is no goose that lays golden eggs—we know that—and there is nobody who advocates for the speedy return of Stormont. Nobody is suggesting that that would solve all the problems of Northern Ireland. However, the fact that an organisation cannot do all the good, all the time, should not stop it from trying to do as much good as it can, as long as it is there to do it. That is the fundamental choice.

DUP Members are fed up, and they are fed up with me saying this—I will not even ask them to nod in support, because I know they are. They are nodding, but they do not even know what I am going to say. It is this: Members on the Treasury Bench have made the error of allowing issues and concerns about the protocol to be conflated with the delivery of functioning devolution. They are two very separate work streams. The protocol offends some in Northern Ireland, but the absence of Stormont affects all, and that is what we should be focused on.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.