Stormont

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kinahan]

I thought that might be the question. We certainly were the architects, with others, who took great risks. I have already said it was an imperfect system. What came later was much more imperfect, but I do not want to change this into a petty debate.

Changes, such as the election of the First and Deputy First Ministers, have removed ownership of the process from the Assembly and forced every future election to be a purely sectarian headcount. Northern Ireland is now locked into mechanisms that actively stop any improvement happening. Today, we need the support and leadership of this House to help us to move forward. We have an election process for the First Minister that means we have, in reality, a co-equal First Minister and Deputy First Minister, neither of whom can do anything unless the other agrees it. It is an admirable idea, but one doomed to failure as so often neither First Minister—that is what they both are—can agree with each other. It is almost an endless game of brinkmanship, a game of chicken that sees Northern Ireland’s people suffer each time there is a disastrous crash because neither First Minister will give an inch. We have an Executive of all parties, with the intention that those parties will work together and decide together. Again, that is an admirable idea, but not when the two main parties squeeze and ignore the other parties at every turn, forcing matters through and then claiming that they were agreed under the excuse of collective responsibility. All this must change.

Part of the structure of the Good Friday agreement was the creation of a petition of concern. This was a legislative tool to safeguard the rights of minority groups by offering either the nationalist or Unionist community the ability to veto legislation that would infringe their rights. This tool, designed with the right intentions, has been misused in the most underhand of ways. Since the last Assembly election in 2011, it has been used no fewer than 34 times to block issues including: better recycling, allowing the National Crime Agency to work in Northern Ireland, the provision of services and support for military veterans, to prevent Ministers even being held to account, and, of course, to stop same-sex marriage. It is obvious that the petition of concern no longer protects minority groups, but in many instances has actively been used to undermine them. The intention was never to use this as a vehicle to reinforce such politics, but that is exactly what it does.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the dysfunctionality of the existing Assembly. Does he not accept that for the past eight years, while the Democratic Unionist party has been the largest party, the Assembly has not had to be suspended once? It has not collapsed on numerous occasions, which it did when his leader and the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party were in charge and First and Deputy First Ministers in the Assembly.

[Danny Kinahan]

Thank you very much. I take those points very much on board. Rather than get buried in petty Northern Ireland politics, I will just point out that most of those collapses were actually caused by the hon. Gentleman’s party.

Those who were involved in the construction of the Good Friday agreement recognised that a simple or quick fix could never be an option. Indeed, those who were key in bringing this agreement to the people saw this as a first step towards a fair and equal society. They recognised that paramilitarism, segregated education, identity, culture and how to deal with victims and survivors were all complex issues that would need to be addressed many years beyond implementation of the 1998 framework. Sadly, in the 17 years since the signing of the agreement these issues have simply not been addressed.

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[Danny Kinahan]

I could not agree with the hon. Lady more. I entered the Chamber with hope, and I intend to keep fighting for exactly the same things as she—

[Sammy Wilson]

You’ve been very negative so far.

[Danny Kinahan]

It is better to start off negative and end up with hope. The hon. Lady gave some good examples, but they have happened despite, not because of, the Government in Northern Ireland.

I want to offer some examples of the failures. The social investment fund was created in 2011 with the intention of providing £80 million for key programmes and infrastructure projects that would directly benefit the most economically and socially challenged communities in Northern Ireland. By 30 March this year, £2 million was all that had been allocated; £78 million might now never be spent, with community groups and the most vulnerable being the ones who suffer. As of this June, only £3.5 million of £12 million available for childcare provision had been spent, which meant another £6.5 million had been lost. This is appalling, considering the number of working families struggling owing to the lack of accessible and affordable childcare in their area, especially given the present welfare debacle. Some 20% of the population are currently on health waiting lists, some of which reach beyond 18 months. It is a situation recognised as unacceptable by national experts.

On shared education, which most recognise as the holy grail in addressing so many of the issues, recent research found that almost half of Northern Ireland’s school children were being taught in schools where 95% or more of the pupils were of one religion. In the 2011-12 academic year, 180 schools had no Protestant pupils on their rolls, and another 111 taught no Catholic children. In October 2010, the First Minister said:

“I believe that future generations will scarcely believe that such division and separation was common for so long.”

He said that consideration should be given to tasking a body or commission to bring forward recommendations for a staged process of integration. Five years later, little if anything has changed. Under the Stormont House agreement, if it can be agreed, we are about to tie ourselves to spending £150 million on investigating the past, yet our own Justice Minister has said it will only really clear up one or two cases. Just think how much better that money could be spent elsewhere. Our victims and survivors need justice and support, but there has to be a better way.

There are many more examples, especially from the last four years of the dysfunctional Northern Ireland Assembly, but time prohibits me from listing every one.

[Sammy Wilson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Danny Kinahan]

I will keep going, otherwise the hon. Gentleman will not have time to speak later.

Commentators inside and outside politics recognise that the primary reason for this continued dysfunction is the creation of what we in Northern Ireland call the silo mentality of Ministers. When the coalition Government was agreed in 2010, neither coalition partner got exactly what it wanted out of government, but both parties were able to set personal and ideological positions aside to do what they deemed was right for the nation. Sadly, the opposite is now true at Stormont. Ministers are challenged by Executive colleagues not because of their policy approach, but because of party political or ideological differences. It is said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The Stormont Executive have proven that nowhere is that more true than in that political Cabinet.

If the UK Government were to design an education policy that ran contrary to their health policy or an inclusion policy that ran contrary to their housing policy, the electorate would quickly become fed up and ask for a new Government. That is unavailable to the people of Northern Ireland. Without a formal Opposition, there is no chance for change. Again, I congratulate my party as the one that made that brave step in creating the ’98 agreement and now, 17 years later, is doing the same for a strong Opposition. If those elected cannot be held to account, removed from Government or placed in a position where party comes second to the needs of those they represent, is it likely they will ever produce an effective Government?

Finally, I come to the elephant in the room of political debate in and about Northern Ireland: the continued undermining of political and social progress by criminals under the guise of terrorism—those who wish to rely on the violent struggles of our past at the expense of a political future. The House must recognise that the vast majority of acts carried out by these groups are not ideological but criminal and range from drug dealing to tobacco and fuel smuggling, punishment beatings, prostitution and racketeering. These ugly groups use Northern Ireland’s dark past and the Assembly’s inability to deal with these issues as cover to get away with the most heinous of crimes, including cold-blooded murder, with absolute impunity.

If any Member sitting on these Benches were considered to have a direct link with an active criminal or terrorist gang, I am sure that every other Member would not let that person remain here, occupying a seat in the greatest of all Parliaments. We all know that one party will not take its place in the House, meaning that we cannot include its Members in the debate or hope they will have the courage to speak and defend themselves in front of Members. I do not stand here to call out individuals, political parties or groups, although to make certain points I have had to do so; I stand here to highlight that without confidence in those we expect to govern with a fair hand, no citizen can truly support any elected body.

I have perhaps painted what some might see as a negative and rather depressing landscape for Northern Ireland, but I wish to emphasise that nothing could be further from the truth. The resilience of the people of Northern Ireland ensures that no matter how tough the challenge or how demanding the task, they rise above it and do what they have always done best: show hospitality to those who visit, continue to see the funny side of the challenges facing them and do what is best for them, their families and their neighbours. Many years ago while travelling, I met an Alaskan pipeline worker who had travelled around the world three times. When I asked him where the best place was, he replied, without knowing where I was from—surprising that!—“Northern Ireland”. He said that its inhabitants were the friendliest and loveliest of people. Above all, I wish to ensure that that remains the case.

I know you want me to finish, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am very nearly there.

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[Mr Dodds]

I entirely agree. Even before the resolution of the crisis became unavoidable because of the killing of Kevin McGuigan and what flowed from it, we had the deadlock and chaos that resulted from the failure to implement the Stormont House agreement, and the failure to get on with welfare reform that had been agreed by the SDLP and Sinn Féin, resulting in the fact that we could not have a proper, sustainable budget on which to base future plans for the Assembly of the people of Northern Ireland.

[Sammy Wilson]

My right hon. Friend has referred to criminality. In the wake of the killing of a member of the Garda on the border this week, the Garda have said that there is a corridor of criminality along the border. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that needs to be addressed?

[Mr Dodds]

I totally agree, and I want to take this opportunity to express the sincerest condolences to the family of the Garda officer who was so despicably murdered as he went about doing his duty on behalf of people in the Irish Republic.

We must create some kind of high-profile taskforce to take on the terrorist godfathers and their criminal activity. We should give Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, MI5, the National Crime Agency, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Army and our friends in the Irish Republic security forces the tools they need to do the job. We need targets and we need results. The public have suffered at the hands of these crime lords for long enough.

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[Mr Anderson]

I take on board what the right hon. Gentleman says, but, as I said earlier, this is not what I am saying; it is what was said to me by those who represent people on the ground in Northern Ireland. That is their view, and the view of the people who try—

[Sammy Wilson]

It shows how partisan they are.

[Mr Anderson]

Well, what I said is the case.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which represents trade unions across the whole of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, took a motion to the European TUC, which represents 60 million workers across Europe. The ICTU is convinced that without the input of both Governments and the US Government there will be no movement forward in Northern Ireland. The congress supports fully the devolved Administration of Northern Ireland, wants the Government to be involved and to give a financial stimulus to ensure the continuation of the political institutions, and believes:

“The austerity measures being imposed on the citizens of Northern Ireland by the…Government are a major impediment to the resolution of the political impasse.”

Despite all the progress, Northern Ireland remains a society emerging from conflict:

“A society which has the lowest levels of any region in the UK of investment, educational attainment, and the highest levels of mental ill-health.”

The suicide rate is some 70% higher than in any other region, and poverty, the security spend and economic inactivity are all higher on any scale. The unions believe:

“The failure to achieve a political resolution in the talks…will result in the fall of the political institutions and direct rule...by the Westminster Government”,

which is the last thing that anybody over there wants. That will be unforgivable. The unions believe it will take us back to where we were and will

“result in the emergence from the shadows of the so called…para-military groups”.

While Members speak about the fact that one thing that led us to where we are now was what the police lead us to believe was the involvement of the IRA in the killing earlier this year, the unions believe that the failure to get the system up and running again will take us back to the full-blown impact of what we saw for far too many years.

I suggest that the people involved on behalf of the Government should sit down with the trade unions once in a while. I know that they are not very keen on talking to the trade unions on this side of the Irish Sea, but perhaps they might like to talk to the trade unions on the other side of it, which are genuinely committed to seeing the community go forward. Their track record shows that they have been there and shows their work with people on the ground, so the Government should ask for their view and work with them to try to make things go forward. At this moment, we are facing an impasse that will not be helped by having direct rule imposed in any shape or form.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) who introduced it was almost apologising that we should be discussing Northern Ireland again. I far prefer to have politicians sitting in the House of Commons talking about Northern Ireland than have young men out on the streets of Northern Ireland killing each other, so it is always a pleasure to be able to take part in such a debate.

Murder should have no place in politics. It is ballots, not bullets, that should decide issues in the 21st century in this United Kingdom. When a culture of violence develops, we see a Garda officer from the Republic to which the person in question claims to have loyalty shot dead while going about his duties. That is what happens when a culture of violence and criminality is allowed to fester under the excuse of a flag of political belief.

It is also important that we have budgetary and fiscal responsibility. It is safe to say that there are considerable differences between the Administrations in Westminster and Edinburgh on Scotland’s future fiscal direction, yet they have managed to agree a balanced budget, and will implement it regardless of the outcome of the Scottish Parliament elections next year. That sends a message to others.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that in Scotland we are dealing with a one-party Government, while in Northern Ireland we are dealing with a five-party Government, some of whose members would make the leader of the Labour party look like a member of the Conservative party?

[Kevin Foster]

It is clear that in Northern Ireland everyone, not just some Members of the Assembly and the Government, needs to take responsibility for making balanced budget proposals and agreeing an effective Assembly Government based on sustainable finances, a point that I have made following the last two statements to the House by the Secretary of State. If people do not agree, it behoves them to state what they would agree to and then be prepared to discuss that to keep the whole system going. We could spend all night listing issues with how the Assembly works, and there are some who are not prepared to accept some of what was signed up to. It can be easy to get an agreement, but implementing it is usually slightly more difficult.

There is a golden opportunity to secure a peace process for the future. The speech that I was looking for in this debate was the one made by the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis). We could have a fascinating debate lasting until the early hours listing all the problems, but the hon. Gentleman set out solutions. I may not agree with every point that he made, but he was certainly right to say that there needs to be a positive approach to finding a solution to the current impasse. All parties, not just some, need to take responsibility.

I hope that the Government will continue to move down the path set out in the Belfast agreement, support the implementation of the Stormont House agreement and support Northern Ireland’s politicians in coming to a point where they are able to govern on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland and deliver many of the benefits that devolution should be bringing. That, for me, is the core of the matter. I want to see a time when Northern Ireland debates in this Chamber are about the economy, jobs and the future, rather than the past and the constitutional situation. I am as fervent a Unionist as the next person; I believe that the four nations are better together than they are apart. Clearly, there are those in the Chamber who disagree with that statement, but to be fair they show that one can pursue their argument through democratic debate, not by any other means. For me, the solidity of the Union lies in being able to discuss those issues rather than constantly coming back to the constitution.

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[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

In following the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), I will respond to his challenge to my party, but I do not want to respond only to the issue of welfare reform and the challenges in the devolved budget resulting from the Treasury’s budget bullying tactics. The Treasury is imposing a fine on the block grant that is given to the Northern Ireland Executive under the Barnett formula. It adopted that tactic because it thought that creating budget stress for the Assembly would force through welfare reform, but that budget stress became a budget crisis, and that in turn is feeding a political crisis.

The Treasury needs to take a different course. I ask hon. Members to contemplate what would happen if the British Government decided to introduce a provision in the Scotland Bill that would require any disagreement between Ministers in London and Edinburgh on welfare issues in Scotland to be resolved according to the terms they are using in Northern Ireland. How would those on the Treasury Bench react if some of us proposed a new clause that would specifically forbid the Treasury ever doing in Scotland what it is now doing in Northern Ireland: using budget interference to impose a different view of welfare reform?

Although the scheme for devolution set out in the Scotland Bill is different from the notional legislative devolution that Northern Ireland has, the fact is that there is a scheme for devolution there, and it requires and presumes, by the nature of the legislation, agreement between Ministers, but there is no provision for when there is disagreement. It certainly would not work if Scotland were to be treated in the way Northern Ireland has been treated. Therefore, if the Treasury would not treat Scotland that way in relation to the future of devolution and welfare, it should not treat Northern Ireland that way now.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that using the word “fine” misrepresents the situation? The money that is being paid back to the Treasury is the difference between what is being spent and would have been spent had the welfare changes introduced across the rest of the United Kingdom been introduced in Northern Ireland. The fact that the Northern Ireland Assembly has made a choice means that there is a difference in the amount of money spent, and that is why the money has to be paid back.

[Mark Durkan]

Whether we call them fines or penalties, as the hon. Gentleman and his party have done previously, or savings forgone, which is the language the Treasury uses, they are the same thing and the result is the same: serious pressure on our budget. There are other pressures on our budget as a result of some of the choices that the Executive have made. They are not choices that I would have made when I was Finance Minister—given that my period in that office has been brought up—but they are not choices that I had to make either.

Let me return to the issues that now confront all the parties in the Stormont House talks. Serious attention is rightly being paid to the question of paramilitarism in its various manifestations and manipulations. We are glad that that issue has come to the fore, although we regret how it has come to the fore. In the scoping for the original Stormont House negotiations late last year we said that we wanted paramilitarism, organised crime and criminality on the agenda. Unfortunately we did not get support from others, because they did not seem to believe that it was a relevant issue. It clearly is. Many hon. Members have touched on some of the features of criminality that clearly derive from our troubled experience. Whether people want to pretend that some of these people are simply privateers, having been privatised from some other paramilitary group, or something else, the fact is that collectively we have to confront what that means. We have done that before in previous debates on a cross-party basis—for example, when looking at organised crime in the border areas and elsewhere.

We, as parties, must also ensure that we are not divided on the issue of paramilitarism by taking a differential approach to it depending on what side of the community it appears to come from. We should avoid making different demands on and criticisms of the police according to their response or non-response to one feature of paramilitarism, as opposed to another, because that would send out a signal that we are still divided and that the paramilitaries are somehow attached to and serve particular sides. Nor should we create difficulties for the police. Parties should be robust in using the accountability mechanisms for policing to challenge and engage policing at all levels, but we should not catch the police in the middle of our party political differences.

That is why at Stormont House my party is advocating a whole-community approach to dealing with paramilitarism. If we are to create a whole community in Northern Ireland, we need to overcome historical sectarian divisions and all the convulsive ruptures that aspects of our culture and traditions have sometimes brought about, such as parades. At Stormont House—this is often forgotten—we agreed new financial commitments on shared and integrated education, but we need to go further. We need to invest in shared housing to build more intentionally shared communities close to the new shared education estate so that one will reinforce and support the other in changing society.

When people voted for the Good Friday agreement—I am probably the only person in the Chamber who was there negotiating it, and I take my share of whatever people want to say in the way of blame or criticism—we were proved absolutely right in the way we had done it. It was about creating transformational politics in Northern Ireland, and not, at best, episodes of transactional politics where people appear to share power now and then, and turn their backs on each other and let the community down at other times. We need to use these Stormont House negotiations not just to make good the better promises of Stormont House but to go back to the original promises of the agreement.

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[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

First, may I say that the negativity in some of tonight’s speeches is not representative of the record of the Northern Ireland Assembly? Indeed, parties as diverse as Sinn Féin and ourselves have been forced to work together, yet have brought forward a programme for Government that, as was pointed out in an earlier intervention, has seen the economy through the recession, kept employment levels higher than ever through that kind of trough in economic activity, and introduced innovative policies, including taking unemployed teachers off the dole queue, helping young people with literacy and numeracy problems, and changes to business rates, which have now been replicated in Scotland and Wales. There have been innovative policies and good work has been done, despite the fact that many of the parties’ views have been so diverse.

We have a problem at the moment. Economics was always going to be an issue for the Northern Ireland Assembly, given the fact that there are people there who are to the left of the leader of the Labour party, and others who would be quite happy sitting on the Tory Benches. There was always going to be a problem with economics and we have now come to the issue of welfare reform.

Part of the problem is the way in which the Government have handled the issue. Instead of making it very clear from the start that no leeway would be given beyond the substantial changes made and that no handouts or further money would be thrown at the problem, that hope was always held out. There are still people in Northern Ireland who say, “If we went collectively, we could somehow or other escape the changes that have had to be made in the rest of the United Kingdom.” That is nonsense, but unfortunately it has been assisted by the unwillingness of the Government to take on Sinn Féin and tell it and the SDLP, “Look, we have allowed changes to be made on welfare in Northern Ireland and it’s going no further.”

The Government have to make it clear to Sinn Féin that criminality and the party’s association with criminals who launder money and engage in illegal activities, and its defence of them because they are former comrades, will not be accepted and that it has to be dealt with. Until that clear message goes out, I believe the present impasse will remain.