Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Dodds]

Thank you, Dame Eleanor, for giving me an opportunity to speak briefly about the new clauses and amendments.

I entirely respect the sincerity of the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) and the way in which he spoke about new clause 1, but I fundamentally disagree with his view that because the Assembly is not sitting at present, it is right for this place to legislate on certain issues but not on others, although I recognise that his approach was that we should legislate across the board.

There are many issues about which people in Northern Ireland feel strongly, including the health service, education, infrastructure investment, jobs, the suicide strategy, mental health and the implementation of the Bengoa report on health and social care. The lack of progress on those issues through legislation and Executive decisions is having massively detrimental effects, but no one has addressed that point today. Instead, Members have picked out certain issues, which I think is the wrong approach, especially when talks are under way and there is a prospect of devolution in the short term.

I entirely accept that if we do not reach that point and there is direct rule, it should be for the House to legislate across the board. It has the right to do so, and we can still have a debate and discuss and argue about those issues. As the Secretary of State explained yesterday, the purpose of the Bill is simply to maintain the status quo by moving two dates to allow talks to continue, with no election in the meantime. However, that has now been effectively hijacked by a number of Members who want to introduce measures to override the Assembly, which I think is wrong and which is certainly not in keeping with the vast number of representations that have been made to me and to other Members from across Northern Ireland by constituents who have said that it is not an appropriate way in which to proceed.

I am particularly concerned about the wording of new clause 1. It appears to propose that, if the Assembly is not already up and running, there will be no further vote in the House before the regulations are implemented and the law is changed. When I intervened on the hon. Gentleman, he did not dispute that. Here we have a major issue: a change that will not be subject to any further vote in the House before its implementation, but will be subject to the procedure of annulment. I think that that is a highly questionable approach.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my right hon. Friend not find it amazing that when we spent literally hours in the House debating the Henry VIII clauses during the Brexit debate, those clauses were railed against by Labour Members and members of other parties, whereas Labour is now proposing that Henry VIII powers be granted to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland so that regulations can be introduced with no scrutiny and, in fact, never even presented to the House?

[Nigel Dodds]

My right hon. Friend has made an important point. We are to have four hours of debate on this and a number of other devolved issues, but that is not the way in which such laws should be made. Members who have railed against emergency procedures, a lack of proper scrutiny and all the rest of it would be the first to protest if we were dealing with a different issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I will not. Having given way many times yesterday, I just want to make my remarks today. The hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, forgive me.

The amendments clearly deal with sensitive issues covering moral, legal and rights considerations. They are being argued with clarity and passion. However, it is my view that this is a process Bill. It has two days of debate. It is not a policy Bill, but rather a housekeeping Bill to ensure that civil servants can keep some sort of show on the road to serve the citizens and residents of Northern Ireland. I want the devolution talks to succeed and I share the hope that the Bill, as suggested by the Secretary of State, will not actually need to become an Act. If it does, I want it to be a clean Act—in other words, an unamended Act.

I say to the Secretary of State and to the Minister on the Front Bench that I am certainly prepared to see the extension of the Bill’s provisions to the short date, but ideally not to the long date—to 21 October, but not to 13 January next year. I believe that I am not alone in thinking that direct rule is not desirable, but the clear message for fresh elections is becoming almost irresistible. We need to be clear that if a drop-dead deadline is useful to concentrate minds in the Brexit debate then so too must it be for the restoration of devolution.

If this Bill is amended, I shall be very frightened—seriously frightened—that that might prove to be a reason, an excuse or a smokescreen to collapse the talks coming from either end of the spectrum, and that would be lamentable. I do not believe that this House should do anything to jeopardise those fragile talks. I understand entirely the passion that underpins the amendments, but effectively, for the reason given, I intend to abstain on all amendments this afternoon. I will also abstain on Third Reading if the Bill is amended. I do not think that that is an inappropriate stance for the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to take.

In the words of Bob Dylan, someone whom I have not knowingly quoted before, the times they are a-changin’. Politics in this place and in Northern Ireland will injure itself—possibly irreparably—if it seeks to set its face against the arguments of change that we are hearing today. It is my view that it is a question not of whether change is delivered, but of how and in which forum. It appears that profound social change is coming to Northern Ireland. That change is going to be authored either here in Westminster or in Belfast, but the issues articulated by the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) can no longer be dodged or fudged.

The choice of where, how and by which mechanism that change is delivered will be in the hands of those involved with the talks. I impress upon them—not that I believe that the impression needs to be made—the urgency of the need for speedy success. I hope that the parties involved in those talks are seized of their responsibility, because the next few weeks, as far as the future political arrangements of Northern Ireland are concerned, really are the last chance saloon.

[Sammy Wilson]

There is great dismay in Northern Ireland at the way a Bill described by the Chair of the Select Committee as a process Bill that is narrowly focused on a particular issue—how to keep Northern Ireland government going during a period when we do not have devolution, and how to get devolution up and running again—has been hijacked by those who have their own particular interests in specific issues, and who are now using the Bill as an attempt to drive through that agenda.

I do not intend to enter into arguments about whether we should have same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland or whether there should be a change in the law relating to abortion. I have totally different views from those expressed in the Chamber today, but that is not what the debate on the Bill ought to have been about in the first place. This debate is about the narrow issues in the Bill. The other issues that have been introduced have been introduced in a way that does not do justice to this House; that creates great dangers in Northern Ireland, especially when there is a sensitive talks process going on; and indeed, that angers many people in Northern Ireland whose views will be ignored if the amendments are passed today.

I want to say three things about the amendments and the reaction of some Members of this House. First, there is a very clear inconsistency. These matters are devolved. It really does not matter whether there is a devolved Assembly in operation at the moment or not; they are still devolved issues.

[Hannah Bardell]

It kind of does.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Lady says from a sedentary position, “It kind of does.” If it kind of does, why are those who are saying that we should interfere on the issue of same-sex marriage and abortion not being consistent and arguing that we should be using the powers of this House and bringing back to this House all the other issues, many of which are also human rights issues, such as the human rights of people who need special education to get special education, and the human rights of people who need life-saving operations to have life-saving operations? I do not hear any siren calls from the people who are saying, “Yes, it kind of does matter that there is no devolution in Northern Ireland.” If it does, let us bring other matters back to this House.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

Looking around the Chamber, it strikes me that there are a number of people present who were not here for yesterday’s debate, when we talked about a range of these issues. Whenever we talk about human rights, it is important to say that there are people sitting on waiting lists, when one of the fundamental human rights is the right to life. People on waiting lists are dying while waiting for cancer treatment and other treatments because there is no Assembly in Northern Ireland and there is a refusal of this place to intervene and try to do something about that. We do care about the rights of people right across the board, but that means that we must have the Northern Ireland Assembly back up and running to deal with these issues.

[Sammy Wilson]

And indeed, it is significant that some of those who are saying that they do not wish to see steps being taken to deal with those issues are not even prepared to accept that what has stopped those issues being discussed in Northern Ireland is the attitude of Sinn Féin and the refusal of Sinn Féin to get back into government. There is an inconsistency there.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sammy Wilson]

Well, the hon. Lady has just wandered into the Chamber, so I am not going to give way.

The second inconsistency is that many of those who are saying that these limited and very specific powers should be taken by this House are the same people who, during the debate on Brexit legislation, complain time and again that we should not interfere with the powers of devolved Administrations. Indeed, when the Government were suggesting that some of the powers that currently reside with Brussels might be brought back and held at the centre—or at least, that they would wait to discuss whether those powers should be devolved—there was an outcry in this House: “You’re interfering with the devolution settlement and the powers of devolved Assemblies.” Yet the very same people who made those arguments are now saying, “But it’s okay to take away the powers of the Northern Ireland Assembly on these sensitive issues.”

Look at the inconsistency of SNP Members; they cannot even be consistent for 24 hours. Yesterday evening, the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), said that

“the SNP Benches do not vote on matters devolved to other parts of the UK…We are not blind to the circumstances in Northern Ireland, but we intend to stick to that principle.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2019; Vol. 663, c. 75.]

Well, the Gorilla Glue they used did not work very well because they are not sticking to that principle at all. They have changed their minds on this issue within 24 hours.

[Mhairi Black]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sammy Wilson]

No. I have told the hon. Lady that I am not giving way. Despite the fact that SNP Members have railed against this House when it comes to devolved issues for Scotland, they seem to believe that it does not matter when it comes to Northern Ireland.

There is also an inconsistency regarding the way these issues would be dealt with—that is, through regulations introduced by the Secretary of State, which we will never debate in this House and which will not be scrutinised. I can remember many hours of debate in this House about how the power-grabbing and power-snatching desire of the Government must be opposed by those of us who are democrats and who want to stop these Henry VIII powers being taken by a dictatorial Government. But the Members who tabled these amendments today are quite happy to say to the Minister, “Go ahead. Take the powers. Make the regulations. We don’t care whether they are scrutinised. Make sure they are in place for 31 October.” When people look at the way these issues are being dealt with, they will ask, “Where is the consistency?” That is an issue that people in Northern Ireland will be asking questions about, but it is one that this House ought to be asking questions about.

Either we respect devolution and we do not want to see powers granted to Ministers that are unscrutinised, or we do, and if we do in these particular instances, we have to ask ourselves the question, “In what other circumstances will that happen?” If this House decides that government is not going to function in Northern Ireland, as might well be the case, and decides to take these powers back, I, as a democrat, even if this House votes for things that I do not want, will fiercely argue for that.

If this House is a decision-making body, I will have to live with that, as will many of my constituents who might take a different view from people in this House, but at the minute we cannot have it both ways, such that these issues are devolved and the Assembly should decide them, but that the House will take part when individuals in this House decide, “Here is an issue that I’m not keen on.”

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

In dealing with the overarching issue of the devolution settlement, does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the problem—he seems to be alluding to this—is that some Members of the House seem determined to say, on the one hand, that they want to get all the parties together to agree in Northern Ireland, yet, on the other, that they are going to try to force through issues here that drive a coach and horses through the devolution settlement? Those are the very issues, among others, that divide parties and people in Northern Ireland, rather than uniting them.

[Sammy Wilson]

Yes, and the danger is that that has an impact on the talks that we are trying to progress to a satisfactory conclusion.

Furthermore, the proposed measures are undemocratic. The views of the Assembly on abortion have been clearly expressed. Back in 2015, the Assembly—not by a vote using a petition of concern, but by a majority, and a big majority at that—decided that it did not want to change abortion legislation in Northern Ireland. Indeed, in October last year, a ComRes survey in Northern Ireland showed that 64% of people in Northern Ireland did not believe that this issue should be decided here, but should be decided in Northern Ireland. Significantly, 66% of women took the view that that should be the case, and, among young people, 72% of those aged between 18 and 32 believed that the issue should be decided locally. That being the case, trying to impose change through this place on the people of Northern Ireland, ignoring the devolution settlement, is obviously undemocratic.

If we are going to take extra powers to this House, why take them on some of the most sensitive issues? They could be taken on other issues where people would accept that, but these are some of the most sensitive. The fact that I have had hundreds of emails on this issue within the past week indicates how sensitive it is. Regardless of whether people agree with my views on the two issues before us, they should ask themselves, “Is this the way this should be dealt with?” I do not believe it is. It is not consistent with previous decisions of the House and it is not democratic.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I believe that decisions regarding the law on abortion in Northern Ireland should be a matter for the people who live there and their elected representatives. The whole concept of devolution is based on the idea that different jurisdictions in the United Kingdom are entitled to adopt different approaches to areas within their competence. It was a decision of this House to transfer policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and Westminster has not sought to impose legislation in this area at any stage during the history of Northern Ireland since 1921.

In 1967, the elected representatives of Northern Ireland determined not to embrace the Abortion Act 1967. As recently as 2016, the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland voted not to change the law on abortion in any way. In that sense, Northern Ireland’s law enjoys a more recent democratic sanction than that of any other part of the United Kingdom. This is a matter of great debate in Northern Ireland, but there is robust statistical analysis to show that about 100,000 people who are alive in Northern Ireland today would not be if we had embraced the 1967 Act. I point to what the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) just said: polling shows that a large majority of people in Northern Ireland—64%—say that this is not a matter that should be addressed by Westminster, rising to 66% of women and 72% of 18 to 32-year-olds.

Inevitably and understandably, it will be pointed out that the Executive has not been functioning since January 2017. However, for reasons the Secretary of State has articulated on numerous occasions, there has been a concerted effort to avoid direct rule, which is no way to run a complex society such as Northern Ireland’s; only in extremis should it be considered. If direct rule came in, this House would of course be entitled to legislate on matters that are currently devolved. Ministers would be accountable for legislation and for the operation of Executive Departments in Northern Ireland. But direct rule has not been introduced, and while this remains the case, this House cannot selectively intervene in relation to some issues as if direct rule were in place without unravelling the wider devolution settlement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson]

Is it not even more grotesque that these former soldiers can be summoned to an inquest or some legal process and receive no legal back-up from the Army, while those who are initiating cases against them can claim legal aid?

[Johnny Mercer]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Ministry of Defence, and this country—our nation, our Government—have been woefully slow in supporting individuals who are going through this process. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale to think very carefully about the message sent by us —whichever party we are in, we ask these individuals to do our bidding on operations—before voting against amendments that do no more than request a report to start the ball rolling towards a place where there are protections for those who have served on operations in this country.

I will bring my hon. Friend back to the human case of just one individual in my constituency who I have raised time and again, and I make no apology for doing so once more. He has been diagnosed with liver cancer and has been charged; he has turned down treatment so he can fight the case and he will be dead before it comes to court. We are saying as a Parliament, “Thank you for your service,” but we do not quite have the courage to get that over the line and actually show whose side we are on by supporting two very basic but ultimately significant amendments tonight.