Police Service of Northern Ireland: Security and Data Protection Breach

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. That is why I detailed the meetings of officials in the Cabinet Office, who have chaired a large number of regular operational meetings bringing together the PSNI, Government Departments and world-class cyber-security experts to ensure that all our collective skills across the Union are galvanised in this space.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the resignation of the Chief Constable. It is a pity it took so long. I think he saw that the writing was on the wall when he knew a motion was going to the Policing Board calling for his resignation, and so he should. He has lost the confidence of officers, not just because of this data breach but because he was prepared to throw two junior officers to the wolves in order to placate Sinn Féin, and it is right that he should go.

The Secretary of State has been a bit confusing in his answers about money. He says that he recognises there will be considerable expenditure involving the Information Commissioner, mitigation measures, the relocation of officers and so on. On one hand, he says that this will have to come from the Justice Department budget, but on the other hand, he seems to indicate that the Government recognise that there will be additional expenditure for the police. Given that the police are already 600 officers under strength, will he give a commitment that any additional costs as a result of this will not have to come from the existing overstretched budget?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I hope he will forgive me for pushing back slightly, but I think I have been particularly clear on this, and all of this could be solved much more easily if there were an Executive in place. I very much hope that that happens.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend also think that we are talking not just about the legacy of the past and the hurt that that has caused, but about the impression left on young people today when they see that the state will grant immunity to people who have carried out some of the most horrible crimes, deeming that to be okay? In other words, someone can commit a crime, and if the political circumstances or whatever are right, there can be no consequences. Does that not eat at the very moral core of society?

[Carla Lockhart]

My right hon. Friend makes such a valid point on the impact the Bill will have on young people and their outlook on these issues. It is unacceptable and does not sit well in our society. Victims in Northern Ireland have already suffered and have to endure the fact that, because of the Belfast agreement, they can meet the perpetrators of some of these acts walking down the street or in the supermarket. They live with the continual flaunting and glorification of terrorism by someone who claims to be the First Minister for all and who has said there was no alternative. Indeed, the Member for Belfast North (John Finucane)—a Member of this House—recently showed his true colours in that regard as well. In the face of all the sickening actions, the taunting and the re-traumatising, I applaud the fortitude, dedication and determination of innocent victims to fight for such basic concepts as truth and justice. Sadly, those concepts are lost in the Bill.

The other place has sought to make this imperfect Bill less imperfect. I welcome some of the amendments. It is of deep regret that the Government propose to disagree with Lords amendment 44 in relation to immunity. The amendment would have removed from the Bill provisions allowing immunity from trouble-related crimes, which the Democratic Unionist party, and I believe the majority of people in Northern Ireland, support. In my discussions about the Bill with victims’ groups in recent months, I have heard how immunity is what causes the most grievous hurt. Why? It is because it closes the door, erodes victims’ access to redress and draws a moral—or should I say immoral—equivalence between blood-thirsty terrorists and public servants. Quite frankly, it weakens our entire criminal justice system throughout the world. I find it most remarkable that the Government should endorse such a move. The decision is repugnant not just for its perversion of justice, which we in the UK claim to value, but for the trauma and hurt that it inflicts on innocent victims.

I turn to the motion to disagree with Lords amendment 20. Every family deserves the ultimate hope of a full and fair investigation into the circumstances of a loved one’s death. Such an investigation should be subject to the highest standards. The amendment would have established minimum criminal justice standards for a review along the lines of Operation Kenova following expressed fears of watered-down investigations. The commissioner should be under a duty to ensure that an article 2-compliant investigation either has been carried out or will be carried out. Is that too much to ask? It is difficult to come to any conclusions other than that the commissioner for investigations will be able only to comply with obligations imposed by the Human Rights Act 1998 to the extent dictated by the authority and resources granted to that office holder under the Act. The restriction of criminal enforcement actions is such that even if the independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery refers all conduct to the Public Prosecution Service, much of that material will be admissible. Compliance with fundamental rights needs to be a cross-cutting safeguard in how troubles cases are dealt with. Irrespective of whether an investigation is at least partially the granting of immunity to perpetrators, its value is diminished.

The Government, by erasing the other place’s amendment to the Bill, simply fail to acknowledge the rights of victims in terms of the standards of an investigation. However, that is only one part of the jigsaw. For victims, it is equally important to have their day in court and the prospect of conviction and custodial sentences to grant some form of closure as it is to have a proper investigation. The Bill fails in those respects.

The Government’s objection to Lords amendment 20 will remove the requirement for a Kenova-standard investigation from the Bill. The Government, through their amendment, seem to want to provide an assurance, irrespective of whether a commissioner decides a criminal investigation is to take place as part of a review, that all the circumstances of a death, including potential offences, will be looked into. I am sorry, but there would appear to be a huge gulf between carrying out a historical investigation that gathers and explores as much information as possible in relation to a death or harmful conduct and the Government’s suggestion simply to look into that.

We oppose the Bill because we believe in justice and in holding fast to hope for those who paid the biggest price for our troubled past. The Bill will lead not to reconciliation but to greater distress, distrust and disillusionment among victims that they matter to this Government. We stand with those victims.

Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

As the Secretary of State has said, tonight’s debate and the Bill are simply to allocate money, which we have already decided on in previous debates, to various Departments. Although I made a promise to the Minister of State when we discussed this on Thursday that we would try to stick to the debate on the budget and try not to wander into the Windsor framework, Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol, the issue of—

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

Another promise broken.

[Sammy Wilson]

The promise actually was broken by the Secretary of State. It was a two-sided promise: that would not be raised by Ministers, who would be sensitive to the issue, knowing what our answer to these issues are and, in turn, we would stick to the budget debate. That promise has not been kept, so it would be remiss of me not to make it clear, as has been made clear by my party leader in an intervention, that we want to see the Executive up and running, but there are rules for the working of the Executive. There are important safeguards for the Executive to work: the views of both communities have to be respected, accepted and reflected in the decisions made in the Executive and in the decisions made by the Executive.

As things stand, with the protocol and the framework, there will still be a requirement for foreign law to be imposed in Northern Ireland and for Ministers of a Unionist disposition to operate that system—a system that the Government, even in the Windsor framework discussions, indicated would lead to divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. A paltry safeguard of the Stormont brake was put in but, even if it worked, it still would not stop Northern Ireland becoming further away from the rest of the UK because of decisions made in this House about laws that would affect the United Kingdom, excluding Northern Ireland.

I have to say to the Secretary of State that, while that situation pertains, he cannot ignore the requirements of the law in Northern Ireland. The views of both communities must be reflected, accepted and implemented in the Executive and the Assembly. If that does not happen, they cannot function because we do not have the basis for agreement and for decisions being made.

It is debatable, of course, but we can talk about the Executive, up and running, being able to decide and resolve some of the issues that have been talked about here today. As I go through my speech, I point out that the Executive, its implementation and existence is not essential to deal with some of the fundamental issues that have given rise to the budget problems that Northern Ireland is facing.

I wish to make two points, the first of which is about the impact of the budget on services in Northern Ireland. Like the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), I do not want to go through every Department but, as this has been raised by two or three speakers already, one of the starkest indications of the budget problem we have in Northern Ireland is to be found in education. There will be a 2.8% reduction in education spending in Northern Ireland, while in England there will be a 6.5% increase. That will affect the aggregated schools budget: the amount of money that goes to individual schools. It will particularly affect youngsters with special educational needs because, of course, as has been said, the easiest things to cut are things like classroom assistants. Of course, spending on classroom assistants and support for people with special educational needs is to be cut by 50%. There are already 11,000 children diagnosed with special educational needs who will be affected, and there is a waiting list of 400 children who have not even been placed, so we can see the ongoing problem and the problems we will build up over the years because of the cuts in the education budget. I could also talk about aspects of the education budget that are designed to help youngsters from deprived backgrounds, such as measures on school meals that were introduced by the Minister from my party. They will have to be reduced as well, which again tends to affect children from the most disadvantaged areas.

Let us take the other example, which has also been mentioned. I served for some time on the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Policing is important for any community, and it is particularly important in Northern Ireland because of the ongoing terrorist threat, the problem of paramilitaries and the terror gangs and criminal gangs associated with them, and the impact that has on communities. New Decade, New Approach made a commitment to have 7,500 officers, yet the figure is set to fall to about 5,700 officers. In the next two years, 850 officers are going to retire. The money is available to recruit only 204, so the situation will get worse and worse in terms of police officer numbers, which will fall below the commitment made on how many are required in Northern Ireland.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

We have just had a debate about making sure that we are factually correct in this place. I am quite sure that what the right hon. Gentleman is saying is absolutely factually correct. However, does he not recognise that the commitment to increase police numbers to 7,500 that he is talking about was a commitment by the Executive? Would the choices that he has outlined not be better served by an Executive functioning and an Assembly scrutinising?

[Sammy Wilson]

I know that the Secretary of State was not personally responsible, but he cannot wash his hands of the New Decade, New Approach agreement, which was between the parties in Northern Ireland and the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith). The Executive did not pull this out of the air and say, “We’re going to do this”; it was part of the agreement that was made. Indeed, I have heard Ministers in this place saying time and again, “You’ve got to get back to the New Decade, New Approach promises and the commitments that were made,” yet this is one of those very commitments, and it is one that will not be met because the money is not there.

The argument that we have heard tonight is: “Well, that’s partly the responsibility of the Executive. If the Executive were up and running, then you could spend the money better.” I have no difficulty with that. Only a fool would say there were no savings to be made in a resource budget of £14 billion, or that it could not be spent better. Anybody who looks at their own personal budget will find ways of saving money and allocating it better to meet their priorities, so of course the potential is there. Indeed, I know from my time in the Executive that we were able to find 3% savings across Departments, and I am not against what the Minister said—that there are ways we could spend money better.

We have dodged reforms over the years because some of them require difficult decisions. That is the responsibility of the Executive, if they were up and running. I could bore the House with lots of examples, but in the past our Ministers have shown how we have used money in order to use resources better. Indeed, we have even looked at co-operation with the Republic of Ireland, when it has come to spending money, and at how we could share resources to deal with those kinds of issues and make better use of money.

Our party believes in low taxation and the proper use of the public resources we have, so we are not going to ignore that. But the fact of the matter is that the Executive are not up and running. Even if they were up and running, the issues and the problems of public spending in Northern Ireland are so big that the Executive would struggle to make some of the necessary reforms. Do not forget some of those reforms require money to be spent to make the reforms, so there is a vicious circle.

The Budget is inadequate—that is the first thing we need to look at. The holes in the Budget are so big and the issues around it so difficult that even if we had a performing Executive tomorrow, they would not be able to get past those issues. The building of public sector housing has fallen by 25% because of capital costs.

There are also difficulties, when it comes to the Executive, of pure caution. I know the Minister will talk about how much money has been given to Northern Ireland, but do not forget that we have given back £471 million in financial transactions capital, because the rules tied around that required a degree of innovation by civil servants and the Northern Ireland Office that was not always possible. The main outlet for it was housing, and there is only so much that it could absorb. So when it comes to taking money off the Executive, let us not forget that where money could not be spent, it was returned to the Exchequer. Sometimes it was frustrating to find that money had been given that could not be spent because we were not being innovative enough.

That brings me to the second issue. I know the Minister will say how much money is given to Northern Ireland and how some constituents in the south of England would envy the amount of money that comes to Northern Ireland, but there is a mechanism for allocating money within the United Kingdom. At present, the Barnett mechanism works by simply giving Northern Ireland a percentage—3%. If there are Barnett consequentials for Government spending for the whole of the United Kingdom, we get 3%.

However, it was always recognised that across the United Kingdom the circumstances are different. It was first raised in Wales and, as has been pointed out, there is a greater need in some parts of the United Kingdom, because of a whole lot of factors that I will go into in a minute, and therefore the 3% given on a per head basis is not adequate. It needs to be topped up on a well-established needs basis. Because of needs in Northern Ireland, it was reckoned that for every £100 spent in England, £125 would need to be spent in Northern Ireland. In other words, it was a 25% uplift.

For example, if the Barnett formula showed that Northern Ireland should get 3%, on the basis that Northern Ireland has 3% of the UK population, then there should be a 25% addition—a 0.75% addition to the 3%—to that. That has not been happening. The Northern Ireland Fiscal Council has worked out that had that additional needs element been put in this year, then we would have had another £323 million. Incidentally, that would have plugged the gap in public spending.

If that were happening right across the United Kingdom and people were saying that they were not applying it in Scotland or Wales, then, I suppose, those in Northern Ireland would have no cause for complaint. The truth of the matter is that it is being applied in every other part of the United Kingdom, apart from in Northern Ireland. This is the only budget that is being brought forward where the need is recognised but not reflected in the moneys allocated.

The Secretary of State has argued that if the Assembly were up and running, we could make the case, but we do not need to make the case; it has already been agreed that the formula for Northern Ireland should be another £25 on top of every £100 spent in England. We do not need to fight over the definition of need, because it has already been established. The Holtham Commission made that quite clear. I take the point that was made earlier: I do not want Northern Ireland to become some sort of public sector-dominated economy, which makes us totally reliant. I want to see Northern Ireland becoming self-reliant. I want to see a growing economy; an economy that is generating taxes, income and revenue, and that does not need to be reliant on having a fight with the Treasury every year about the budget and whether we are getting the proper Barnett consequentials.

The definition of need is already well established. It is based on demographic figures—the number of people—and deprivation and cost measures, such as the under-16 dependency ratio, the retired persons dependency ratio, the percentage of population claiming income-related benefits, the percentage of population with long-term illness, the proportion of people outside settlements of 10,000 people, and so on and so forth. We do not need to fight about how much Northern Ireland is entitled to. We do not need to fight about the measure that determines that need. All we need is a decision that the need should be reflected in the budget allocation in Northern Ireland, just as it is in Scotland and Wales.

The Secretary of State argues that, if the Executive were up and running, we could make those arguments, but the arguments are made. The question is how long do we have to wait for what happens in other parts of the United Kingdom to be applied to Northern Ireland.

[Robin Millar]

I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman’s flow, because I am fascinated by his argument. The point I made was that in Wales, for example, it is £1.20 for every £1 spent in England. However, as much as we are told by the Welsh Government that there is an older and sicker population in Wales, it does not account for the fact that, in terms of education, we have tumbled down the Pisa ratings. The point that I was making was that it is not just about the quantum. Has the right hon. Gentleman any suggestions as to how that money might be spent more effectively in order to achieve the better outcomes?

[Sammy Wilson]

I think the point that I made was an indication of that. It is not just about getting money so that we can spend it willy-nilly and not care about how it is spent. It must be spent in the best way possible. If we take education in Northern Ireland, for example, we have five different sectors, and in some cases a surplus of desks and, therefore, unnecessary schools that could be closed, amalgamated or whatever. The irony of this—this is where I take issue with some of the decisions by the Northern Ireland Executive—is that one of the last acts that the Assembly undertook was that, despite the surplus of places in existing schools in Northern Ireland, special provision had to be given to opening new schools that had “Integrated” above the door. This was despite the fact that there are stacks of schools that do not have “Integrated” above the door, but that are more integrated than some integrated schools. That will result in additional pressures on the education budget. I am not so sure that some of the decisions made by the Executive on how the money is spent are always the best.

There is one in the area of education and in the area of health as well. I know I am going to incur the ire of some of my own colleagues, and maybe some other hon. Members, by saying this, but in Belfast we have four major hospitals. Four major hospitals for a city of—what? Some 300,000 people? Are there really not better ways of spending that money to ensure proper health provision? Yet we spend it—[Interruption.] And that is exactly the debate that has to be had.

[Claire Hanna]

Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Bengoa report outlined how we could tackle that reform and get ourselves to a more sustainable delivery, but that the Assembly has been collapsed for, I think, four of the six years since that that report was delivered, and that only way we can deliver those reforms, necessary as many of them may be, is in a restored Executive?

[Sammy Wilson]

That is the whole point. Ministers have had the Bengoa report, as the hon. Lady says, for years. They have never acted on it. Indeed, some of the health reforms that were acted on and some of the politically difficult changes that were made in Health were made by a DUP Minister. We have given the lead on trying to deal with some of the spending issues. However, even with those savings, there are still the issues of fairness, of whether the Budget is sustainable, and of why we are not implementing in Northern Ireland the kind of budget reallocations that are implemented in other parts of the United Kingdom.

We will find the issues arising from this budget coming back to the Floor of this House time and again, because Departments are not going to be able to work within the existing budgets. Furthermore, since the Minister indicates that the Barnett consequentials that should be coming through will not come through this year because of the overspend in previous years, when it comes to the payment of nurses, teachers and so on, there will be greater pressures on the budgets of various Departments across Northern Ireland. I do not know whether those are reflected in this budget. That is why it must be accepted that, until the Government are prepared to look at measures that create the grounds for the formation of the Executive again, this issue will rest with the Secretary of State and he will have to take responsibility for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carla Lockhart]

The reality is that the Barnett formula across the United Kingdom, in all the different nations, is needs-based. It is important that we do not just give Northern Ireland an amount of money, but drill down to the actual needs. On whether that means tinkering around with what has worked and what has not worked in Wales, we are more than willing to enter into those conversations, and use the Welsh model as a baseline and improve on it. Hopefully, if we can make improvements in Northern Ireland, they can be transported to Wales as well.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a financial allocation made on a purely needs basis would provide the resources to start addressing some of those needs? For example, if there were a high number of people claiming unemployment benefit because they had mental health problems, money could go into the health service to deal with those problems and get them into work, or for people unemployed because they did not have skills, the money could be used on technical education to give them the skills so that they could get back into work. The vicious circle that has been spoken about could be addressed by having the resources to deal with that.

[Carla Lockhart]

Absolutely. I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention.

We want a restored Executive not only to have firm cross-community consensus, but to be able to transform and deliver services effectively. For that, we need financial equipping based on need. As my right hon. Friend has indicated, those needs are really to the fore. If I think of my constituency, I think of the educational underachievement and the health needs. Those are the things we need to drill down into and fund adequately; if we do not, Northern Ireland will continue to be short-changed.

The Northern Ireland Office has recently been seeking to provoke discussions around revenue-raising measures. There is no question but that we are up for those discussions, but we cannot escape the fact that the Treasury’s contribution to funding public services in Northern Ireland is going down rather than rising. Spending up to 2025, for example, will increase by 6% in England but only 3.6% in Northern Ireland.

I have a specific concern about the impact that the policing budget will have on communities. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) made a very helpful intervention on that subject: it was a stark reminder that the terrorist threat level in Northern Ireland is severe. In that context, we just cannot continue to ignore the concerns that the chief constable and the Police Federation have raised in relation to the capability of our police force.

Despite the commitments in New Decade, New Approach to grow our officer numbers to 7,500, the stark reality is that we are now on a trajectory towards 6,000, largely because of a failure to prioritise policing in our Province. The truth is that there is a risk of the headcount dropping further, unless the Government urgently deliver the financial firepower that local policing is crying out for. In an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), the Secretary of State made the point that that is on the Executive, but I would put the ball back into his court: it was an agreement in NDNA. When there was a language issue in NDNA, this Government very quickly helped and intervened, yet on the policing issue they have not gone far enough. The NIO claims to support the excellent work that the PSNI does. It needs to back up that claim and actually financially support it.

Similar challenges exist for health, education and roads. Time does not permit me to list the challenges that I am seeing daily in my busy constituency office, so I will draw my remarks to a close on the time issue. The time for the Government to act on funding for Northern Ireland is now. The time to act to review the Barnett formula is now. The time to take the necessary steps to restore cross-community consensus for devolution is now. It would be wholly unacceptable and utterly reckless if time were allowed to pass and we found ourselves passing another budget Bill in this place, as opposed to in Stormont.

Northern Ireland

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Let us be clear what we are debating here today: we are debating a lock, or a brake, that is necessary because the Government have allowed the EU to impose its law on part of the United Kingdom. The result is that we now have a border between one part of the United Kingdom and the other part of the United Kingdom, a border that is going to be reinforced very shortly by the building of physical posts that will be used to monitor trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Goods that are going into Northern Ireland purely for consumption in Northern Ireland will be checked—100% will be customs checked, and one in 20 will be physically checked. Of course, that can be varied by the EU. What is the Government’s answer to it? That Unionists can make a protest about it and sign a petition of concern. By the way, if there is anything that will destabilise the Northern Ireland Assembly, it is the constant use of the petition of concern. Members from other Northern Ireland parties behind me will confirm that.

First, there is a limit on what can be done and, secondly, despite the Secretary of State saying that he would be bound to listen to petitions of concern from Unionists, in fact he would have no option to. Whole sections of the framework tell us the grounds on which he can refuse a petition. Even if he does accept it, he then has to go to the Joint Committee and exercise a veto, which he knows will lead to material impacts for the United Kingdom, and of that we can be absolutely sure. If it is a choice between disrupting relations with the EU or accepting legislation—ironically, this Windsor framework is presented on the basis that it will normalise relations with the EU—how likely is it that we are going to pick a fight with the EU over the implementation of some EU law in Northern Ireland? The truth is that this is not a Stormont brake; it is a Stormont fake. It should be rejected by this House. It does not protect the Union, it does not protect democracy in Northern Ireland, and it will not get the Assembly back and running again.

[Mr Speaker]

With 20 seconds, I call John Redwood.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I will say at the outset that the Bill going through the House today is an illustration and example of the futility of trying to use political blackmail to move my party from its principled opposition to legislation and to an agreement that is designed to take us out of the United Kingdom. I say to the Secretary of State that, to protect his own credibility in Northern Ireland, he had far better not listen to the anti-Unionist voices in the Northern Ireland Office, but use his political antennae to know what is the right thing to do.

This Bill illustrates that on four occasions the attempt to blackmail my party back into the Assembly by the threat of an election did not work, because the issues at stake are far too important simply to cave in to the threat of an election in which we might or might not have damage done to us, or to go back into an institution where, as Unionists, we would have been required to collaborate with an arrangement that was designed to, and will—as we have absolutely no doubt and as we have warned time and again—separate us from the country to which we belong. I hope the Secretary of State learns that lesson. We are not moving on an issue of principle.

The Secretary of State said in his remarks that he is disappointed that the Executive has not been re-formed. He should not be surprised. He and I campaigned to leave the European Union. We did so because we believed it was important that, as a country, we had the ability to make choices about the laws we had, the direction we took and the partnerships we made on trade, to do the best for the citizens of our own country. Yet, as a result of the protocol, Northern Ireland—and he knows it—has not gained the benefits that he and I campaigned for and that those who voted for Brexit wished to have. We are still left within the embrace of Brussels because of the imposition of EU law.

That fundamental problem is at the heart of the action we have taken. I have heard many hon. Members say today, as we will hear time and again, that this must be done to protect the Good Friday agreement. The fact of the matter, now clearly illustrated, is that the protocol and the Good Friday agreement cannot sit side by side. Indeed, one of the authors of the Good Friday agreement, the late Lord Trimble, made it quite clear that in order to keep the protocol intact, the Government would have to rip up the Good Friday agreement—and that, in effect, is what has happened. The leader of our party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), has made that quite clear.

The consent principle of the Good Friday agreement has been removed. Even the voting mechanisms that are allowed to make decisions about whether the protocol applies have had to be manipulated and changed, and the provision in the Good Friday agreement for cross-community support on that particular issue had to be removed. The Good Friday agreement and the protocol cannot sit in place side by side. One of the two goes. That is why, as a party, we have said there must be changes to the protocol.

Why is this Bill necessary? The Secretary of State made it clear that he did not believe that an election would change anything. Why would an election not change anything? It is because he knows in his heart, even if the officials who advise him do not know it, the suppressed anger within the Unionist community at being pushed out of a country that many Unionists died, during a terrorist campaign, to remain part of. Thousands of them refused to be intimidated by threat of violence to vote in the way Sinn Féin and the IRA wanted. He knows that that anger and that determination have not changed.

All the talk about the impact of the Assembly’s not working on the day-to-day lives of people has to be measured against whether the Assembly was functioning to deal with those issues anyway. No, it was not: we had a black hole in our budget during the time the Assembly was sitting. Some of the increases in waiting lists in the health service occurred while the Assembly was working, and many of the other problems have not emerged since February last year; they are long-term problems that were not dealt with even when the Assembly was working.

Even with some of the decisions that people would like to see made, the majority of the Unionist population now realise what is at stake, and they would not find it acceptable for their Unionist representatives to go back into an Assembly even under the threat of calling an election. We have had a lot of different threats. We were told that the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill could not progress in this House unless we got a Speaker. We were told the electricity payments could not happen unless Stormont did them. All those threats have been made in the past. I must tell the Secretary of State that this problem is not going away, and this party is not going to collaborate in an Assembly where we are expected to implement that very protocol until there are changes made.

What kind of changes could avoid legislation such as this having to be made again? I think that is very clear. Some people have presented this as some kind of trade problem, saying, “If only you could do away with the trade issues and have trade flowing freely, the issue would go away.”, but it is much more fundamental than that. The trade issue only occurs because there is a different law applying and a different lawmaking body in Northern Ireland from those in the rest of the United Kingdom.

We are not subject to British law anymore—we are not subject to laws made by institutions set up in the United Kingdom. We are subject to laws made in Brussels. Those laws are imposed on us; we have no say on them, and if they are detrimental to our country, we cannot change them. If we try to not implement them—if we try to ignore them—there is a foreign court that will drag us into the dock to make sure that we do.

[Ian Paisley]

Would my right hon. Friend agree that the issue is not only about the laws? A raft of regulations is coming upon Northern Ireland daily and impacting on our principles and the practical issue of how we do business. For example, at the end of this week, regulations that affect the organic seal on eggs will put our egg industry effectively out of business. Those regulations will cut off our market here in Great Britain. We will not be able to market those eggs in GB, because a regulation from Europe says our organic egg products must be produced in a particular way that appeals only to the European market, where we do not have any sales.

[Sammy Wilson]

There are lots of different examples of that happening.

[Claire Hanna]

Would the right hon. Gentleman mind saying what he thinks the specific impact will be on the dairy industry, and the many producers that sell about a third of their milk to the Republic of Ireland? What would be the environmental impact of having to dispose of a third of the milk produced in Northern Ireland? Where would that be sold if we did not have our privileged access to the single market?

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Member should think about the issue the other way around. What would be the impact on the food industry in the Irish Republic if the EU and the Irish were so bold and so stupid as to cut off a third of the milk that they need to make cheese, butter and everything else in the factories there? There are always ways of working around these issues. There is an idea that, somehow or other, if we do not conform to EU law, we cannot trade with the EU. America does not conform to EU law; it does not have EU laws imposed on it. China does not have EU laws imposed on it, but it can trade freely, and its trade with the EU is worth billions. Of course there are ways of addressing the issue.

[Stephen Farry]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would recognise that the difference between Northern Ireland and China or the United States when it comes to access to the European Union is that Northern Ireland currently has unfettered access to the European Union market for goods, whereas neither China nor the United States does. They have access, of course, but not on the same trade terms.

[Sammy Wilson]

The cost of that is fettered access to trade with GB, our biggest trading partner. When I look at the balance, the choice I would make, as a representative of Northern Ireland’s consumers and businesses, is to have unfettered access to, and supply of goods from, GB. I would rather have that than have to pay the cost of fettered trade with GB simply to have unfettered access to the Irish Republic, when we know that there are other ways around the issue of trading with the Irish Republic.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Member recognise that of all the goods coming from other countries into the EU, an average of only about 1.3% are physically checked? How could it be right for there to be checks on a greater proportion of the goods moving within the United Kingdom? That cannot be right.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Member is right, and that illustrates just how much trade with GB is fettered in order to get unfettered access for a small amount of produce in the Irish Republic. Nearly 50% of the border checks for the EU were done for goods coming through Northern Ireland, even though we account for 0.4% of trade with the EU. That is the price being paid. Leaving aside the political and constitutional issues, there are huge economic issues from that unfairness.

The Secretary of State cannot and should not be surprised or disappointed that, as a Unionist party, we refuse to take our part in an Executive who would require by law—the courts have ruled on this—that our Ministers administer and impose that kind of arrangement on the people of Northern Ireland. That is not to mention the unknown future: there is a whole raft of EU law that we cannot even see—it is over the horizon at moment—that will cause us to diverge further from GB. That will make us a colony of Brussels—that is how it has been described—and will damage our economic, political and constitutional relationships with the UK. The Secretary of State cannot expect that of us.

That brings me to the point that I want to make: how do we get out of this situation? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley has mentioned, we welcome any changes that have been made. We have not seen the detail of them—nobody has—so it is really hard to assess exactly the extent of the changes on trade, checks, VAT and state aid, and what exactly they mean. Until we see them in writing, we are certainly not going to take the word of those who brief us. Even if their intentions are honest, everyone will have their own interpretation of those things. We need to see the changes to measure them.

A central question needs to be addressed; if it is not, there cannot and will not be a positive response from my party. What do we do about the 300 areas of law—not 300 laws, but 300 areas of law—to which Northern Ireland is currently subject that are being determined in Brussels? Do they come back to the devolved Assembly? There are three parties represented in the Chamber today, and some of them have already said that we should go with the deal, even though they have not seen it. We have not turned the deal down because we have not seen it in its entirety; we have simply given guidelines on what we expect to see in it.

I say this to all the parties here who send representatives to the Northern Ireland Assembly: what kind of public representative wants to be, and would support being, part of an Assembly that has no say over a whole raft of the laws that impact on businesses and consumers in their constituency? What kind of representative would accept sitting and working in an Assembly, and perhaps acting as Minister, if it meant implementing laws that they did not initiate and cannot amend, but have to implement, even if those are detrimental to their constituents? That is the democratic deficit, and it affects not just Unionists, but every party and every public representative that sits in the Assembly. That issue has to be addressed.

The only way to address the issue is to ensure that when laws are made for Northern Ireland, they are made either in this place, if they are on retained issues, or in Stormont, if they are on devolved issues. That is the ultimate test. Once that happens, we will not need to worry about trade barriers and everything else, because we will have a seamless market within the United Kingdom. I hope we get that outcome, because I support devolution. In fact, I was a member of the Executive at a time when they worked at their best; I am not taking any credit for that. I can think of legislation that I took through the Assembly that has been copied in other legislatures across the United Kingdom. The Executive were innovative, and able to respond to local issues. I can see the value of devolution, but it can work only if it is based on the principle of consent from both sides of the community—especially in a divided society such as Northern Ireland.

I take issue with the shadow Secretary of State’s questioning whether there is any need for the protocol Bill. I believe that in these negotiations, the EU has to understand that there is an alternative. Not to proceed with the protocol Bill would be wrong, because there must be a fall-back position if the negotiations do not succeed.

It seems that all the wrong choices have been made. For a couple of years now, the EU has wanted access to important commercial data, and before we have even made an agreement with the EU, we have surrendered and said that we will make that data available. The EU has been complaining about there being no physical border posts, and what have we done ahead of reaching any agreement? We have agreed that, since Stormont will not do it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will take responsibility for building those border posts, which are quite extensive. When I look at the size of the post in my constituency, I wonder whether everything will go through the green lane, because we have a massive 10-acre site, which DEFRA intends to develop with a huge building that would do Dover proud, for dealing with east-west trade. Those kinds of signal do not help us to reach a solution and agreement with the EU.

We wish the Government well. We think that their approach to these negotiations, as I have tried to illustrate, will not make it easy for them to get the concessions required from the EU. They have an alternative, whether that is the dual regulation alternative in the Northern Ireland protocol, or the mutual enforcement proposals that my party has put forward. The one thing I would say is that this requires radical change, not tinkering. What we have seen so far appears to be tinkering.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

I rise to support the Bill, and to confirm to the Secretary of State that he is doing the right thing in moving the election timetable; as things stand, that is probably the Bill’s sole purpose, even though the debate has ranged far and wide. That said, I welcome it as a potential vehicle, and appreciate that there are procedures to go through to enable Dáithí’s law to come into full effect. I join colleagues in paying tribute to Dáithí and his family for their campaign, and thanking the British Heart Foundation for its kind support. I also place on the record our collective thanks to House officials, who have worked very creatively over the past few days to facilitate this provision, and of course to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker for your engagement with this issue. I am sure the teddy bear will be greatly cherished for a long time.

I think it fair to say that an election will not achieve much in the short to medium term; if anything, it could be counterproductive, especially given that we are at a delicate stage in the negotiating process. Of course, there is a mandate from May last year, which is still unfulfilled, and there are a lot of restless MLAs who are unable to do their full job. We talk about how there is a democratic deficit around EU law, but I cannot avoid making the point that by far the biggest democratic deficit is the failure to have an Assembly in Northern Ireland that can take control of devolved issues. At the moment, we have issues that are stuck, and while civil servants are doing their best to fill the gap, it is not a tenable situation. If some quarters put as much effort into addressing that as is put into creating an artificial battle over EU law, we would be in a much better place.

I respect the fact that we are at a delicate stage in the process. The intention is that if we get a deal that has cross-party buy-in, we will see the restoration of the institutions in the very near future. If we do not see that happening, we have to avoid a political vacuum being created. People will say that this Bill creates space, but space can be a positive or a negative thing, and it can also be a vacuum. If there is no restoration in the near future, we need to address reform of the institutions and, in particular, the situation whereby parties can veto power-sharing, never mind decisions that cut across communities and create difficulties. Power-sharing has been vetoed in the past and is being vetoed today, and that is not a tenable situation.

This is not about excluding any party; it is about a situation where, if a party is determined to exclude itself, that will not bring the whole show down or prevent other parties, which are willing to govern, from proceeding. However, my preference is for all parties that have a mandate to work together in Northern Ireland for the collective good of our society.

[Sammy Wilson]

Can the hon. Member explain why, in the three years when Sinn Féin excluded itself from the Executive and we had no Executive, the Alliance party not only did not propose, but refused to support any move that would have excluded Sinn Féin?

[Stephen Farry]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that intervention because it enables me to reinforce my point. My party has been seeking reform of the institutions since the passage of the Good Friday agreement. We have been consistent in highlighting that the particular form of coalition Government that applies is too rigid and has the potential for deadlock. I have to say that that is something the DUP also consistently pursued over those years, until fairly recently. With reference to the period in which Sinn Féin brought the institutions down, I encourage the right hon. Member to go on our website and look through the succession of conference speeches by our party leader, Naomi Long, in which she regularly called out the blockages in the system and called for reform of the institutions. My party has been extremely consistent on this point.

I do not want to spend too much time talking about the protocol, because that is not why we are here today, but obviously it is the backdrop or context for our discussion of the Bill and there are a few points it is important to reinforce. First, most people and businesses in Northern Ireland want to see an outcome, and they are pragmatic about the protocol; they understand why it exists and that it needs a measure of reform to work more effectively. In essence, they want to maximise the opportunities that come from it while addressing its deficiencies. That is where most people are in their headspace.

It is worth stressing, particularly in this Chamber and throughout Great Britain, that Unionism represented by the DUP is only one part of the equation of Northern Ireland society. Obviously, the DUP has an important view, which has to be taken into account, but it is far from being the majority viewpoint in Northern Ireland. It is important that commentators and others take a balanced view on what is being said in Northern Ireland and the interests being advanced by the people of Northern Ireland. For me and, I think, some others, the key test of the way forward is essentially that we preserve market access, both to the wider European Union market and to the UK economy as a whole. That is the key test for most pragmatic people and businesses.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

There is no question of admitting any kind of fallacy. What I was saying with the quote the hon. Gentleman referred to was really a reflection of the DUP’s position. In a sense, I am grateful for his party’s clarity about what it requires to go back into government. From my engagement with its voters in Northern Ireland, I think they know that a price is being paid by not having the Executive up. It would be churlish of me not to admit that those voters—it was a small section—wanted to pay that price, but others will be devastated by the consequences of not having the Executive up. It is only fair that I, as a Government Minister, reflect the full spectrum of opinion, and people in Northern Ireland very much want the Executive back and dealing with the issues before it.

As for a magic wand, I would be the first to admit that government is difficult, whoever is in power. All these decisions are difficult—they are difficult decisions in difficult times—and there is no question of a magic wand. However, everyone in this House is aware of the devolution settlement, and I am sure everyone here would want Northern Ireland Ministers to be taking decisions in an accountable way locally. However, there’s no question of a magic wand, and I would be the first to be realistic about the conditions the hon. Gentleman and his party have set out for going back into the Assembly.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

rose—

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Baker]

I will give to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), but then I will try to make a bit of progress on the principles.

[Sammy Wilson]

I am glad the Minister accepts that there is no magic wand, but does he also accept that, given the nature of the Executive, which is a mandatory coalition, we have had a Sinn Féin Finance Minister, and no Sinn Féin Finance Minister has, I think, ever succeeded in presenting a Budget that other parties could support? That is one reason why we face the deficit that we have at the moment. Indeed, the restoration of the Executive would make things difficult, given that some Ministers do not even attempt to reflect the spending wishes of the other parties in the Executive.

[Mr Baker]

The right hon. Gentleman makes some legitimate points. The particular point about mandatory coalition is of course an important part of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement strand 1, which we completely respect. We are open to hearing suggestions for institutional reform that will deliver more stable government. Members on the Opposition Benches will know the difficulties in reforming the institutions. The Government are clear that any conversation would need to be led by the political parties of Northern Ireland and would need, in the end, to enjoy cross-community consent to be viable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

First, I too join the Minister in expressing sympathy on behalf of my party to Alex Easton, one of the MLAs for North Down, whose parents died tragically in a house fire today. Our thoughts and prayers are with him. He has lost both elderly parents today.

[Stephen Farry]

Alex Easton lives in my North Down constituency and, to echo what the right hon. Gentleman has said, the community in Bangor is extremely shocked by what happened overnight. Regardless of politics, the entire community across Northern Ireland will want to give their full support to Alex and his family at this most difficult time.

[Sammy Wilson]

I am sure that feeling will be widespread across the constituency, as Alex—a former member of my party—is well known and loved there.

I share the Minister’s view on at least one point he made at the start of the debate—namely, I would have preferred it if this Budget had been discussed in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and if decisions about priorities and spending had been made there. Unfortunately, that has not been possible because the Northern Ireland Assembly cannot function, because the very basis of the Northern Ireland Assembly has been destroyed. The Assembly has to work on the basis of consensus, but that consensus has been destroyed by the protocol. We hear ad nauseum from the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who chairs the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, that we should all be back and we cannot have any more Northern Ireland exceptionalism, but Northern Ireland has been made exceptional by decisions that he has supported—namely, that Northern Ireland no longer remains fully part of the United Kingdom as a result of the protocol.

Furthermore, even though I, my party and our representatives, as Unionists, believe that the protocol is damaging to Northern Ireland’s position in the United Kingdom and to our economy, had we been sitting in the Assembly today, we and our Ministers would have been required to implement the very thing that we say is damaging us, making us exceptional, removing us from the rest of the United Kingdom, causing huge economic burdens—I will mention some in a moment—and being a drain on the Northern Ireland Budget. Yes, we would like to see this legislation debated and these decisions made in the Assembly, but until the basis of the Assembly is restored—that is, until there is cross-community consent for decisions that have to be made—that will, sadly, not be possible and this House will be required to intervene.

It is quite right that the Minister has taken a decision. I do not criticise him for leaving it so late, because he could not have done it before. Indeed, this Budget crisis originated not in October last year, but at the very start of that year—ironically, when the Assembly was fully functioning, and we had a Finance Minister in place, an operating Executive and Ministers who could make decisions about priorities—when, for the second time, Sinn Féin failed to present a Budget that could have the support of any party in the Assembly. There have been only two Sinn Féin Finance Ministers, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir and Conor Murphy, and neither has ever been able to bring forward a successful Budget. There is this idea from the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that these things would be resolved if only the Assembly were functioning—but the Assembly was functioning, and this was not resolved.

[Simon Hoare]

I understand why the right hon. Gentleman is trying to say what I said, but I am afraid he is missing the mark. What I actually said, if he had heard me, was that I appreciate entirely that a functioning Stormont would not be able to solve all the problems, but that surely solving some—or at least playing an active part in trying to solve some, even if they cannot do all—is better than nothing.

[Sammy Wilson]

For any problem to be resolved, as the hon. Gentleman knows full well, we need a Budget that Departments work from. The Northern Ireland Assembly has collapsed twice in the last four years. On both occasions, it collapsed without a Budget; that is a fact. It collapsed without a Budget because the Finance Minister could not present a Budget that people and other parties could sign up to. On both occasions, the Ministers responsible were Sinn Féin Ministers. All I am saying to the Chairman of the Select Committee is that we could not have had a functioning Assembly. Leaving aside the principle of consent, we could not have had a functioning Assembly because the Assembly did not have the authorisation to spend money on Departments because of the failure of Ministers.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is a former Finance Minister, but we should not go into his record in that Department if we want to get through the day. He knows that I am no supporter of Sinn Féin, but has he noticed that Sinn Féin has said that it would take the Department for the Economy if an Executive were formed tomorrow? Given everything we have seen over the past 25 years, that would likely mean that the DUP would get the Department of Finance. Surely that is an incentive for the DUP to go back into government and put a Budget in place very quickly.

[Sammy Wilson]

I do not want to get into history, but I would point out that in the first year I was Finance Minister, we had a 5% cut in the Budget in the middle of the financial year as a result of decisions made here, and we agreed a Budget. Furthermore, we agreed a Budget not just for one year but for three years, so it is possible for the Assembly to make decisions. All I am saying is that, in its current form and with the current party holding the Department of Finance, that has not been possible. The point I am trying to make is that rather than lay the blame at the feet of the DUP for not operating an Executive—in which its views were excluded anyway—we should lay the blame for this situation at the feet of those who could not make an operable Budget even when the Executive was functioning.

Moving on to my second point, the Minister has made great play today of the fact that Northern Ireland gets treated more generously than the rest of the United Kingdom. I accept that, but so do Scotland and Wales. One of the important things about being part of the Union is that there are fiscal transfers from those parts of the country that have geographical, economic and infrastructure advantages that other parts do not have. I do not believe that it shows a begging-bowl mentality when people in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland—or indeed the north of England—say, “Look, there are parts of the country that are richer, but one of the benefits of being part of the Union is that those parts help the areas that are in difficulty.” Indeed, the Government’s own philosophy at the moment is what? To level up, and to accept that there is a responsibility to transfer resources to those areas that, for whatever reason, face disadvantages.

I would point out to the Minister that the increase in the money we have had to receive is partly due to the protocol, which his Government signed up to. There is nearly £500 million a year in the trader support scheme, as well as the resources behind the extra sanitary and phytosanitary checks—the people who have had to be employed, the computers that have had to be installed and the buildings that we now find are going to be built, but not as a result of a decision made by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive, because of course there could not be agreement on that.

Ministers at Westminster have now taken over the power to deliver at least a £47 million investment in border posts within our own country. There are questions—not for today, but at some other stage—about who authorised civil servants to start the work on those before Ministers in Westminster took responsibility, even though it was controversial. The Minister has talked about the difficulty of civil servants taking decisions, but it seems that when they want to, they can even make controversial decisions—decisions that split the United Kingdom and put border posts between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Nothing can be more controversial than that, yet civil servants seem to have been able to take those decisions.

The Bill allows Departments to spend until the end of this financial year, and then into the middle—I think it is June—of the next financial year. That is not unusual. Indeed, if the Assembly had been functioning, that power would have to have been given to give the Departments the ability to spend that money on account until the Budget was finally agreed—it usually was agreed, but it was not agreed in some cases—in the Assembly in June of this year.

There are aspects of the Budget that are particularly difficult: one, which has already been mentioned in interventions, is the expenditure on education. Once education and health are taken out of the Northern Ireland Budget, we do not have a great deal left, because they account for over 60% of spending between them. However, education has been specifically targeted by Ministers to face a reduction, even though education spending in Northern Ireland is at the lowest level per head in all parts of the United Kingdom. The difference between Northern Ireland and Scotland, for example, is £1,200 per pupil. I know that these things are not always solved by money: although Scotland has the highest level of expenditure per head when it comes to education spending on pupils, its outcomes are actually falling, so let us not imagine that there is a direct correlation all the time between spending money and getting outcomes.

I am sure the Minister will make the point that that is why it is important for Government Departments to make decisions about performance, efficiencies, productivity and so on. Some of the decisions that the Assembly has made have not been helpful in that regard. The Integrated Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, which was passed just before the Assembly collapsed, gives preference to one particular sector of the education system. I think that Act is going to make it much more difficult to rationalise education and, therefore, to ensure that money is better spent. While I do not want to go into the detail of the Act today, that is what the other sectors of education believe as well—that it is going to make that whole process of efficiency and spending in education more difficult than it is at present. Again, that is an example of where just having a devolved Administration, which should know local needs, does not always ensure that the most efficient decisions will be made.

On health, leaving aside the money that is spent directly from Westminster—annually managed expenditure —we are now spending nearly 45% of the total Budget that the Executive has to spend on health, yet outcomes are falling and waiting lists are increasing. I get letters from constituents and angry letters from doctors all the time, saying, “We need to spend more on health. We are under- resourced; we are underfunded.” I do not know how much of the Budget we can continue to take out and give to one particular sector—there are other areas, as Members have mentioned, including policing, infrastructure, education, universities, training, agriculture and industrial promotion. All those things are in competition, and we cannot simply say, “Here is one part of the Budget that we will keep pouring money into.”

Of course, as I mentioned, some money could be released for the trader support service and the other expenditure around the protocol—nearly half a billion pounds every year. As the Government now accept, the reason why that money is spent is that the protocol is such a big disadvantage and a burden on business that they need to help those businesses overcome the bureaucracy, and the barriers and impediments to trade between GB—our biggest market—and Northern Ireland.

The other point I wish to make on the Budget this afternoon is that when it comes to looking at priorities, even in the absence of devolution Ministers could do more to look at where we need to spend the money and direct civil servants. Despite what the Minister has said, civil servants now have the power to have greater flexibility in how money is spent. I know it is difficult for them and that some of those decisions are political, but there have already been political decisions made about the priorities that the previous Executive and the Assembly wanted. Surely those things should be guides to civil servants in making decisions about how money could be more effectively spent. As I have said, they make some controversial decisions in relation to the protocol, so there is no reason why we should not have tweaking of the Budget.

The last point I wish to—

[Mr Steve Baker]

The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned this a couple of times and I mean to come to it as I close the debate. We have to insist that it is Ministers who decide, and officials who advise. He will know that the protocol is the responsibility of the Foreign Office. I am highly confident that Foreign Office Ministers will have taken a decision and taken responsibility for it. Of course, it is not Northern Ireland civil servants who are responsible on the protocol, but the Foreign Office. I want us to respect the fact that the Foreign Office is taking this matter very seriously.

[Sammy Wilson]

The point I was making—the Minister knows this, because we have raised it here on a number of occasions—is that the responsibility did lie with the Northern Ireland Executive. The Foreign Office did not like the decisions that Democratic Unionist party Ministers in the Executive made on the protocol infrastructure and only recently have taken over the responsibility to implement that. Even before that happened, civil servants—I do not know whether they did this at the prompting of officials or Ministers in the Foreign Office—were already making decisions about clearing sites in my constituency to build border posts.

The last point I would—

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

Surely it is even more serious than that. The reality is that the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly are now in a position where they have to administer laws that are not even created by this Parliament, never mind by the Assembly itself. This applies in more than 300 areas of law; the way we administer, for example, our ability to trade with the rest of the UK is now determined by a foreign polity, the EU. It imposes laws on Northern Ireland, on which we have no say; there is no scrutiny and no accountability for those laws. So the democratic deficit in Northern Ireland is very real to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive and is one of the fundamental reasons why we do not have functioning political institutions, because our party is not prepared to tolerate a situation where we are treated like an EU colony.

[Sammy Wilson]

Until that situation is revolved, we are going to be faced with the kind of situation we are discussing today. What amazes me is that other parties in the Assembly, which equally will have no say on those laws, meekly accept those powers being taken from them and not being available to them. I have heard many debates in this Chamber about the Government snatching power from devolved Administrations on various Bills, yet we find that some parties in Northern Ireland are happily accepting that they should not have the ability to make decisions on matters that will greatly influence the lives of ordinary people.

[Simon Hoare]

The point about the democratic deficit is important, as everybody would understand. Does the right hon. Gentleman share my understanding that both Westminster and the EU are very alert to this, and that the EU is keen to find ways, such as Norway has, whereby the views of directly elected Northern Irish politicians, business organisations and others will be taken into account and canvassed in order to shape rules, which may apply to businesses, standards or whatever it may happen to be within Northern Ireland? I appreciate that that does not hit the sweet spot that he would like to see, but we should all draw comfort from the fact that everybody recognises that there is an issue with the democratic deficit and that there are models whereby it can be addressed.

[Sammy Wilson]

I am amazed at the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. As far as I know, he is a member of the Conservative and Unionist party, and as a Unionist, he should be interested in that sweet spot. Simply to hand over power and then find some complicated mechanism to ensure that maybe someone’s voice is heard and considered, while laws from outside are still imposed in our country and a foreign court adjudicates on whether they have been applied properly, does not hit the sweet spot with me, and it should not hit the sweet spot with him; otherwise he should take “Unionist” out of the title of his party membership.

Let me make one last point, about the size of the Budget. Unless there is a radical movement in the EU’s position, the situation could continue for some time. It is important that Ministers consider some of the points that have been made by the education sector, especially in Northern Ireland. Youngsters have fallen behind as a result of covid, and have been locked out of schools. Many of them—and I know this from my own constituency—are youngsters who are most disadvantaged in education anyway, and there should be a discussion with the education sector about what can be done to introduce additional help, especially for youngsters who have fallen behind as a result of the covid closure of schools.

There will be further discussions after the Bill progresses, and I hope that many of the priorities articulated in the Chamber today will be considered. I understand that there are certain sides on a cake, but I do not believe that the cake is big enough. If we consider the existing pressures—teachers, wage increases for public servants, the cost of energy and so on—some of them are universal and apply across the board in the United Kingdom, but given the size of the public sector in Northern Ireland even a Barnett consequential does not fully compensate for the increase in costs that the Northern Ireland Administration faces. Those are the kind of issues on which I hope we can have continued discussion with the Minister in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Colum Eastwood]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we would not be where we are today were it not for the actions of the DUP. And where are we? We have people dying in their homes because ambulances are not coming in time. We have people on trolleys for over 24 hours in every hospital in Northern Ireland. We have an Education Department that is being cut to ribbons by this Budget. We have people from my constituency emigrating every day because they cannot find work. Will that all be solved by the Executive in the morning? No, it will not, but it is our job to try. That is the whole point of representative democracy. That is the whole point of devolution. That was the whole point of the Good Friday agreement—that people who disagree with each other can come together and thrash out agreements to get things done. It is difficult and it is tough, but it is what we are supposed to do.

I welcome the conversion of the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) to levelling up areas that need it most. I will extend an invitation to him now to visit Foyle, because my experience of previous Executives is that they did not do an awful lot of levelling up there.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman continually raises this issue—sometimes taking a whining approach as well—but under the Executive I remember money going to the airport at Londonderry, Altnagelvin hospital getting the cancer centre and money being allocated for the road from Londonderry—

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

And for the university.

[Sammy Wilson]

I am thinking only of my own experience. Actually, the road was cut because the Irish Government said they were not going to make their contribution to it.

[Colum Eastwood]

It is interesting that people in Derry are entitled to some Government funding—thank you very much! My constituency has the highest unemployment, the highest claimant count and the highest household overcrowding, and it has five of the 10 most deprived areas in Northern Ireland. Maybe some work was done, and maybe some money was spent outside the Greater Belfast area, but it has not had the impact that some might claim.

If people think it is good enough or acceptable just to say that we will throw a few quid at people in Derry—people who have been left behind—after many decades, they are absolutely wrong. The New Decade, New Approach agreement was referenced earlier, and this Government have a responsibility for some of the commitments in it. I think of the expansion of Magee—there is still no funding for that from the Government. There is the Brandywell stadium—there is still no funding for that from the Government. And there is the Northlands addiction centre—we have had promise after promise, but the money is still not in a bank account.

Frankly, I find it difficult to watch people jumping up from their seats and giving excuse after excuse as to why it would not make any difference if we were in government, when people are literally dying on trolleys right now because they cannot get access to the health service. We are abdicating our responsibilities as elected representatives for the people.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

The implementation is the problem. The negotiation, hopefully, will deliver the solution. Therefore, we cannot divorce the Assembly from the impact the protocol is having, and it is simply unrealistic to do so.

[Sammy Wilson]

It is surprising that the Chair of the Select Committee has so little knowledge of something that we would expect him to be able to talk about with some degree of clarity. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it would be totally unreasonable to ask Unionists—who are opposed to the protocol and who believe it damages the constitution and their position in United Kingdom and hurts the economic standing of every citizen in Northern Ireland—to implement the thing to which they are so opposed?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

Not only would that be unreasonable, but those Assembly Members were elected on a mandate not to do so.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Campbell]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I think she knows full well that that is not what I am suggesting. I was quoting the exact reference from the Secretary of State in introducing the Bill: “full remuneration from the public purse”. That should apply equally to Sinn Féin’s allowances and representation money. Action should be taken on that. It has been requested and sought for many years. I will leave it there and hope that the Leader of the House will introduce such a change. It would be entirely unacceptable if she were not do so.

We have discussed this Bill on many occasions and also the need to get back into Stormont, which all of us share. My party is a devolutionist party. I have served for many years in various capacities under the devolutionary settlement of Stormont, so I want to see Members back doing their jobs. However, it is a mistake to keep referring to a variety of problems and say that they could be solved if Ministers were back at their desks. Ministers were at their desks when hospital waiting times got worse. The A6 dual carriageway in my constituency is almost finished, but it has been almost finished for a year, and that has been mostly under devolution. Unfortunately, the road remains unfinished. I hope that no one will suggest that we should get back into devolved Government so that the roads can be finished. I hope that no one will suggest that we should get back into Government because the waiting times in various hospitals are getting worse. They were getting worse under devolution. Yes, I want to see devolution work, but let us not create straw men for others to knock down.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend also accept that the £670 million hole in the budget occurred when the Executive were sitting and that, this time last year, the Sinn Féin Minister could not get agreement from any party—not one party—in the Assembly to his budget?

[Mr Campbell]

Not only is my right hon. Friend right, but the Secretary of State alluded to that. He was extremely critical of the overspend that the devolved Government had achieved. I just think that we should be more circumspect when we talk about getting back into devolved Government. We come back to the point that my good friend the right hon. Member for Beckenham made just before I rose to speak, which was that there is one issue that prevents devolved Government from returning—with all their faults, which must be remedied—and that is the protocol.

Again, I hope that the Secretary of State, the Minister of State or anyone else will not use the other straw man, which is preventing the return of a hard border, because everyone knows that that will not happen. It was never going to happen. It was raised to pressure our Government; that is the reason that it was raised. That is why Leo Varadkar, when he was Taoiseach, threw down the front page of The Irish Times, which showed a border post ablaze in the 1970s, and said to Messrs Macron and Merkel that we cannot go back to that. Our Government took fright and would have agreed to anything rather than this false assertion that violence would return.

A hard border is not on the equation. It will not be implemented. Everyone accepts that that is the case. The Government have to deal with the one thing that prevents us from getting devolved Government back up and running—the one thing that has introduced the Bill that we are discussing today—and that is the protocol. Sort out the protocol and we will get back into government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

I cannot say that I welcome the legislation, but I recognise that it is sadly necessary. It is shameful and disgraceful that the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive are currently not in place. We continue to maintain that they should be established forthwith.

We are facing twin governance and financial crises in Northern Ireland, and huge damage has been done to our economy and public services through delayed or missed decision making. That comes at a time when there is immense pressure on Northern Ireland’s public finances. I have made the point that mistakes were made in the past and the roof was not mended when the sun was shining and we had better opportunities, so difficult decisions are now required. Indeed, our health service in particular is going through tremendous difficulties. Necessary reforms to our public sector are being delayed, which means that the budget crisis gets ever tighter as we try to balance the books on an ever-declining, burning platform.

I will touch on the key areas of the Bill, mindful of your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. First, I will touch on the revised deadline for the formation of an Executive and, by implication, the resumption of the duty on the Secretary of State to call an election within 12 weeks if those deadlines are not met. The Secretary of State took the right decision to defer an election after 28 October and to seek further flexibility. In the current climate, an election would have been counterproductive and would have made the task of restoration and the wider negotiations with the European Union more difficult.

My difficulty lies with the revised dates. I appreciate that the Government have to try to move the process along and put in place some kind of deadline to get people over the line, but there is a disconnect between the timescale that the Northern Ireland Office is setting out and the reality of the pace of negotiations with the European Union. Evidently, we have seen a change in the mood music over the past few weeks, which is extremely welcome, but we have not yet seen real progress in the substance of those negotiations. I earnestly wish that we reach a conclusion as quickly as possible, which will require flexibility from the UK and, may I say, the European Union. The UK Government need to take a view on exactly where they will land on these issues; I will refrain from going into the detail of those discussions, given the nature of the Bill.

The shadow Secretary of State has already alluded to the fact that the first deadline in the legislation of 8 December is next Thursday, which may in practice be only a couple of days after the Bill gets Royal Assent. What seemed to be a reasonable deadline a few weeks ago is now, I suspect, fairly meaningless, so we are focused on the second deadline of 19 January, which I note is essentially only seven weeks away. In theory, that is ample time for the negotiations with the European Union to reach a conclusion, but based on the rate of progress that we have seen in recent weeks and months, we need to be realistic that that may not be the case.

We could therefore be in a situation where the Secretary of State has a restored duty to call an election after 19 January. At that stage, perhaps progress will have finally been made in the negotiations or we might be in or about to enter the metaphorical tunnel of those negotiations. In that context, I venture that the prospect or actuality of an Assembly election would be at best counterproductive and at worst extremely damaging. The talks could grind to a halt because of that potential election, or a certain political party or others could harden their red lines about those negotiations, which would make compromise, or the acceptance of a compromise deal, more difficult.

Obviously we need strong leadership from all quarters to ensure that we can get something workable over the line. I suggest to the Secretary of State that this Bill is too inflexibly framed. I appreciate the need to focus minds, but if after 19 January it is manifestly not in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, the negotiations or the wider public interest to have an election, the only recourse available will be the Secretary of State’s coming back to Parliament seeking a further Bill. I imagine it would go down like a lead balloon if we were in that situation. I urge the Secretary of State to take the time between now and consideration of this Bill in the other place to reflect on the way forward—to keep us focused on the job in hand but to give that bit of flexibility if it proves necessary.

Secondly, I want to talk about the guidance. I welcome the publication of the draft guidance today, but the Bill is at best a stopgap in terms of governance. We have a major hole in that regard. What we have before us is neither tenable nor sustainable beyond the shortest possible periods. There are many difficult, pressing, urgent decisions that need to be taken, and it is right that civil servants are reluctant to take significant decisions that are normally left to be taken at the political level. There are particular difficulties in taking budget decisions: it is one thing keeping a budget ticking over on a care and maintenance basis, but if the books need to be balanced in a tighter budget situation, any decision to cut something is inherently political and will be subject to some degree of challenge. The civil servants are placed in an unenviable situation, but a balance must be struck between recognising that reluctance while at least enabling critical things to be taken forward.

We must have some further discussion on the guidance. I understand it could be clarified in due course, but what type of consultations will happen over a short period of time to get the draft guidance turned into final guidance whenever this Bill receives Royal Assent? I also seek an assurance that the guidance will be flexible enough to enable—rather than direct—civil servants to implement any pay body recommendations, because that is clearly a pressing issue for many public sector workers in Northern Ireland, who perhaps at this stage have not received what has been made available in Great Britain, never mind the legitimate concerns around additional pay that many are making.

On MLA pay, I declare a previous interest in that I was an MLA whose pay was deducted under a previous Assembly. It was difficult, but it was the right thing to do, and I recognise that cutting MLA pay is the right thing to do today. I say slightly flippantly that it should be directed primarily at those who are blocking restoration of the Executive, but I appreciate that is difficult to do. I recognise the remarks from Members of other parties that this might not in itself force a change of minds, but as the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), recognised, there is major disquiet at MLAs receiving their full salary in the current environment, and that must be recognised inside this Parliament. Most MLAs recognise that; certainly my party colleagues do so. Notwithstanding the fact that they cannot perform their full job description as set out, they are working extensively every week to act on behalf of their constituents, to make representations and work with other groups in Northern Ireland. But they are also massively frustrated.

Finally, I want to talk about what will happen if this Bill fails, and indeed if there is no outcome from negotiations with the EU or we have an outcome that most common-sense people would accept but is none the less rejected by some Northern Ireland parties, and we therefore have continued blockage. As I have said, I do not believe the current stopgap approach to governance is sustainable. Decisions should be taken by locally elected people in Northern Ireland on behalf of their constituents. If we are in the situation of defaulting to direct rule, that is problematic in many respects. As there has been some talk of joint authority being an alternative, I want to take this opportunity just to make it very clear that for my party, joint authority is outside the context of the Good Friday agreement and outside the principle of consent. None the less, if we are to talk about direct rule, that would have to have an Irish dimension of some description, and that has been understood going back to the Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985.

That is basically what we are looking into, but short of that, we should be looking at reform of the institutions. I am not going to go into the detail of that, except to reiterate my party’s very strong commitment to allow those parties in Northern Ireland that wish to govern to do so. That is by far the next best alternative to the current arrangements. I would prefer that to be done on an inclusive basis, but the point is that some parties have the opportunity to take up places in government, and it is they who are self-excluding.

[Sammy Wilson]

When did the Alliance party have this Damascus road experience? For three years when Sinn Féin was holding up progress and holding up the Assembly in Northern Ireland, I never heard once that the Alliance party believed that the Assembly and its structures should be changed to facilitate that.

[Stephen Farry]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for his intervention because it gives me the opportunity to reiterate that my party has consistently advocated reform of the Assembly structures. It has been in our party manifestos going back to 1999. In particular, in the period between 2017 and 2020, my party made numerous comments publicly on the need for reform. I will gladly forward copies of speeches made by my party leader to party conferences to the right hon. Member so that he can read them with a great deal of interest.

Northern Ireland Elections

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The hon. Gentleman is wrong and he needs to move on.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I agree with the Secretary of State that we need to get devolved Government restored to Northern Ireland, although he must understand that the basis of restoring devolved Government is that the terms for that Government to be restored have to be adhered to, namely, that the principle of consent is adhered to and accepted, and of course, no Unionist who would have to implement the agreement in the Assembly is prepared to do so. I do not share the Secretary of State’s optimism, by the way, that it would solve all the economic problems. The £600 million hole in the budget was caused by the Assembly when it was sitting and could not agree a budget, so I would not be too optimistic about that. However, can he give me an assurance about the promise made by the Prime Minister? He said:

“Under my leadership, the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill will continue to make its way through Parliament. If negotiation with the EU doesn’t deliver what we need it to, the bill will become law.”

The Bill required that European Court of Justice jurisdiction in Northern Ireland be removed, that EU law would no longer apply in Northern Ireland, except for those firms that volunteered, and that the trade restrictions would be removed. Can he assure us that that is what he needs to see from the negotiations with the EU?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The very simple answer is to say yes, but, as we were reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) just a moment ago, as Chief Whip, I used to enjoy my weekly conversations with the right hon. Gentleman and we talked about these points a great deal, so he knows and would understand that I will always prefer to have a negotiated outcome. I believe that that is possible, but what the Prime Minister said about the Bill remains so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Both the trader support service and the movement assistance scheme provide support to traders moving goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. By the end of this year we will have spent £340 million helping traders to process 2.3 million customs declarations through the trader support service for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but we very much hope that we can find a negotiated solution to the protocol issues that will mean we do not have to spend this money in the future.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Northern Ireland protocol has resulted in the ripping up of the Belfast Agreement and the principle of consent, and the fall of the Assembly. It has also imposed EU law on part of our country, and that law will be imposed by the European Court of Justice. Does the Minister accept that we cannot improve on that and we have to remove it?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Actually, I think there is a negotiated path where we can completely change how we deal with the protocol, which would mean that it dealt with the issues of governance and trade and all the other practical issues that are causing legitimate concerns to the communities he represents.