Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Gregory Campbell

2nd reading
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

Clearly, the vast majority of MLAs want Stormont up and running. They want to do 100% of their jobs seven days a week, rather than the 50% that they are able to do at the moment. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he has robustly explored employment law—and if he has not, that he will do so—and that it would allow only for those who refuse to attend to have a pay cut? Those who wished to attend but could not because somebody was exercising their veto should not see their income reduced through no fault of their own.

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

Like Sinn Féin did four years ago.

[Simon Hoare]

Precisely—I agree.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). May I begin by thanking Government Ministers, particularly my hon. Friend the Minister of State and his officials for many briefings and conversations that he has facilitated for the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs and for me personally? That really is appreciated. There are rumours of a bromance breaking out between my hon. Friend and me, but it is nice that we are working together so closely.

Many, if not all, Members of Parliament—I would probably say all Members and everyone in the country at large—would wish the doing of politics to be normalised in Northern Ireland, which is an integral part of the United Kingdom, yet here we are again, having to deal with pressing matters through the use of emergency legislation. That is a real sadness, and I contend that such a situation would not be tolerated in any other part of the UK. At some point, we have to try to find a focused way of trying to deliver normalised politics.

I fear—and I understand precisely why the Secretary of State and the Government have introduced the Bill, which has my full support—that we are falling into a trap. The functioning and delivery of devolution, and the changes that many people would like to see delivered to the protocol, are two distinct, divorced and separate workstreams. We should not stand idly by and allow their conflation in the minds of people across the country. In 2022, no party worthy of that name, against the pressing economic backdrop that we face, should ever have a right to veto or walk away at any time, as I said earlier, still less now. I listened to the intervention from the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, about whether or not the reduction of pay was intended to drive, cajole or whip his party back to Stormont. I do not see it that way, but it is the clearest signal possible to members of the public that Parliament gets it and understands what full public service is. If people decide to exercise the veto which currently exists, clearly there should be an opportunity to deliver better value to the taxpayer by reducing the remuneration package. I have always been keen and hot on that, and I hope that the Secretary of State exercises that power under clause 10, which uses the word “may”. However, I very much hope that he does.

I welcome what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said in recent weeks about the process or impetus that could spur a review of the rubric on which we base the formulation and establishment of the Executive. I paraphrase, but he has said in terms that he would respond if there were overtures from the parties in Northern Ireland, from the grassroots up. That is probably the right approach, and I urge my right hon. Friend—he probably needs no urging—should those overtures be made, to respond positively to try to address them as quickly as possible.

Clause 10 says that the Secretary of State “may” make a determination; I think that he has to and that it should be done speedily. I know that many people wish that the law allowed him to differentiate between the MLAs who want to be in Stormont doing their job and those who have decided not to for reasons that are perfectly respectable. As we all know, however, any decisions that we take do and must have consequences.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

The Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee alludes to differentiating between MLAs who want to do their job and those who do not. Does he make the same differentiation between MPs who want to do their job and those who do not, but still get remunerated?

[Simon Hoare]

Yes, I do. At the end of the day, irrespective of which forum people are working in, that is taxpayers’ money. If one is prepared to do only a portion of the job, there should be implications for that. A teacher could not say, “I’m only going to teach boys called George or girls called Helen, and everybody else can go hang,” and expect the full package of remuneration and all the benefits. Likewise—again, I am grateful for the Minister of State’s briefing—I wish that clause 10(5) were not in the Bill, although I understand the complexities, because there should be knock-on implications for pensions as well. That needs to be looked at in due course.

This is a regrettable but understandable Bill. As the Secretary of State said, no Secretary of State would want to introduce this kind of legislation. Next year is the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement—we say that so flippantly; it has been hard-baked into our DNA as if it has always been there. As well as providing a moment for celebration and looking to the future, that provides us with an opportunity to look to the past and what led to its creation. We must never take its benefits for granted. Is it perfect? No. Does it deliver the process that we had hoped for at the speed that we had intended? Of course not, but let us not take it for granted. Let us all put our shoulders to the wheel to make sure that, across the communities, we can celebrate the huge strides for peace that it presented.

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Gregory Campbell

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is right. It is a sadness that there has been that dearth, which has led to huge frustration and has compounded the agony. He is also right to remind the House that each individual victim or survivor or victim’s family will respond to these things in different ways and will have different requirements from the process. We should be very careful not to resort to language such as, “This now delivers closure,” or, “This draws a line.” It will deliver closure, answer questions or draw lines only when that person is satisfied, and there will be myriad ways in which people will be looking for that satisfaction.

The Government are to be congratulated on the tangible policy evolution since what many of us recognise was the rather ill-judged, and certainly wrongly toned, written ministerial statement of March 2020. The Secretary of State and the Government are to be congratulated on facing into this issue. If there were easy solutions, by God they would have been delivered by now. If we want this to work, we have to make sure that this too-long-neglected issue is dealt with, and it has to be through this Bill. So much time has been spent on it and so many years have been spent discussing these issues that I cannot envisage—I could be wrong; I often am—

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Hear, hear!

[Simon Hoare]

There was no need for such an endorsement; it is nice to see the collegiate nature of the Select Committee burgeoning on the Floor of the House.

As I was saying, I cannot envisage this or any other Government, or any other Secretary of State, devoting future time and energy to trying to resolve these issues, so I am tempted to say that although the Bill needs some amendment, it will be this or it will be nothing at all.

As we know, the politics of Northern Ireland can be different and difficult and testing. I am inclined to think—this may be a strange way of looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope—that it is possibly a good thing that no one and no constituency of interest in Northern Ireland is claiming absolute victory or absolute defeat. To me, that would have suggested that the Government had got it wrong. There is within the Bill the potential for something for everybody who has a legitimate interest in this issue.

I will turn to a couple of specific points. On the programme motion, eight hours for Committee, albeit on the Floor of the House, and one hour, as I understand it, for Third Reading is simply not enough. Physically, this is not a huge Bill in terms of the number of clauses, but it is a mammoth Bill in terms of history and issues. A sceptical Northern Irish audience needs to be given full comfort that full scrutiny will be given to the Bill and the proposed amendments to it. I suggest to the business managers—such as the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, who is on the Treasury Bench—as much as to the Secretary of State that the Bill should be given at least four days for Committee and half a day for Third Reading. That would give comfort to those people who want to make sure that the solution is properly scrutinised.

My Committee will be looking at the Bill, so I do not want to prejudice its deliberation, but I will make a few observatory suggestions. The Secretary of State appoints to the independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery. I would like to see a parliamentary vote affirming those appointments, which would give the body extra legitimacy. On the commissioners, I would certainly like a seat to be reserved for an international participant; I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee. He referred to South Africa, but there are lots of people with United Nations experience. Again, they will add credibility, independence, a new voice and a perspective that should give extra help to those people who are looking to get the proposals over the line and to invest their faith in the commission. There also needs to be an oversight panel to the commission, as we have with Kenova, which could include groups representing victims, the Veterans Commissioner and others.

We need to accept, with regret—I am perfectly honest about that—that Stormont House is dead. We can flog it as much as we like, but it is a horse that will not get out of the stable. It is gone. It is that ex-parrot. That is unfortunate, but it is true. The need for coalition building remains alive, however, and the need for the Government to take people with them is as strong as ever.

Clearly, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said, the Bill will work better if the Republic is engaged and on side. I agree with him that north and south are two sides of the same coin on this, which have equal weight and responsibility to bring forward solutions that are binding and that can command support and confidence. I hope that the Irish Government will try to meet in the middle, and I would urge them to do so, to try to build that consensus and that joint approach.

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[Mr Campbell]

I thank my right hon. Friend and colleague and say that there is a substantial degree of accuracy in his observation. We have seen the outworking of that over the past five or six years.

Let me come back to those on the Front Bench. They are in an invidious position. Many people in Northern Ireland accept the difficulties that the Government are faced with. I do not meet many innocent victims who realistically hold out the prospect for a successful prosecution and limited jail term for the people who carried out the atrocities against their loved ones. I meet very, very few who say that. Most of them say that there is a limited possibility—a minuscule possibility—that they will receive justice. But what they do say is, “Don’t extinguish it. Don’t put it out for ever and a day.” And that is what this Bill does—extinguishes that possibility for ever and a day. Justice is gone—finished—and never coming back.

That is why the Government must listen to reasoned amendments to make this Bill less unacceptable than it currently is, because I do not think that there will be an acceptable Bill that will command support across the victims’ divide, and across the political divide. None the less, we could, if the Government were open to reasoned amendments, retain the possibility of justice if new evidence emerges—if it does emerge. Victims want to know that their loved one did not die in vain.

[Simon Hoare]

Does the hon. Gentleman therefore agree that the timetable envisaged in the programme motion is woefully inadequate to have a proper debate on those reasoned amendments and to try to address the concerns that he and his colleagues have raised in this debate?

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, for that observation. We are in danger of agreeing too much today, but I do agree with what he has just said. Maybe the proposed Bill has done some good.

In all seriousness, however, the Secretary of State made the comment, which I see is now headlining on BBC News, that there is a diminishing possibility of prosecutions. We understand that, but a diminishing possibility is not the same as extinguishing the possibility. That is the difference we must maintain.

I agree and believe that truth recovery can contribute towards people’s moving on and accepting that what is done is done. While they would like to see justice, and still hold out the hope that they might, if they got more information and knowledge about what happened to their loved ones, it would at least bring them some comfort.

A number of people have alluded to the case of a person I knew very slightly, the late Patsy Gillespie. He was what was called a human bomb, strapped into his own van and instructed to drive into an Army camp in Londonderry. The van was exploded, with him and five innocent soldiers also paying the price for the depravity organised by the late Martin McGuinness, who was the second-in-command of the Provisional IRA at the time.

I have an affinity with Patsy Gillespie, because he was an MOD employee on one side of the river, and I was an MOD employee on the other side. Likewise, I have an affinity with two of the three former Members whose plaques are above the door of this Chamber. They died as the result of under-car booby-traps. My family—my wife and two young children, one of them only four months old—were victims of an under-car booby-trap device; thanks to almighty God, it fell off before exploding and killing a man, a woman and two innocent children.

Let us do work with this Bill and try to improve it considerably. As it currently stands, it is totally and utterly unacceptable.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019

Debate between Simon Hoare and Gregory Campbell

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

A few moments ago, the hon. Gentleman referred to the outcome of the general election in Northern Ireland and to the number of pro-Union and anti-Union people returned to the House. Does he accept that when I was first elected 18 years ago the combined percentage of people voting for united Ireland candidates came to 42% and that in December last month it was 39%? The vote for united Ireland parties has gone down in those 18 years. He has just spoken about what might happen after an election to the Assembly, but will he outline how he thinks the problems would change, whatever the make-up of those dealing with the problems?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. One can argue percentages till the cows come home, but in terms of bums on seats, as it were—or, in the case of Sinn Féin, non-bums on seats, if that is the right phrase to use—the figure speaks for itself. That should give us all cause for concern. It should also motivate those of us who share a strong belief in the importance of the maintenance of the Union and the unity of the United Kingdom to redouble our efforts, strengthen our arguments and make ever-more attractive the reasons to maintain the Union. That is as applicable in Northern Ireland as it is in Scotland, because as Unionists we face the twin challenge of trying to persuade a growing sceptical population that there is relevance to Unionism today and to its continuing. We cannot just walk through a fog of presuming that the status quo, almost of itself, will continue.

On what the hon. Gentleman asked, I think that last month the electorate, remainers and leavers alike, decided that they wanted an end to the impasse, throwing up some very peculiar and—as far as Government Members are concerned—very welcome results. When the electorate has had enough, they will pick up the stubby pencil at the ballot box and almost use it as a sword, as they use the ballot paper as a shield, to reassert what they want.

This point is possibly unpalatable to many: if politicians are prepared to not allow the restitution of devolution, because they seek to argue over points that for many in Northern Ireland will seem irrelevant or not as pressing as dealing with health, education and welfare, there is the risk that those electors will turn to politicians who are less hog-tied by those traditions and seek to break the impasse by having a new set of faces around the table. It may result in exactly the same sort of result, but if these talks fail we should default to fresh elections and not just write the electoral process off, as though it was just another way of staying the hand of the inevitable—the return to direct rule, the inevitability of which we should resist at all costs.

Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Gregory Campbell

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

That was a quicker speech than we thought it would be.

May I begin by briefly putting on the record that I think the House should have enormous appreciation for the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound)? During my time in this place since 2015 he has been the steadfast rock with regard to Northern Ireland. I occasionally see him as the political equivalent of the Giant’s Causeway—nobody quite knows why he is there or why he is that shape, but we know that things would not quite be the same if he was not there. The House will miss him, and his interest in and knowledge of the affairs of Northern Ireland and the politics of the island of Ireland will be missed. [Interruption.] Yes, he is going to be a tourist attraction in his own right—and is already listed, I believe, as an ancient monument.

Our thanks should also go to the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd). The idea of the Northern Ireland Office not having a Hurd somewhere near it is depressing and dispiriting, and I wish my right hon. Friend well. Although she is not in her place, as Chairman of the Select Committee I ought to repeat what I said in Committee this morning and express my eternal thanks to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who has done so much on behalf of the communities of Northern Ireland over so many years.

I obviously support this budget. I echo entirely what the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) said, and I also echo the concerns of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) with regard to the welfare cliff that we canter towards in a slightly unguided, uncontrollable way.

I will not read it out, but page 5 of the explanatory notes to the Bill sets out clearly why fast-tracking is necessary. We appreciate the reasons why, and we can rehearse and rehearse and rehearse in a rather odd political version of the film “Groundhog Day” the comments, “I wish Stormont was back up and running…Ministers are doing all they can to achieve that…Parties stand ready to come back”, yet we never quite get that over the line.

While we fiddle with that issue, everybody is aware of the problems in Northern Ireland with regard to welfare, the downturn in education and the acute issues with healthcare. If we are serious, and if talking about Northern Ireland as a part of the Union is something beyond words and some sort of abstract, we should worry that we have allowed the eccentric to become the norm and allowed a mindset to develop whereby emergency legislation, sticking plasters and ad hoc solutions have to be found. If this was taking place in Scotland, Wales, North Dorset or any of the counties of England, we would be up in arms. Front-page articles would be written about it and questions would be asked all over the place. The fact that they are not is a cause for concern. How can we ever hope to make the politics of Northern Ireland and public service to its taxpayers as normal and as mainstream in Ballymena as one might find in Blandford Forum in my constituency? We are never going to make the progress on peace, reconciliation and confidence building that is so desperately required.

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

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says. He mentioned welfare a few moments ago. That is of particular concern to many people in Northern Ireland, particularly with regard to welfare mitigation payments, which were negotiated by a member of my party when he was Minister. They give rise to great concern, because in four short months, those mitigation measures will fall away. We need to take steps immediately and urgently to deal with that problem.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. People in communities in Northern Ireland today will be worrying about the impacts of the end of the mitigations. They will be among the most vulnerable in the community, who have the least opportunity to ride even a temporary blip or gap in service provision, and they will be the hardest hit. We understand that we are adding to their justifiable reasons for concern and anxiety, because as well as Stormont not sitting, Westminster will not be sitting either. The ability of right hon. and hon. Members to hold the Secretary of State and his ministerial team to account on the Floor of the House, in a Select Committee or in Westminster Hall will be removed from us. A democratic deficit—an accountability vacuum—will be created for five or six weeks, and that presumes that on 12 December, there is a clear-cut result that effectively allows something to resume on Monday 16 December.

We do not know what the result will be; we could be in for weeks of horse trading, with the usually happy time of Christmas and the new year elongating the window when no decisions are taken into early in the new year. Those who can least afford any hardship are likely to be facing it, and having their burden of woe added to, without having any democratic forum in which their concerns can be expressed and the decisions—or lack of decisions—taken by Ministers can be questioned and challenged. That is the icing on the cake of the democratic deficit that is now becoming the norm, and of the tendency to deal with Northern Ireland as a perpetual emergency, which is subliminally, if you will, undermining the path of peace and civil stability that we all wish to see. We have to be careful: we are allowing this psychologically to become the norm.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Gregory Campbell

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. The full weight of the law should be brought to bear on anybody, from any side of the debate, who occasions acts of terror, fear, the destabilisation of the economy or the disruption of civilian life in Northern Ireland. I do not care what colour they wear, what stripe they are or what faith motivates what they think they are doing; the full weight of the law will and must be brought to bear on them. I was very encouraged by the meeting I had, alongside members of the Select Committee, with the Garda Commissioner a week or so ago. I am seeing the incoming Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland this week, and I hope to hear from him, as we heard from the commissioner, an absolute determination to ensure cross-border co-operation in pursuing and bringing to justice anybody who occasions such acts, irrespective of who they are, where they are from or what their motivation is, to face the full brunt of the law. The ordinary people—the Mr and Mrs Smith of Northern Ireland—deserve that, and we cannot fight shy of it.

To respond further to the hon. Gentleman, this weekend —I shall be in Belfast for some of the weekend with the PSNI—should be a good opportunity for Unionists to demonstrate their passionate belief in the Union, and to do so in a responsible, peaceful way, acting as a beacon of what it is to be an engaged citizen in Northern Ireland. I hope that is an opportunity—I am fairly confident it will be—that those organising and taking part will take.

That is one of the backdrops against which this legislation has been introduced: the absence of devolution. The second, as highlighted by the shadow spokesman, is the timetabling of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. For those of us who are concerned about that and who have listened to and taken part in discussions with a variety of opinion—which for me ranges from the Justice Minister of the Republic to representatives of the National Farmers Union, with whom I was speaking this afternoon at an NFU summer reception that I sponsored—it is abundantly clear that it is in the interests of Northern Ireland and of the economy, peace and success of the island of Ireland for the UK to leave with a deal.

Some of the language has not, I suggest, given anybody who has an interest in, and affection for, Northern Ireland a vast amount of confidence. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) suggests that we should operate the border as we do between Westminster and Camden, it shows to me a rather woeful understanding of the history and the pressing problems. When the United States of America effectively says to the Taoiseach, “Go ahead and build your wall. I’m building one in Mexico and it’s gonna be great”—that word that the President always uses—that shows a worrying trend on this issue.

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

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the language is very important. Does he agree that it is equally important for all of us, both in Northern Ireland and across the UK, to understand that this mythical concept of a hard border is not going to come about, not just because none of us wants it in the Republic, Northern Ireland, the UK or the EU, but because it would be physically impossible for anyone to build it?

[Simon Hoare]

I want to deal with that point, because it was raised by the hon. Gentleman’s deputy leader, the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds), with the shadow Secretary of State. While I wish that what the hon. Gentleman has said were true, I do not have his confidence. We neglect two things at our peril. For the first time—they would argue—in 800 years, the Republic of Ireland is part, and will continue to be part, of the big team that is the European Union. By dint of its membership, the Republic has, perfectly properly, subcontracted—for want of a better phrase—to the Commission the negotiations of the withdrawal agreement with the United Kingdom Parliament. Therefore, any notion that representatives of the UK and Irish Governments would get together, come up with a plan, take it off to the Commission and say, “As far as we are concerned, this works,” is, I would suggest, for the birds. The Irish are just not going to play that game.

Because the Republic wishes to be an active, positive, proud member of the European Union, I do not think it is eccentric to suggest that, whatever it is that the European Union demands of the Republic to police, protect and patrol the only land border between their single market, of which we will no longer be a part, and ours, that would not be an eccentric proposition. Is it an easy proposition to deliver? Of course not. It would be damn difficult. But as we know, where there is a will, there is a way, and frankly some of the proposals that we are hearing for alternative arrangements are for the birds.

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[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He is from Swansea—I am a Cardiff boy—but nobody is perfect.

The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) is right, because we will play with fire if a policy is pursued that adds an accelerant to the demand for a border poll. It saddens me to say it, but I am not convinced that we, as Unionists, would win that poll.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

We are.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman may very well be convinced.

I am also certain that, even if we were to prevail and that precious Union were to be maintained, it would open yet again, and one could not refuse it, a request for a second independence referendum in Scotland. I am saddened to say it, but I do not want to wake up to find myself a subject of the United Kingdom of England and Wales.