Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I send prayers and condolences on my behalf and that of the Labour party to Alex Easton MLA, his family and friends, and the community of Bangor. I also take the opportunity to welcome a new life, as Doug Beattie is now a grandfather. I welcome his granddaughter Skyler to the world.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) said, we will support the Bill so that public services in Northern Ireland can continue to function. Although we recognise the need to pass these measures, the lack of scrutiny time afforded to them cannot be the new norm. If the continued absence of a functioning Assembly and Executive in Northern Ireland causes more matters that should be before Stormont to be discussed here, the Government must outline how they will ensure that there are opportunities for proper scrutiny and how they will involve voters in Northern Ireland, whose voices have been diminished through political failures.

As many hon. Members have said, I hope that this is the last time that we will need to discuss what should be devolved business in the Chamber. Although I welcome the Government outlining progress on the protocol negotiations, I urge them to share with the House progress on the negotiations as soon as possible.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State has included ringfenced funds for abortion services within the Bill to ensure that women have access to essential healthcare, but I share the concerns of clinicians and patients that women’s healthcare in Northern Ireland is falling by the wayside. Northern Ireland has the longest NHS waiting lists for gynaecological care in the United Kingdom, which forces many women to seek private healthcare to receive treatment for conditions such as endometriosis, which causes debilitating pain and can affect fertility. Even women who reach the top of the waiting list in Northern Ireland cannot access the same expertise as other women across the UK, because there is currently no fully British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy-accredited endometriosis specialist centre in Northern Ireland, but there should be.

Unfortunately, that is not a unique situation, as we have heard. The Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee rightly raised the concerns of organisations with a lack of funding to support women in Northern Ireland. He knows that I am a doughty campaigner for the rights and protections of women in my constituency and in Northern Ireland. I have visited Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid and spoken at its conference, and I fought for the homeless services for women in Belfast to be retained. I have also spoken to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Informing Choices NI, Amnesty International and others.

What all those issues have in common is that they are a result of political failure, which requires political solutions to solve it. I recognise the work of civil servants in Northern Ireland in ensuring that public services have continued in the absence of the Executive, but it is neither fair nor appropriate that decisions on the allocation of budgets and the priorities of public spending are made by those civil servants. When services are already falling so far behind acceptable standards, to seek simply to keep things running represents a grotesque abdication of responsibilities from political leaders. While we support this Bill, I will finish my words there.