Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill

James Brokenshire Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

The right hon. Gentleman is, as ever, absolutely correct.

I will finish my remarks on the Hart inquiry, which Members are right to mention in connection with the business before us. The programme for government offers a helpful pointer to Ministers, who may otherwise not feel on particularly safe ground in relation to making decisions. The Secretary of State and other Ministers have said that it provides some basis on which they can take note of the last expressed democratic view on a number of issues. However, on 12 March—at column 653, on the Hart inquiry—the Secretary of State suggested that it is not the business of UK Ministers or this place to consider recommendations of bodies set up by the Executive, let alone implement them, and she repeated those sentiments today.

It would be helpful to have a bit of clarification, because I fear that we cannot have it both ways. We either observe what democratically elected bodies determined before they crumbled, and that extends to any bodies that they may have established, or we do not. It is an important principle because it seems to me that it is legitimate to take note of decisions that have previously been made and of the clear will of those bodies, particularly if there was no great controversy about them. It would be useful if the Secretary of State clarified this point, so that we are a bit clearer about what we can rely on and, indeed, what she will rely on in making any decisions or issuing any guidance on which she may wish to reflect.

[James Brokenshire (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Murrison]

I was just about to sit down, but I will of course give way.

[James Brokenshire]

I commend my hon. Friend for his work and that of his Committee. Does he acknowledge that one of the challenges is that no recommendations were agreed by the outgoing Executive? That obviously makes the job of the Secretary of State in determining the right way forward on the hugely sensitive issue of the recommendations that the Hart inquiry sought to bring forward extremely difficult, and that is why she has to think carefully about how best—cross-community, and with the parties—to assess the right way forward.

[Dr Murrison]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right but I am sure that, if he re-reads Hansard from last week, he will see that the argument extended not just to decisions made by the Executive or passed by the Assembly, but to things done by organisations set up by the Executive, which of course includes the Hart inquiry. The issue is whether we are guided by the recommendations made by those organisations or not, particularly if there appears to the Secretary of State and her Ministers to be genuine cross-party and cross-community acceptance of those recommendations and findings. To what the extent is that the best we have to work on? The question is really whether we are guided by what happened before the collapse of the Executive or not. I do not think that we can easily be selective.