Northern Ireland (Interim Arrangements) Bill

Paul Girvan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 10th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It is great to hear that the Democratic Unionist party now supports north-south co-operation. It would be good if we were to allow the north-south bodies to operate properly as well. I totally agree with the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) about the deficiencies of the Barnett formula. The SDLP, many years ago, proposed moving away from the Barnett formula to a more needs-based approach. It is just a pity that DUP Ministers at that time campaigned loudly and actively against it. However, we are here now.

This is a Bill that nobody wants, least of all the civil service which is being asked to use these powers. We know why we are here: the DUP refuses to form a Government. Many of the arguments some of us are using today were used by the DUP when Sinn Féin pulled the Government down and kept it down for three and a half years. It seems to me that people cannot even learn the lessons they were trying to teach others. We know how that ended: Sinn Féin realised halfway through that boycott that it was doing nobody any good. The waiting lists were still getting longer and certain people were beginning to get the blame for that. My view is that we have a responsibility to all the people in all our constituencies, no matter what their politics are, to have a Government functioning and working together. I heard again today from the DUP that devolution cannot work without the consent of both communities. That is painfully true and obvious, but is it okay, then, to have direct rule, which is basically what this is becoming, operating without the consent of the nationalist community? That is what we are being asked to have, and that will have its own consequences as we move through the process.

The shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), rightly referenced the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement—the immense change it has brought about and the bravery of that political generation to make very hard decisions and take very big steps, much bigger than those we are asking people to take today. Its impact has been profoundly significant for many people, particularly in my generation.

Over the last number of years, we have faced chaos in our politics inflicted by a Brexit vote somewhere else, because the people in Northern Ireland voted to remain by a majority. That has been the genesis of the crisis we are in today. We argued for a couple of years about the protocol and its implications. Now we have the Windsor framework, which gives us the opportunity to trade into both markets. We have had former American Presidents, the current American President, former US Secretaries of State and the current US Secretary of State, countless Senators and Members of the House of Representatives coming over and telling us that they want to help us by bringing jobs to Northern Ireland. There is not a single other place in the world where American politicians are saying they want jobs to leave America for. That just does not happen. It goes against the political current in the United States of America right now. This is a huge opportunity, and it is an opportunity that we need to grasp. Frankly, I do not understand why we cannot do two things at the one time.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. On the point he just made about investment into Northern Ireland, that was promised to us 25 years ago but the Republic of Ireland, with its fiscal taxation policy, sucked in all the inward investment that we were to get. We never benefited from the major companies that, over the last 17 years, went into the Republic of Ireland when they should have come to Northern Ireland.

[Colum Eastwood]

That is a very interesting take on the fact that next year the Irish Government will have a budget surplus of €16 billion and we are squabbling over the crumbs from London’s table. There is another question the hon. Member should ask himself: why are we not trying to join the thriving economic entity that is the Republic of Ireland? Our people would be a lot better off.

The point I was making is, in my view, very obvious. I accept that DUP Members still have some difficulty with some issues, and I am happy to sit down and work through them. I will speak to the Irish Government, the British Government and whoever we have to speak to, to help us to get over this hump. The reality, though, is that we are well capable of doing that at the same time as getting into government and dealing with the health crisis. I know we will not be able to solve all the issues overnight, but we will not be able to solve them by doing nothing at all. Why can we not sit down as grown-ups and work through the difficulties, while at the same time implementing the changes required to help people in Northern Ireland get off the waiting lists, to help people create jobs, and to bring in investment that keeps our young people at home instead of sending them off to work somewhere else? That is not beyond the wit of the political class in Northern Ireland today, given all the hard things that had to be done, including by the DUP, in the peace process we have had since before 1998. We can do this very, very simply. There is no logic any more in holding up the institutions of the Good Friday agreement so that we can deal with outstanding issues. We can do both at the one time.

The Bill and the budget are imposing huge cuts on the most vulnerable in our society. The extended schools programme is aimed at schools in disadvantaged areas and at kids who are the most disadvantaged in our society. It brings things like counselling for young people, breakfast clubs and after-school clubs. It is being axed because of this budget. We are axing free baby books for kids. Every year, 20,000 families are given access to free books and reading advice from the Book Trust, a vital tool we can give to our children. Anybody who has kids understands that teaching them to read as early as possible is a really important life skill. We are cutting that—that is where the axe is falling as a result of this budget.

We are also cutting special needs places in nursery schools. Little Orchids in my constituency, which looks after kids from two to four years’ old, was told a couple of days ago that it would have to halve the number of children that it can help in its facility. They are the people affected by this particular budget. We are also told that there will be no new school buildings or extensions. Many of the teachers’ and children’s classrooms are crumbling. None of that work will start this year, and we do not know at all when it will.

In all the discussions we have on radio stations, in TV studios and here about the need for health service transformation, as difficult as it will be, we have all bought into doing the hard things needed to make the health service more sustainable, to get 500,000 people off waiting lists and to make a health service that we can be proud of. Right now, we have a health service that is not free at the point of delivery because people cannot get access to it without paying. Many people in my constituency are going to the credit union to get loans that they cannot afford to pay back, so that they can have the vital surgery they need to live their lives in a normal and comfortable way. There is no space in this budget for proper health service transformation. Those 500,000 people will remain on waiting lists, which will grow and grow.

I made this point earlier to the Minister, but I will make it again: we can talk about the detail of revenue raising at any point, but I want to make it clear that the Irish Government, the British Government and the former Northern Ireland Executive all committed to expanding university places in Derry, which has been waited for and campaigned on for many decades. In any new funding model for higher education, that needs to be protected, and the opportunity needs still to be there for expansion of university places in Derry. If we are really serious about rebalancing the economy regionally and giving people the opportunity to create jobs and get employed in their own areas, that has to be our No. 1 priority.