Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointments and Regional Rates) Bill

Tom Elliott Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 24th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that maybe a longer-term strategy is now re-emerging from Sinn Féin to make Northern Ireland unstable so that the people of Northern Ireland start to question its ability to govern itself? Maybe it is a tactic of Sinn Féin’s .

[Mr Paterson]

I do not like to comment on the motives of any political party. I would just like to say that, as someone who has been involved in Northern Ireland—I had three years as shadow Secretary of State and two years as the real Secretary of State—there is such good will among the populace across all parts of the community. I do not like talking about communities; I like talking about the whole community. They long for this to work, and there is real good will, but now there is utter frustration.

I am particularly exasperated because my great project, with representatives of four local parties—the fifth local party was also supportive—was to give Northern Ireland politicians the ability to set corporation tax, because we know that the Republic of Ireland’s determination, in the face of intense criticism from other major member states of the EU, to hold on to its right to set corporation tax has been the key to its success. The then Finance Minister in Dublin described it as the cornerstone of that success. As part of what was called the Azores agreement, it was vital for there to be a democratically elected institution in a devolved area to make that decision.

The current situation is exasperating for me, having got this measure through—having got complete unity among Northern Ireland parties and the support of almost all Northern Ireland business—and knowing the tremendous good it has done. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) is sitting there and I have visited his constituency. Just over the border, in Letterkenny, an extraordinary amount of investment is being made because of the corporation tax rate there, yet so much of that could have gone to Londonderry if the rate had been set in Northern Ireland. This measure was one of the great achievements of the last coalition Government, and I pay full tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), who took it through during her time as Secretary of State. The powers are there, if only local politicians would grab the opportunity and establish an Executive.

Sadly, I must support this Bill; I totally endorse the comments of the Secretary of State and shadow Secretary of State that we would like to see an Executive set up. We had a successful election—that passed off—there are newly elected Members of the Legislative Assembly and they should be working with the institutions to set up a new Executive. Sadly, it is necessary to set a regional rate, but I hope we have to do it only temporarily. It is sensible for the Secretary of State to set a lengthier target of 29 June, and I wish him well on that, but if the elected local politicians still do not come to their senses by then I ask him to consider introducing legislation here on the issue of the cost of Stormont. Crudely, it costs about £1 million a month in salaries and expenses for MLAs. I know full well that the Northern Ireland public—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

I am entirely happy with operating the Good Friday agreement as the people voted for it—people of Ireland north and south. A petition of concern would mean that a mechanism could be checked and proofed. If there were not concerns in relation to rights and equality, it could proceed in the normal way through the Assembly; if there were, it would require cross-community support. I make no apology for my part in negotiating and drafting the Good Friday agreement and in helping to establish the institutions. I regret the fact that we have departed from the Good Friday agreement in so many ways.

The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) referred to the appointment of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Like her, I listened to the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) saying that we need to change things and get to a different way, and that there should not be a situation where one party can veto. Let us remember that the St Andrews agreement limited the appointment of the offices of First Minister and Deputy First Minister to two parties and two parties only. It specified that the biggest party of one designation would appoint the First Minister, and then the biggest party of another designation would appoint the Deputy First Minister. There was to be no role for the Assembly any more in electing and having a free choice in the joint election of First Minister and Deputy First Minister, as the Good Friday agreement provided. If the right hon. Gentleman is in any way serious about what he is saying, then next time we are tabling amendments in respect of changing how the First Minister and Deputy First Minister are appointed, he should join us in supporting those amendments, not oppose them. I checked with the Clerks as to whether the Bill’s reference to ministerial appointments would have allowed me to table such an amendment. I was advised that the narrow terms of the Bill would not have allowed me again to table the amendment that I have tabled in the past.

Given the way in which acronyms are used in this place, no doubt this Bill, which we might call the ministerial appointments and regional rates Bill, will be referred to as the MARR Bill. However, there is nothing memorable about it. It is purely ephemeral in the sense of making exigent provisions in relation to the striking of a regional rate so that rates bills can be issued and councils can get their take of the district rate. I regret that it has been necessary to bring the Bill forward in this House, but I support it in terms of allowing the revenue to come in to support public services, both those run by councils and those provided by regional government departments.

The Bill is also ephemeral in the sense of resetting the meter on the appointment of Ministers. I note that the Secretary of State has chosen a timeline that would broadly equate to what the timeline under the current legislation would be if there was an Assembly election on the same day as the general election. Therefore, those who have argued for an election on the same day can have no objection to that timeline. As we heard from other hon. Members, there is another coincidence in relation to the timeline with regard to the budgetary pressures and the fact that the civil service is now having to assign a percentage of the budget in the absence of an elected Government in the Assembly. All sorts of groups and budget holders, including in the community and voluntary sector, but not only there, have been given the indication that their funding is guaranteed, as was, for the first 13 weeks of the financial year. Those 13 weeks will bring us to within a calendar week of the same deadline that we have. That should concentrate minds—I hope that it does—about what the consequences of an absence of the institutions would be.

[Tom Elliott]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if there is no progress within the timescale set in the Bill, the Secretary of State needs to bring forward further legislation to resolve the budgetary issues, because we cannot keep going through the financial crisis that departments are currently in?

[Mark Durkan]

We have to use the timeline that is created here and now. We also have to use such good will as any of us were able to detect in the talks in Stormont Castle over the past number of weeks.

I personally would not come to the conclusion that one party is determined to prevent the formation of a Government altogether. I wish I had more evidence that I could point to so as to support my hunch that Sinn Féin would want to see the formation of a Government. It would be better if Sinn Féin would say more in public that gave people reason to believe that. In the debate I took part in on the BBC yesterday, I was struck by the fact that Chris Hazzard of Sinn Féin said that Sinn Féin would have a powerful position in relation to Brexit because of having four MEPs and because Dublin was going to have a decisive role as a member state. He put no premium whatsoever on the institutions of the agreement. At no point did he say, “The important thing that will help us to offset some of the challenges and threats of Brexit is having our own devolved Government who are part of using and activating the strand 2 structures that are the best way of doing things on an all-Ireland basis, with relevant sectors being treated as an Ireland market, and that being reflected and respected with regard to EU construction programmes and potential funding, as Michel Barnier has indicated.” There was none of that whatsoever from Sinn Féin. I can therefore see why people are worried about what it is saying about Brexit and asking, “Where are the institutions of the Good Friday agreement?”

Strand 1 of the Good Friday agreement would be pretty central to making those institutions work because, as we know from what happened before, strand 2 cannot be activated—we cannot have a North South Ministerial Council—unless we have northern Ministers in a northern Executive. It is therefore imperative that we get our institutions up and running. A failure to do so means that we are sentenced to the hard Brexit that people are complaining about and worried about, but also a hard Brexit in the absence of any devolved mitigation—any north-south axis that can be used, including by the Irish Government. Strand 2 provides that the views of the North South Ministerial Council will be reflected and represented in various EU meetings, so it gives the Irish Government a potentially powerful role. However, whenever Chris Hazzard referred to the Irish Government’s role yesterday, none of that related to the fact that they would be reflecting the views of the North South Ministerial Council in EU meetings. We need to get the institutions up and running, although I recognise that there are issues in the way.

I do not accept the rewriting of recent history by the hon. Member for East Antrim in relation to the renewable heat incentive. When questions were put to Treasury Ministers and to NIO Ministers about a Westminster and Whitehall interest in RHI, the DUP was seething at any such suggestion by me, by my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), or by the two Ulster Unionist party Members. The DUP was completely opposed to a public inquiry. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley made it very clear on TV on several occasions that consideration by the Public Accounts Committee in the Assembly was sufficient and there was no need for any other inquiry. It had Sinn Féin on board with that position for quite a while, and then things fell apart between them.

Like the hon. Member for East Antrim, I ask why the Northern Ireland Executive did not produce a draft budget. Why are we in this position at all, with no hint or sign of what the devolved budget would have been? Let us remember that back on 21 November the DUP and Sinn Féin issued a joint article, stating:

“This is what delivery looks like. No gimmicks. No grandstanding.”

And that was when there was no sign of a draft budget. The DUP was quite happy to say that it was good government not to have a draft budget at that stage. We are now at a point when we should have long had the revised budget. That is what the joint article by Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness said and it was accompanied by a lovely photograph: back in November, Sinn Féin and the DUP gave us the Mills & Boon version of lovely government. Then the wheels started to come off after the pressure created by the RHI issues in December.

What was the root cause of the arrogance that manifested itself in the RHI scandal? It was the fact that the DUP felt that it was not accountable to the Assembly and that it had been appointed entirely according to its own mandate. We heard Arlene Foster say that she had a mandate from the people of Northern Ireland. The DUP’s mandate in last year’s Assembly election was no greater than that which the Labour party got in Great Britain, and yet we were told by Arlene Foster that her mandate from the people of Northern Ireland meant that she could ignore the mandate received by everybody else in the Assembly. Given that she was not appointed by the Assembly, contrary to the provisions of the Good Friday agreement, she had no sense of accountability to it, which is why the DUP made it clear that it would veto any motion passed by the Assembly on the RHI. Of course, that is what it did, and in so doing it not only ignored the proper authority and its debt of accountability to the Assembly at large, but broke the ethic of mutuality and jointery in the offices of the First and Deputy First Ministers. That made it very difficult, if not impossible, for Martin McGuiness to continue as though there were no other strains present.

Those are not the only challenges that we need to resolve. Other hon. Members have touched on legacy issues, but unfortunately, given Madam Deputy Speaker’s advice on time, I will not be able to go fully into them. The hon. Member for Blaydon has referred to the Sammy Devenney case, which happened in my constituency. Conservative Members have also raised concerns about former officers being pursued and questioned about previous cases. However, although those cases have been presented here as examples of people being pursued for prosecution, they have actually come about as a result of new inquests about controversial deaths that have shown that some of those who were killed were not terrorists or gunmen as had previously been reported, and that therefore their killing was wrongful. It is entirely legitimate that legacy issues should be pursued and questions asked. Officers gave various accounts—and Ministers in turn, down the years, have in this House given false accounts—of those deaths and incidents. It is entirely proper that those cases should be well pursued.

Although there has been a measure of agreement among Sinn Féin, the DUP and the British Government—notwithstanding disagreements on questions of national security—on limited approaches by the historical investigations unit, the Social Democratic and Labour party wants more architecture on legacy issues, not least with regard to thematic approaches. The HIU is able only to produce individual reports on individual cases, and not to join the dots, show the patterns or draw on the wider lessons. It is also confined to looking at killings, but the troubles have many other dimensions and legacies of victimhood that are not just in relation to killings. People have many questions about the pattern, motives and character of the violence carried out by paramilitaries as well as, possibly, by the security forces, and they want those questions to be examined and tested. I think that that would give a more equal assessment of the past.

We considered those proposals in the Haass talks. Richard Haass and Meghan O’Sullivan had particular ideas about a strong approach to thematics, which would have reflected the interest right across the community. It would not only have addressed issues of state breaches and allegations against state forces; it would have been very wide, open, thorough and responsive. We need to return to those sorts of arrangements in respect of the past.

We need to make progress on the Irish language Act, but let us be clear that part of the problem is that people are selling riddles, because in the St Andrews agreement there was a pledge from the British Government that they would legislate for a language Act, whereas the only commitment on the part of the parties was for a language strategy. Ambiguities and contradictions were built into it and some of us sought clarity at the time. Sinn Féin was spinning it that there would be an Irish language Act in the Assembly, but we pointed out our honest interpretation of the literal language. Of course, we were decried simply for pointing out the truth.

Whatever the problems in relation to the Irish language Act and the RHI issue, we need to remember that Brexit is the biggest issue facing us all. What helped bring about the discolouration in the politics around our institutions? The fact is that it was Brexit, which has made a much bigger difference to the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland than certain Members care to admit.