Northern Ireland Assembly Members (Pay) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Sylvia Eileen Hermon (Independent, Unknown): Let me take the right hon. Gentleman’s very helpful points one by one. In respect of Sinn Féin, if the right hon. Gentleman, as a sort of homework, cares to look—as I am sure he does—at the written questions that I have submitted, he will see a long line of questions to the Leader of the House asking that representative money to Sinn Féin be considered by this House. In my most recent written question to the Leader of the House, I asked her which parties she had consulted regarding the thousands and thousands of pounds of representative money that is paid to Sinn Féin. I was astounded, to put it mildly, when the reply came back that the Leader of the House had apparently had no discussions with any political parties about the reduction of representative money to Sinn Féin Members, who do not take their seats in this House. I would be delighted to join in common cause with the right hon. Gentleman on this issue, so that we might, in fact, take it further because it is quite outrageous There are seven Sinn Féin Members of this House, who do not take their seats because of their political views. They receive representative money, which was invented—I stand to be corrected on this—in February 2006 by the then Prime Minister, and that irritates and grates on me, as an independent Member. As I am not a Member of a party, I receive no representative money, no additional Short money and no additional secretarial and administrative allowances, even though I do take my seat and represent my people from North Down. It is a bone of contention about which I feel very strongly and which I would like the House to address, so, yes, it is a good point for the right hon. Gentleman to raise The right hon. Gentleman also asked me to address the issue of the Irish language Act, which is deeply divisive in Northern Ireland. However, I commend his party leader, Arlene Foster, who we know has made valiant efforts in this regard. We know this because the draft document, indicating the detailed discussions that have been taking place between Sinn Féin and the leadership of the DUP, was put into the public domain by some journalists, including Eamonn Mallie. This was very encouraging It is a great regret to me that the Irish language Act seems to have been the issue that brought everything tumbling down. It is divisive, but given the great good will from the right hon. Gentleman’s party leader and from the leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland—although I am sure that the leader of Sinn Féin for all the island will also have to be consulted and have her penny’s worth—I would like to think that the generosity and leadership that were definitely evidenced by the draft document could be evidenced again and that we could get our Assembly up and running again. The Secretary of State would then not have to worry about explaining to the hon. Member for Belfast East whether this determination will come down immediately that the Executive are restored or whether it could be reinvented if the Assembly were to crash again. I do not want to prepare for the Assembly crashing again. I want the Assembly and the Executive up and running, so that this place does not have to take back powers. I hope that that answers the questions of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley.