Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-07-18
Topic: Education
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the briefing that he gave us yesterday. It was very helpful although it did not actually come to any firm conclusions. I find this whole process rather curious. I cannot think of any other topic in the British Parliament where neither individual Members nor the Minister can have any influence at all on what we are debating. As I understand it, the Minister has no power to change anything. We have no powers; we cannot vote anything down or change any of the headings. I cannot think of any other occasion when we are completely neutered in terms of what we would like to achieve and the Minister cannot do anything either. Of course this is a consequence of the very sad situation in Northern Ireland where we do not have a functioning Executive. All of us would like the Executive and the Assembly to be up and running so that these decisions could then be made speedily by locally elected politicians. I would just like to ask the Minister this: is there any method by which the people of Northern Ireland can actually have an input into the process whereby the budget is set or will be set in future? In other words, has there been—or could there be—any consultation that would enable the people of Northern Ireland to take up the issues? Some of those issues have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Empey—for example about the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Other noble Lords have raised other issues. Is it not important that the people of Northern Ireland should have some chance at least of an input into what is going on? At the moment, nothing can be done I would like to raise two specific issues. I understand that the Assembly was reasonably supportive of integrated education. I think that it is a key issue indeed. By leaving it to officials, are we not denying the wishes of the Assembly to increase the resources going into the development of integrated education in Northern Ireland? The Minister will argue that people can listen to what we are saying and, when the Assembly and Executive are restored, they will perhaps take note of what was said. If that is so, it is a very complicated process. But at any rate, I would like to put on record my belief, shared by many people I know in Northern Ireland, that integrated education is important and that as many parents as possible should be given a choice over whether or not they would like their children to be in an integrated school. The evidence is that the majority of parents would like to have that choice, but many are not able to exercise that choice at the moment My other policy issue is a slightly different one. It concerns refugees, and child refugees in particular. I do not want to go into the whole debate about child refugees, except to say this. The Government—the Ministers close to this issue—have wanted to get local authorities to offer to provide foster places for child refugees up and down the country. There has been a response, and I believe it has been a much more positive response than the Government have acknowledged, certainly in the cases of England and Wales and to a certain extent in Scotland, where I understand there is also a willingness. But my question concerns Northern Ireland, where I understand people are willing to be more supportive of refugees and to accept them into local communities. Even if district councils in Northern Ireland want to do more on behalf of child refugees, is there any way for money to be made available for it It seems to me that we are in a total logjam on this one. It is the wish of the Government that local authorities do more for child refugees. I believe it is the wish of most people in this country that we support doing more, yet in Northern Ireland there is no mechanism for taking it further. We can wait until the Assembly is restored, but I think the situation is more urgent. I would like to feel that the people of Northern Ireland can share their commitment and do as people up and down the country in England have done by making more resources available to child refugees. I think I have made my point; it is just a pity. If there were an up-and-running Assembly, some of us would make a beeline for Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive and ask them: "What about child refugees? What are you going to do about them?" At the moment, all we can do is voice our concerns here in the House.