Northern Ireland (Ministerial Appointments and Regional Rates) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-04-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
Samuel Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): I do not want to bore the House with the details of what happened last December, but the First Minister made it quite clear at that stage that she believed that she had nothing to hide. She was prepared to face an inquiry of whatever status was required to get to the truth, and that is still her position. In fact, she is co-operating on this The Bill is also necessary because of the way in which the finances in Northern Ireland have been left. Again, there are lessons to be learned from this. I suspect that the Secretary of State will have to come back at the end of June with another Bill to implement the budget in Northern Ireland. It will not be a satisfactory budget, because it will probably be based on last year’s distribution of finances to ensure that 100% of the budget is spent, and no new priorities will be set. As the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), stated, one of the central planks of the Executive’s economic policy cannot to be contained in that budget, because it will not be possible for this House, while we remain in the EU, to legislate for the reduction of corporation tax and, of course, to allocate funds for that. That will be a missed opportunity for many firms and prospective investors in Northern Ireland Let us look at why we have no budget, because this gives an indication of where Sinn Féin is and the prospects for an agreement. We do not have a budget in Northern Ireland not because the Executive could not agree one, and not because it was rejected by the coalition partners, but because there was never a budget brought forward to the Executive. Why was that the case? I think that Sinn Féin could not face the reality of having to introduce a budget in which hard decisions needed to be made. Of course, that was true about the restructuring of the health service. There was a report on restructuring the health service that set out how money could be saved and how some of the problems it faces could be addressed, but Sinn Féin did not act on it. Why? Because that involved hard decisions. When it came to welfare reform more than a year and a half ago, Sinn Féin did not act either. It was quite happy for that to be dealt with by the Government here There is a question that must be asked by those of us who are involved politically in Northern Ireland: is Sinn Féin serious about getting out of the impasse, or is it quite content? Those in Sinn Féin will never answer this, but are they quite content for the process to roll on and on, to have direct rule, and to have difficult decisions about the budget, the allocation of resources, Brexit and all the other things that concern them decided here? They can then blame the big bad Brits, but keep their hands clean and maintain the myth in the Irish Republic, perpetuated by the bearded guru, Gerry Adams, that somehow they have an economic policy that can avoid any austerity measures. The one thing they do not want is to have to introduce austerity measures or cuts in Northern Ireland while they are promising people in the Irish Republic that they have some kind of economic magic wand they could wave if they were only in coalition down there This is the question that the Secretary of State has to ask. It is the question that we as a party have to ask, too, as well as the other parties in Northern Ireland. What concessions does Sinn Féin really want, or might direct rule suit its purposes until the election takes place in the Republic? Why did those in Sinn Féin not bring forward a budget? Why did they not make hard decisions when they could in the Northern Ireland Assembly? They consistently—this has always been their position—run away from these decisions. If that is the case, we will have an impasse after the election on 8 June The difficulty in the talks is that we have seen the reason why Sinn Féin cannot or will not go into government change almost weekly. First of all it was the RHI, but RHI is hardly mentioned now. The Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee was right—was the RHI such a big scandal that it should have resulted in a constitutional crisis? At the risk of causing some anger among Government Members, let us look at the RHI throughout the United Kingdom, and at Drax power station, where a coal mine down the road was closed while wood pellets were brought from halfway around the world. There is no cap on the subsidy—it started at £400 million, it is now £600 million, and by 2020 it will be £1 billion. Did any Minister resign? Did the Government fall? No, yet a £25 million overspend that has now been corrected in Northern Ireland caused a constitutional crisis.