Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-03-21
Topic: Macroeconomics
Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): I shall speak briefly about this short and reasonably technical Bill. I will first touch on rates and the power being given to the Secretary of State to look at the issue. She has previously announced her intentions regarding these matters I emphasise in the strongest possible terms that I and my colleagues in the Democratic Unionist party firmly believe that the best place for these matters to be discussed and decided is in the Northern Ireland Assembly and by locally elected representatives there. Yesterday, I mentioned the important role that the Assembly’s Committee for Finance plays in scrutinising such measures, talking to business and stakeholders, and trying give advice. The Committees of the Northern Ireland Assembly have a statutory role to give advice and to form policy, which is unusual within an elected body. That important role aids the cross-party power sharing arrangement for Northern Ireland. It is incredibly disappointing that we do not have that in place, and it is sad that we do not have the opportunity to look at these measures in that way My right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) mentioned the DUP’s approach to taxes in Northern Ireland. As I said yesterday, a number of former Ministers of Finance in the Northern Ireland Assembly are now in this place. Regarding the year-on-year budget, the DUP made it clear that we are a party of low tax because we want to keep as much money as possible in the hands of hard-working and under-pressure households in Northern Ireland. We have looked at a range of measures to that end, including keeping rates low My right hon. Friend also mentioned some of the pressure regarding the increase in rates. I welcome the fact that the significant increases feared by some did not happen and that the Secretary of State consulted all the parties. I did not want any increase, because an increase will have an impact on those hard-working and under-pressure families, but I welcome the fact that, following consultation with the parties, it is not as significant as was initially suggested No firm details on rates were released to the Assembly by the last Minister of Finance, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, despite the Committee for Finance calling on him to do so. He did not bring forward the rates legislation in a timely way, which meant that the Secretary of State had to do so at a very late stage, on the collapse of the Assembly. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is not taking forward Máirtín Ó Muilleoir’s proposal to lift the cap on domestic rates. I have been contacted about this issue by many of my constituents who were particularly worried about the significant increases that they would have faced as a result. Without the cap, they would have been paying more in domestic rates than if they had lived in a house in London worth £1 million or £2 million. That would have been fundamentally unfair. I disagreed with that proposal by Sinn Féin and I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has not taken it forward. It is important that there is fairness in relation to these matters across the United Kingdom We are of course aware that rates levels in Northern Ireland have traditionally been low. However, given what the Secretary of State has said about the devolved nature of these matters, as well as the very difficult position we find ourselves in and what has been said about the Sewel convention, I urge her to talk to local representatives and organisations in Northern Ireland to ensure that as we move forward through this difficult period, we continue to make sure that we keep costs low for our families in Northern Ireland The second aspect of the Bill deals with the renewable heat incentive. I welcome the Secretary of State continuing the cap on costs in relation to that scheme. We had considered this matter in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I welcome the fact that my Assembly colleague, the then Economy Minister, Simon Hamilton, brought forward these measures to almost eliminate any overspend on the scheme. I want to put on record, as we did previously, my concern about the reporting of this issue. Many of the political parties in Northern Ireland, for political reasons, gave a very clear impression to the public of Northern Ireland that £500 million was gone—spent—and that that was it. That was not the case. Despite the fact that we said repeatedly that it was not money that has been spent but money that was projected to be spent, and that we gave a firm commitment to bring forward measures to mitigate that, as we did under the DUP’s ministership in the Department for the Economy—