Northern Ireland Budget Bill — House of Commons, 2017-11-13
Topic: International Affairs
Owen Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I join the Secretary of State in condemning the actions of the people who left a viable pipe bomb in Omagh on Remembrance Sunday—on a day and in a place designed to cause maximum harm and shock. It is truly contemptible of those people. I equally condemn the actions of the men who conducted what can only be described as a knee-capping last night in Londonderry-Derry—a city where, even as we speak, there is apparently another incident involving what the police believe to be a viable pipe bomb All these awful events are a timely and salutary reminder of Northern Ireland’s past—a past that we all hoped that we had long since left behind, but which I fear we have not always left behind. These events are also a reminder of the propensity of violence in Northern Ireland to fill a vacuum when politics fails, and I am afraid that we are here today because politics has failed. This Bill is, unfortunately, a testament to political failure. It is a failure by the majority parties that were in government together, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and that have fallen out and been unable to come back together. I am afraid that it is also a failure of the Secretary of State’s Government to bring about the restitution of trust and the reconstitution of the Assembly and its institutions The Secretary of State has been at pains to say that this is not direct rule. I understand why he wants to emphasise that point—technically, of course, he is right—but that is not what nationalists in Northern Ireland will see in today’s events. That is not how they will characterise it, and that needs to be reflected as they unfortunately now lack a voice in this place for the first time in a long time. The reality is that we are living in something of a twilight zone between devolution and direct rule, with real problems for accountability and transparency, as so many Democratic Unionist party Members described earlier in the debate Today’s budget is only a quick fix until the end of March, so there will be a further one. It is difficult to credit the Secretary of State saying that this is the budget that the Northern Ireland Executive would have brought forward in the event of devolution and that this is effectively a continuation of the trajectory set in the budget in December last year. Twelve months have now passed, and it is quite hard to see a direct line of accountability between that indicative budget and the sums before us now Let me be clear that we will support the Bill tonight. We absolutely believe that the Secretary of State has no choice but to bring forward this budget, and we accept all the arguments he has made in that regard. Northern Ireland’s public services need to be supported. The roads budget is running out of the money to fill the potholes, and there are significant problems in housing, health and education, all of which need to be addressed with extra resources in Northern Ireland. However, this budget does raise questions about the transparency, accountability and sustainability of this approach. DUP colleagues who raise such questions are right to do so, and other hon. Members across the House will also raise these points.