Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-03-05
Topic: Defense
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): This has been an interesting debate with some passionately held views clearly expressed Let me touch briefly on the comments made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who talked about the moneys allocated in the written ministerial statement. Clearly, we are not voting on those today; we are voting on the vote on account. Let us be very clear what the Bill is. He needs to recognise the unique pressure that Northern Ireland faces, particularly because of the lack of Ministers for more than two years. These matters need to be resolved, but they need to be resolved in Stormont by a devolved Executive dealing with these budgetary pressures. I am sure that he will understand why the written ministerial statement included the additional money—it was because of the unique pressures faced by Northern Ireland My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) was thoughtful, as always, and passionate about the matters he cares so desperately about. I know of his support for our veterans and retired police officers who served in Northern Ireland during the troubles, and he has campaigned for them long and hard for many years. I assure him that I want the situation to change. I want things to be different, because none of us wants the current situation to continue. That is why we have consulted on how we can best take forward legislation in this place, as agreed in the Stormont House agreement, which he will know so well having served in Northern Ireland just before that took place. Of course, the Stormont House agreement happened when my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office We want to take that work forward, and I would very much like to work with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead on the responses to the consultation. We have had more than 17,000, and we are still working our way through some traumatic, difficult and individual responses. I would like to work with him personally to get his expertise and wisdom fed into the process so that we can ensure that those brave service personnel and retired police officers who made sure that peace was possible are treated with the dignity they so rightly deserve. I turn now to amendment 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who told me that she has put me on notice. I do not think it is the first time she has done so, and I am sure that it will not be the last. I know how hard she campaigns on this issue and how much she cares about it. We have debates on it and I will not rehearse the conversations we have had. She knows my personal position, but she also, I know, understands the constitutional situation and that what we all want to see is a restored Government in Stormont that can then take forward the measures that she has talked about and those brought to the Supreme Court when the Executive were taken to court The shadow Secretary of State talked about the UK Government. Clearly, legally the UK Government are always the defendant in such cases. We are the member state that is signed up to the treaties. However, it was the position of the laws of Northern Ireland as set out by the Executive and the Assembly that was challenged following the 2016 vote when a push to change the law on fatal foetal abnormality, rape and incest was defeated in the Assembly, with the majority of the then Assembly Members voting against that change The shadow Secretary of State also talked about the legal standing of the Human Rights Commission, and I have said on the record on a number of occasions that what came out from the Supreme Court judgment was an anomaly in the law that nobody knew was there. In 1998, when the Northern Ireland Act was passed and the Commission was established, everyone believed it had the same legal standing as commissions in other parts of the United Kingdom that were established at around the same time as devolution happened around the UK. Clearly, that is not the case and steps therefore need to be taken to address that point. I agree that we do not want women who are victims of the situation having to come to court and make the case themselves.