Yes I very much do, and if the hon. Gentleman wants to attend my Adjournment debate tomorrow on the subject of special educational needs
in Wiltshire, perhaps he will find some commonality between his situation and my own as a constituency MP. [Interruption.] I am looking forward to the contribution of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); I would be very disappointed if he did not contribute to my debate. He will be very welcome, while of course trying to remain in order since I suspect his knowledge of special educational needs in Wiltshire is somewhat limited—not that that will necessarily stop him.
May I press Ministers on how confidence and supply money is being spent? Of course spending in general in Northern Ireland uses guidance set by the collapsed Executive. That is perfectly right and proper, and to use that trajectory to guide spending is perfectly legitimate, but that justification obviously falls away in relation to confidence and supply money; the guidebook is not there, which makes it of particular interest.
For example, under the non-ringfenced resource departmental expenditure limit—RDEL—£100 million is being allowed for health transformation. Health transformation is surely needed, but it is politically sensitive. We in this place really do deserve to know how that money is being spent, but we are none the wiser. Under CDEL—the capital departmental expenditure limit—there is £200 million for infrastructure. Again, that is highly politically sensitive stuff, and almost certainly involves projects that will be warmly welcomed by the people of Northern Ireland, but our job is scrutiny, and one way or the other, scrutiny must be done. I fear that it is not being done at the moment.
We are sort of being asked to sign this off, although the Secretary of State is saying that she has no input into decision making within this process. Nevertheless, the mere fact that we have a Bill before us today means that we have to accept some level of responsibility. I am left with a sinking feeling that I do not have the information necessary to do this confidently, yet it needs to be done, because the consequences of not doing it would be immense. This is putting right hon. and hon. Members in something of an invidious position, because we do not have the level of detail or granularity that we deserve. Paragraph 27 of the guidance notes claims that the Bill needs to be implemented “urgently”. I think it probably does, and I sincerely hope that it is passed this evening, but this really should not happen at the expense of scrutiny.
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