Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) (No. 2) Bill

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as far as we are aware, senior civil servants do have the power to give pay increases? In fact, many of them have done so, particularly for nurses, the police and those in the Prison Service—this has been recently announced. The senior civil service does have that ability because of legislation passed in this House previously. Does he agree that we also need to encourage those permanent secretaries to make those decisions earlier, because many of them have taken considerable time, and many people are waiting and are out of pocket? The power is there and we just need to get those decisions made by the senior civil service in a timely way.