I thank my hon. Friend for putting that on the record. It is clear that this Budget and the squeeze that he identified—set by this House—leaves the Northern Ireland education system facing a funding crisis that will affect every child and young person, not just this year and next year but for years to come.
The third point I want to leave with the Minister is that this Budget makes next year’s Budget even more difficult. I touched on that in my earlier comments on being able to get money out of the Treasury. Though it was not highlighted in the Secretary of State’s November statement, this Budget is balanced only by robbing from next year’s Budget. That will make it even more difficult for any new Executive to agree a Budget, given the cost of living crisis and wage pressures. In the absence of reforms or additional funding, it is difficult to see how next year’s Budget will be credible at all.
At the outset of his comments the Minister thanked the various permanent secretaries in Northern Ireland for taking on a very difficult task. It should be pointed out that the various permanent secretaries in Northern Ireland have described this Budget as grotesque. They are not happy being left to carry the can. We find ourselves in a constitutional netherworld where the Secretary of State dips in and out of devolved responsibilities formally and informally in a manner that is frankly unacceptable. That has been referred to by former senior civil servants as an affront to the democratic process.
Although Parliament has the right to legislate for Northern Ireland in the devolved field, it is only in very narrow and carefully defined circumstances that it has
the power to take executive decisions. We have seen the Government taking legal powers to intervene in areas such as abortion law and the implementation of the protocol, but not to tackle hospital waiting lists or Dáithí’s law, as raised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), to allow Northern Ireland’s new organ donation laws to take effect.
Many will question the political morality of the choices that the Government have made and the right to do that, but it is equally unacceptable, in the absence of direct rule, for the Minister to make Northern Ireland civil servants answerable to him. Direct rule is a legitimate choice for the Government to make in the absence of devolution. It is not a choice that we are asking them to make, but indirect rule where the Secretary of State seeks to wield power without taking responsibility is not acceptable. It puts civil servants in an intolerable position. They are expected to make the cuts but do not have the authority to bring forward the reforms. I go back to my first point to the Minister: govern, do not manage. That is the job and that is what should be done. I hope that the Government will act now. There is an old saying that if you break it, you fix it.
By signing up to the protocol, the Government broke the institutions first created by the Belfast agreement. Rather than asking Unionists in Northern Ireland to do the politically impossible, the Government should face up to their own responsibilities. The Budget will pass this House tonight, but very soon the constitutional no man’s land must come to an end. Either the Government should fix the protocol so that new arrangements can be supported by Unionists as well as nationalists, or they should take responsibility for decision making in Northern Ireland in a way in which they can be held accountable properly and thoroughly by this House.
6.34 pm