Thank you Dame Rosie. I will trespass upon your good will by focusing on clause 1 and the necessity of what we have to pass today. I will not repeat the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), which I think are sadly axiomatic in a situation that is difficult and not in the long-term interests—or even the short-term interests—of the people of Northern Ireland. It is certainly not in the interests of sustainable public services.
On the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, we hear time and again from interested groups from the voluntary sector and the third sector in Northern Ireland about the difficulties they face with the absence of long-term planning and multi-year budgets, and the effect on their ability to retain and hire people who can do the important work of providing and helping to support public services, whether in the field of health, education or disability, for example.
10.30 pm
There was interesting evidence from the Northern Ireland Audit Committee about the fact that, while in the rest of the United Kingdom, in Scotland and in England and Wales, the National Audit Office has a life of its own and is independent of whether Parliament sits—it can carry on through the election period, for example—that is not the case in Northern Ireland. It means that, in the absence of an Assembly, the committee
cannot function. We are talking about not a party political body but an independent organisation that is able to audit, check and make sure that public bodies such as the Northern Ireland Office—those given the task of administering public funds—are doing so responsibly and in a way that is consistent with their duties, so that they can be held to account in the way that Departments of state here in England and Wales and Scotland are held to account by their respective audit bodies. That is a material difference and a disbenefit to Northern Ireland as opposed to the rest of the United Kingdom.
I am sure that there are more public bodies of that nature, whose existence or continuance depends on the sitting of the Assembly, which could benefit from being free from those shackles, doing independent, non-partisan, non-party political work. This would be a very good place to start.