My Lords, it is a great pleasure for this Englishman without a drop of Celtic blood to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, who has brought to the debate such wise and far-reaching reflections. There will, of course, be unanimity across the House in strong support of this Bill, published yesterday. Northern Ireland’s vital public services, provided with so much dedication by many men and women across the Province, must be maintained. It would be intolerable to think that schools, hospitals and the other institutions on which our fellow countrymen and women in Ulster depend might be set at risk by problems of funding.
It is bad enough that plans for fundamental improvement and reform, particularly where health services are concerned, should have been halted for so long by the collapse of the devolved institutions. The need for change has been brought to us movingly and powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, in the debate. Indeed, far-reaching change in public services is essential to ensure that money is spent much more effectively and usefully, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, pointed out. The defects in the execution of the devolved powers have been brought home to us in this Chamber repeatedly and vividly by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and others, but matters must not be made worse by the possibility of any deterioration of existing provision as a result of unresolved budgetary difficulties. That possibility will now be eliminated following the rapid passage of this emergency measure, and the Government deserve full support in the action they have taken to allay anxiety about the finances of Northern Ireland’s public services in the immediate future.
As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, the Bill is the product of work done by the Northern Ireland Civil Service with its customary skill. It has been made clear to us that the spending for which the Bill provides reflects the priorities established by the former Northern Ireland Executive before its collapse. That is exactly how it should be. Democratically determined decisions are being carried forward, as far as is practicable, in the current circumstances of grave difficulty.
The Province is indeed fortunate to have a Civil Service to which such a task can be entrusted with complete confidence. Northern Ireland’s civil servants have been prominent among the unsung heroes and heroines of devolution since the first establishment of a Parliament and Government after partition in 1921. Their integrity and impartiality have never been impugned. They are recruited from all parts of the community. This Bill, which they have made possible, reminds us of the extent to which the Northern Ireland Civil Service has been a mainstay of good government in times of peril, as in times of peace. It deserves our profound thanks.
The Bill reminds us, too, in the starkest form of the difficulty of securing proper, democratically accountable government in a constituent part of our country at this time. Northern Ireland languishes in a deeply unsatisfactory state of political limbo. It is denied the services of elected representatives in a devolved Assembly
and Executive. It is denied a reordering of the Assembly’s activities to enable it to work on different lines in the ways suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and on previous occasions by my noble friend Lord Trimble, and it is denied their replacement by some alternative set of arrangements. At the moment, it is even denied the firm and definite prospect of full democratic government as the search goes on and on interminably for a return to what existed 11 long months ago, even though hope of success was abandoned some time ago by almost everyone outside the Northern Ireland Office, which of course is entirely distinct from the Northern Ireland Civil Service.
Tories are supposed to stand for hard-headed realism, recognising that endless talk, conducted with the best of intentions, will not always lead ultimately to desirable agreements and compromises. That great Tory, Dr Johnson, chided those who,
“listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope”.
Phantoms of hope have perhaps been allowed to linger too long in the affairs of Northern Ireland today.
Northern Ireland’s Budget could not be scrutinised at Stormont and it has been introduced here too late to be given serious scrutiny by Members of the two Houses. There are Select Committees to which the Budget could have been submitted if it had been brought before this Parliament, perhaps last month, paving the way for informed debate in both Houses. However, the Government, guided by the strange optimism of the Northern Ireland Office, persisted in the view, as late as last week, that the devolved institutions could yet be restored to provide a happy, democratic ending at Stormont to the prolonged impasse. Has not the time come to set a date for the conclusion of the long-running inter-party talks, in a final phase conducted fully by, and properly including, all parties in Northern Ireland, as stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Empey?
Although the Bill must be passed without delay, as a historian, I cannot readily think of a recent precedent for the passage of a peacetime Budget, however limited in scope, to which elected representatives have been unable to give careful consideration and about which they have been unable to put detailed questions to Ministers in a parliamentary forum before it is given approval. What is passed by this Parliament must surely remain firmly within the scope of this Parliament’s responsibilities. Scrutiny of the manner in which this Budget contributes to Northern Ireland’s well-being will be needed after it has been put into effect. In the absence of devolution or the resuscitation of the Assembly in some different form, that duty should rest firmly with us and Members of the other place.
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