A budget to ensure that public services can continue in Northern Ireland has been approved in the House of Commons despite fears from MPs that people have been “let down” by a lack of scrutiny.
The Northern Ireland Budget Bill will authorise the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland to borrow money, and authorise its use for the public services, given the absence of a powersharing administration in Stormont.
Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith said: “We have a duty to ensure that public services can continue to be provided for all citizens of Northern Ireland.”
He said the finances of Northern Ireland departments “are in a critical state” and warned that, if royal assent is not granted by the end of October “or as soon as possible thereafter”, there is a risk that the Northern Ireland civil service will exercise “emergency powers”.
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He said: “Using these emergency powers would constrain the Northern Ireland civil service to spending 95 per cent of the previous year’s budget, effectively delivering a significant real terms cut to the funding of public services.”
He said this could put public services, including the health service, at risk.
Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Tony Lloyd said the Bill would help ensure services could continue in the absence of an assembly in Stormont, but said there had not been enough scrutiny of the Bill.
Mr Lloyd said: “There is, in fact, almost no capacity to have any form of scrutiny of the efficiency of the spend that this budget creates.
“That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable, actually I have got to say, to members from Northern Ireland, to the taxpayers of Northern Ireland, just as much as it is to the taxpayers anywhere else in the United Kingdom, because value for money is fundamental to any form of Government spending.”
DUP MP Emma Little Pengelly said there is a lack of scrutiny and a lack of “reactiveness”, but also said there is a lack of transparency over the Bill.
She told MPs: “We see this Bill, which outlines their (government) decisions, rushed through the House with very little scrutiny. It is letting down the people of Northern Ireland.”
Tory former cabinet minister Sir Michael Fallon raised the prosecution of military veterans, urging early legislation to address this and adding: “This is not an issue that is going to go away.”
DUP Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) said: “I really do think it’s time that instead of listening to the Sinn Féin spin that comes from the Northern Ireland Office, he (Mr Smith) looks at the reality on the ground.”
He added: “If the secretary of state thinks that Sinn Féin are just on the brink of going into the assembly, to use a Northern Ireland colloquialism, his head is full of sweetie mice.”
Shadow Northern Ireland minister Stephen Pound, making his last appearance at the despatch box, said Labour would not oppose the legislation and would “reluctantly” support it.
The Bill cleared all stages in the Commons and will undergo further scrutiny in the Lords.
Meanwhile, peers have backed a move aimed at pushing through a law to compensate victims of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland before parliament dissolves.
The backbench bid by former Northern Ireland secretary Lord Hain to fast-track the long-awaited legislation ahead of an election secured cross-party support in the House of Lords.
The measure, to ensure the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill completes its remaining stages in the upper chamber on Thursday, was passed by peers without vote.
The government, which had signalled its opposition to the fast-track move, backed down in the face of a likely defeat.
The hope is that the House of Commons will follow suit and also rush it through before Parliament breaks.
Speaking afterwards, Lord Hain said: “We have rescued the Bill here. It will go through the Lords on Thursday. There’s no reason the Commons should not follow suit.”
The draft legislation establishes a Redress Board to administer a compensation scheme and creates a Commissioner for Survivors of Institutional Childhood Abuse to promote the interests of victims. - PA
