NORTHERN IRELAND (APPROPRIATION) (Hansard, 17 July 1978)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. James A. Dunn)
I beg to move, That the draft Appropriation (No. 3) (Northern Ireland) Order 1978, which was laid before this House on 10th July, be approved. This order is being made under paragraph 1 of schedule 1 of the Northern Ireland Act 1974. The main estimates for 1978–79 totalled £1,298,746,000 and were appropriated by the Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 which was approved by the House on 6th March and, as the House will recall, the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1978, which was approved on 7th July, 1978.
Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen also will recall that in seeking the House's approval of the No. 2 Appropriation Order I advised the House that recent decisions to extend the meat industry employment scheme and also to introduce measures to aid milk producers made it necessary to seek further funds by way of an additional appropriation order.
As I explained to the House, it was not possible to provide for the scheme to aid milk producers in the No. 2 Appropriation Order because the decision relative to financing the scheme had not been taken until after the order had been laid. I also indicated that the Northern Ireland Civil Contingencies Fund could not finance both schemes until the autumn Supplementary Estimates were appropriated in November.
The order now before the House seeks the appropriation out of the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund of £33.4 million, for the service of class 1, vote 3, agricultural assistance schemes. This sum is not subject to cash limits.
Of the amount sought, £32.4 million is needed for the continuation to the end of March 1979 of payments under the meat industry employment scheme. The need for aid to Northern Ireland milk producers has also been brought about by the change from national to EEC support measures, from the 1st January of this year.
As the House will be aware from previous statements that I have made, returns 222 to milk producers in Northern Ireland have traditionally been lower than those in the rest of the United Kingdom, but until the end of 1977 any deficiency was made good through the operation of the milk guarantee scheme.
However, since 1st January that remedy has no longer been available and producers in Northern Ireland are at a disadvantage compared with those in Great Britain. This situation, coupled with the risks of irregular trade distortion between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, results from the differential green pound rates applying on the two sides of the border, and would have an adverse effect on the production and processing of milk in the Province.
The aid to the Northern Ireland milk industry is aimed therefore at reducing this disparity in incomes for producers in Northern Ireland. I regret that I cannot as yet forecast the full cost of this aid because it cannot be determined until certain technical aspects of the proposed aid are settled, and therefore a token provision of £1 million is being sought in this order.
I commend the order to the House.

§ Mr. Airey Neave (Abingdon)
We accepted the need for this further order during the last appropriation debate on 7th July, and I welcome what the Minister said. The reasons why this was not included in the Appropriation No. 2 Order were set out in a letter that the Minister kindly sent to me on 30th June. I am glad that he took the decision to introduce this order tonight.
One of the main objects of the order is to bring greater confidence and stability to both the milk industry and to milk and beef producers in Northern Ireland. We welcome this. Both matters have been welcomed unreservedly by interested parties in Northern Ireland, including the Ulster Farmers Union, which has been urging the Government over the last few years to provide a greater sense of security for dairy and beef farmers.
The Ulster Farmers Union recently put its views forcibly to some of my Conservative colleagues who visited its headquarters in Belfast in the past few weeks. We are looking forward to further discussions with them on the subject that the Minister has mentioned.
223 We acknowledge that milk producers in Northern Ireland must be assured of sufficient return on their investment to enable them to maintain production. They faced acute uncertainty as they approached the end of the United Kingdom arrangements for guaranteed milk prices on 1st January this year. It seems that that state of uncertainty has now been removed, at least for the immediate future, and we welcome this.
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that as result of this scheme prices for milk in Northern Ireland will be broadly comparable with prices elsewhere in the United Kingdom? This is an important point. The subsidy for milk producers is also in line with recommendations made by the Northern Ireland Economic Council in a report on 23rd February. I commended the report on 6th March, because it establishes the overwhelming importance of removing the grave uncertainties afflicting the industry over recent years".—[Official Report, 6th March 1978; Vol. 945, c. 1111.] The Minister, in replying to the debate, said that the report would be studied in detail. We are glad to see that some of its principal recommendations are being carried out.
However, the report went on to say that there should be continued pressure on the EEC Commission to take a more liberal and less restrictive attitude to the development of milk processing activities in Northern Ireland. Does the introduction of this scheme herald the birth of a more sympathetic attitude on the part of the EEC to this question, and will it diminish the feelings about this matter which are still widespread in Northern Ireland?
I mention this because, in announcing the introduction of the milk subsidy scheme, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that certain legal and procedural matters, including the making of Community legislation, remain to be tied up, and these unfortunately may take some time". We understand that some detailed points remain to be settled and discussions are still going on in Brussels. When will these discussions be completed? Clearly, it is of the utmost importance for milk producers to know how long the scheme 224 will last and the full extent of financial assistance that will be available under it. Those are the questions I wish to ask on the order, which we welcome.

§ Mr. Wm. Ross (Londonderry)
In common with everybody involved in the farming industry of Northern Ireland, I welcome the order. It will protect not only the income of dairy farmers there but the livelihood and incomes of many people who work in the meat industry.
I understand why the Minister is unable to give precise details of this temporary scheme, which will be introduced by the EEC to protect milk producers in Northern Ireland. The Minister is very much aware that the word "temporary" occurs in my remarks. I fear that that word will not bring great comfort to milk producers. However, I very much welcome the sums that are being made available, and I only wish to reflect that it is due to the incapacity of the United Kingdom Government to control the United Kingdom's land frontier that these sums are necessary.
In the earlier appropriation debate I said that £33 million was left in the current financial account as Northern Ireland's share of the United Kingdom's contribution to the EEC. Tonight we are talking about another £30 million-odd for the meat industry employment scheme, which is a further consequence of our membership of the EEC. That is by no means the end of the story. Considerable sums of United Kingdom money are going into agriculture and other aspects of life in Northern Ireland, purely as a result of the Government's failure to control the border and as a result of our membership of the Common Market.
The Minister responsible for agriculture in Northern Ireland knows that that is the position. He knows that as long as present circumstances exist, agriculture in Northern Ireland will be in a fairly precarious position. The fundamental problems are unresolved by the order, welcome though it is. I fear that we are talking not about a temporary sum but about a continuing sum, year after year, unless the Government are prepared to accept the fundamental restructuring of our agriculture that is inherent in our membership of the Common Market.
225 There is an allied problem that must be covered by the order, namely, grain imports into Northern Ireland. They are continuing under fairly severe difficulties in terms of prices, and I wonder whether this has been taken into account in the £33½ million that is before us. The problem has a fundamental effect on agricultural production which is not being met and which will, I fear, trouble us in the future.

§ Mr. James Kilfedder (Down, North)
I intervene briefly, largely to commend the order. I have frequently pointed out that agriculture is the staple industry of Northern Ireland and many people's livelihoods are affected by that industry. The more prosperous it becomes, the better for the Province.
I accept what the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) said, and I shall not go over the ground that he has covered. Agriculture in Northern Ireland needs all the help that it can get. It is in an extremely invidious situation, because we are all proud to be part of the United Kingdom, which is an industrial nation, and yet we are on the same sort of level, in relation to agriculture, as is the Irish Republic, which benefits from membership of the Common Market to a greater extent than does Northern Ireland. Our farmers suffer as a result of this difference.
There are other matters that should have been covered. I preface my remarks by recalling that last Wednesday we had in Northern Ireland the day that is affectionately and colloquially known as "The Twelfth". No one seems to be able to stop a number of Unionist politicians jumping on platforms to make speeches. I dislike that aspect of the day. These political speeches tend to whip people up into a fury. I saw spread across one Belfast paper a headline saying that militant action was needed to end direct rule. That was a report of a speech by the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Craig). I do not see any militancy here.
In Northern Ireland politicians can almost incite people to take action that they might subsequently regret, but in this Chamber there is an eerie silence. Ulster people do not have the opportunity to watch what is being said and done in their name. We had a Division here only about a week before "The Twelfth" 226 when the Government invited the House to approve the continuation of direct rule for a further 12 months. No one except the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and myself challenged the continuation of direct rule. That is a fact. Not all the eloquence nor all the language used in Northern Ireland can disprove that. It is time that the Ulster people realised that what is said in Northern Ireland is not always carried into effect in this Chamber.
I refer briefly to two other matters which I feel ought to be in the order. I have already drawn attention to what I described as the bad practice of the health boards in spending a higher proportion of their revenue in the final month of the financial year than in any other month. I mention this now because the Government ought to do something about it and should say something on the subject now. I tabled a number of Questions about it and was glad to see in the press a few days ago that evidence of this complaint has been collected by the Public Accounts Committee. It would have been useful to have that Committee's report before us tonight, but I understand that we shall have to wait a few days for that. I do not complain too much about that.
The four health and social security boards are, legally, merely an extension of the Department of Health and—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)
Order. What have the health boards to do with the motion under consideration?

§ Mr. Kilfedder
The explanatory note to the order states that: This Order authorises the issue of a further sum out of the Consolidated Fund of Northern Ireland for the service of the year ending on 31st March 1979 and appropriates that sum for a specified service in Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. What we are specifically discussing are the subjects of agricultural assistance schemes, food processing and marketing in Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Kilfedder
But I contend, I think rightly, that I am entitled to discuss under this order—I cannot be restricted—what should be covered by the appropriation order. The Government may wish to restrict the debate to the subjects contained in the order but as a Back Bencher I am entitled to raise all other subjects.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
If I were to allow that situation to develop any hon. Member could get up and discuss anything under the sun. Apart from that, the hon. Member should keep strictly to what we are discussing. It is clear what that is.

§ Mr. Kilfedder
I wish to pursue this matter and to seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am here as the hon. Member for Down, North, to pursue matters on behalf of the people of Down, North and all the people of Northern Ireland. I can pursue these matters, as has been done in the past, only by raising them on an appropriation order.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
We are getting far too wide of the order. Last week we had a debate on the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order, which would have enabled the hon. Member to raise these matters. I ask the hon. Member to stick to what we are discussing, namely class 1, vote 3 For expenditure by the Department of Agriculture on agricultural assistance schemes, food processing and marketing.

§ Mr. Kilfedder
I contend that I am perftcely within order in raising any matter which comes under appropriation—any matter which ought to be in it, which might be in it, should be in it, is in it. I cannot, surely, be denied this right—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I must ask the hon. Member to respect the direction of the Chair. He will have to refer particularly to what we are discussing, which is class 1, vote 3, concerning a sum of £33,400,000. That is the sum granted for expenditure by the Department of Agriculture in respect of agricultural assistance schemes, food processing and marketing.

§ Mr. Kilfedder
As you well appreciate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have the highest respect for the Chair and for the present occupant and his colleagues, but I think that I am entitled to pursue this matter. I want to make the point sincerely, before I sit down, that I am entitled to raise any matter—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I order the hon. Gentleman not to pursue what 228 he thinks he is entitled to pursue. I have given my ruling on what we are debating. I hope that he will respect it without any further argument.

§ Mr. Kilfedder
You say that I must respect your ruling without any further argument, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I always respect the Chair. I wish to put further argument on this matter. Until I can raise it further, I shall have to accept the ruling of the Chair, but I accept it under protest. I do not believe that it is fair to people in Northern Ireland.

§ Mr. Dunn
Questions have been put to me about the order. The hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) asked whether a decision on the milk aid scheme could be forecast with any degree of certainty. I regret that I cannot give him that information now, but I am assured that the matter should crystallise into a positive form. As events unfold, I shall keep him informed as well as I can.
The order relates basically to two subject matters. The first concerns the continuation of the meat industry employment scheme, which seeks to protect employment in the meat processing sector. If added advantages and bonuses have accrued on the way, they are fortuitous. The original intention was to maintain employment in that sector.
The second matter concerns provision for aid to milk producers. We intend to do all that we possibly can to see that a reasonable standard of income is guaranteed to milk producers. It can take place, in the first instance, only on the basis of one year's aid. That would have to be renewed by the House and with the agreement of our European partners. There are some technical difficulties still to be resolved. It is too early to make any pronouncements in that sector. Indeed, if I were to make any pronouncements on that subject tonight they could be counter-productive and might not be to the advantage of those who are concerned to attempt to serve the Province. I go no further than that. I hope that there will be support for the order.