HC Deb 10 May 1982 vol 23 cc555-60

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make new provision for the resumption of legislative and executive functions by the Northern Ireland Assembly and by persons responsible to it and to amend the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 and the Northern Ireland Assembly Act 1973, it is expedient to authorise any payments out of or into the Consolidated Fund which are attributable to extending section 4(2) of the last-mentioned Act to subsequent elections of members of the Assembly.—[Mr. John Patten.]

10.25 pm
Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Down, South)

There are a number of questions which I would want to put.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it conceivable that some of those hon. Members who are blocking the gangway could leave the Chamber?

Mr. Speaker

I think that hon. Members are crowding in to hear the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I hope that they will be quiet.

Mr. Powell

As the money resolution is drawn, it only provides from the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of expenditure due to subsequent elections of Members of the Assembly. That directs our attention to a rather curious feature in the financial effects clause of the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Bill which is our natural guide in seeking to understand the background to the resolution. The financial paragraph of the explanatory and financial memorandum refers to the expenses for the next Assembly election, which are estimated at £750,000. Curiously enough—this is a matter of considerable criticism—it does not give the House, as any financial memorandum should, any view or estimate whatever of the full additional expenditure which the legislation will involve.

There seem to be two possibilities as regards the money resolution. First, the other expenditure incurred under the Bill will not come out of the Consolidated Fund. I do not see how that can be since one way or another the expenditure incurred in Northern Ireland must come out of the Consolidated Fund. The alternative, which I would welcome, is that the money resolution has been defectively drafted, in which case the Government will be aware that before they proceed further with the Bill they will have to introduce another money resolution. It will be realised that the point that I am putting is not merely a search for information but is vital to the further proceedings on the Bill.

I trust that, however inadequate may have been the briefing of the Minister upon the question which the House has just decided, the Minister will have been fully briefed upon the wording of the money resolution. My proposition is that prima facie the money resolution does not cover the expenditure which will be involved as a result of this legislation. I should mention, not all the ways in which additional expenditure would be caused if this Bill ever unfortunately became law, but some of the more obvious ways.

If the House will look at clause 4, it will find references to the chairman, deputy chairman and in some cases two deputy chairmen.

One way or another there is quite a plethora of chairmen. The House will note that special provision may be made for the payment, salaries, and so on, of such persons. I suppose that they will be drawing salaries as Members of the Assembly. Where does that appear? In addition, those who enjoy a patronage that could result in being appointed chairman, deputy chairman or second deputy chairman will have higher salaries.

In Committee, the House will be inquisitive to know on what scale—I seek a neutral word—it is intended to reward for their services those who are fortunate enough to secure those appointments. I hope that no hon. Member will take exception to the phrase "reward for their services". Since there is to be a committee in respect of every Department of the Government of Northern Ireland and since the Assembly is to have the power to establish other committees, and since nothing in the Bill prevents the payment of salaries to the chairmen and deputy chairmen of the additional supernumerary or superfluous committees that the Assembly might create, a considerable sum of public money will be required by the very nature of the Bill's provisions.

If that money is not to come from the Consolidated Fund, where will it come from? Before we accept the money resolution, we must understand that. I was once Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I hope that I shall not wound the present Financial Secretary too gravely when I say that, if I had been presented with such a scrappy and inadequate financial memorandum to a Bill, there would have been considerable trouble and I would have asked to be shown a much more substantial draft before letting the matter go forward.

Regardless of whether the money resolution should cover the matter of such salaries, there is no doubt that the House should have been warned that an additional load was to fall on public funds. I do not know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister—with her well-known keenness for avoiding excessive additions to public expenditure—have been made aware of the extent to which public expenditure will, or could, be increased as a result of the Bill. It cannot be denied that the House has been treated scurvily by the financial effects paragraph and by the scrappy four lines in the memorandum.

The memorandum entirely ignores the matter of salaries. It also ignores the great duplication of effort that will inevitably arise if the Assembly develops in the way that the Bill envisages. Not only will the Assembly—[Interruption.]I do not wish to interrupt any communications that the Under-Secretary of State may be receiving. I am sure that they are vital. I should not wish to interrupt him and, if it assists, I shall be quite willing to include a sentence or two that might not be essential to my argument. The Under-Secretary may say that he can hear in two places at once. I do not want to be carried too far by speculation, but that may account for the fact that he could give his approval, on his own personal honour, to the Bill that has just been given a Second Reading.

However, I shall leave that matter aside and go back to the financial resolution. There are other aspects of additional public expenditure on which the House should be informed. When, many years ago, the House laid down a rule that it was not prepared to be presented with a Bill for Second Reading, unless it was covered with a financial memorandum so that hon. Members might know, when they were voting for the Bill, what the financial effects were, it expected that that financial resolution, although it might inevitably contain speculative and hypothetical matter, would nevertheless represent an honest attempt to assess the public expenditure that was involved.

Apparently no thought has been given to the expenditure incurred on salaries; no thought has apparently been given to the expenditure incurred in the operations of the Assembly. We have been told repeatedly, and by no one more emphatically than the Minister, that the Assembly will carry out a detailed scrutiny such as we have not been able to achieve of the various operations of the Northern Ireland Departments.

Are the Government going to tell us that this marvellous expansion from the, according to them, almost nugatory examination that we have been able to give to the Northern Ireland Office into a detailed investigation of what is going on Department by Department, branch by branch and activity by activity, will involve no extra public expenditure? It is almost a contradiction. It virtually reduces to a nullity one of the major reasons on the basis of which the Minister commended the Bill to the House on Second Reading.

Mr. William Ross (Londonderry)

I am listening with interest to my right hon. Friend pointing out to the House the things that are not covered by the memorandum. Will he assure us that covered by the memorandum is not only the cost of the officials and the printing of all the ballot papers—for instance, the ballot papers for Antrim, South will be the size of a newspaper page—but the cost of the extra security that will have to be provided throughout the lead-up period to the election and during the election?

Mr. Powell

In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) may I say that perhaps I have been too ready to accept the estimate that we were offered of only £750,000 for the Assembly elections. I am sure that, having heard what my hon. Friend has said, the Government will be prepared to confirm that the estimate of £750,000 includes all the ancillary and incidental expenses that are involved in any election, including those incurred particularly in Northern Ireland. Otherwise, obviously, even the figure that they have vouchsafed to give us would be a careless and inadequate figure.

But apart from that there are large areas of public expenditure, which, if the Bill is to mean anything, are bound to be incurred as a result. The thought has just entered my head that it is possible that the inadequacy of the financial resolution represented a conviction on the part of those who drew up the memorandum, perhaps a settled conviction on the part of the Treasury, that there never was going to be any devolution taking place by virtue of the Bill. That could be the reason why they have confined themselves to the Assembly and said that there will be no further public expenditure because the Assembly will not be able to do anything and there will not be rolling devolution. So it is possible that we have come upon a trace of the acute minds that look after the finances both in the Finance Department in Northern Ireland and in the Treasury.

Mr. John Gorst (Hendon, North)

I hesitate to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of naivety, but surely when assemblies do nothing that never stops them from spending money?

Mr. Powell

That is a point the hon. Gentleman must have out with the Government, because I am looking for all possible reasons I can think of to account for the scrappy inadequacy of the explanatory and financial memorandum and, until we have the contrary explained to us, of the money resolution which in some senses, though not in all, is a more serious matter.

However, I venture upon the purely hypothetical point, and I do not believe it, as I think very few other hon. Members believe it who have directed their minds to the Bill, that there should actually be some devolution. Is it actually contended that when you take successively out of the Northern Ireland Office elements of a Northern Ireland Government and put them under the control of the head of a department and at a later stage—this again is where the ability of the hon. Member, if he should be in charge of the proceedings, to hear with both ears will be invaluable—we shall have to try to explain how the head of a department can both be responsible to his colleagues in the Government of Northern Ireland—to go no further than that—and also be responsible to the Assembly of which he is a Member?

It seems to me to be inconceivable that the rolling devolution could even go through its earlier stages without additional administrative expenditure being incurred. Remember, the finance and personnel section—that is to say, the sort of mini-Treasury of Northern Ireland—will not be part of the rolling devolution exercise unless amendments, which may be put down on the paper, to leave out subsection (4) of clause 2 are carried, and I trust that we shall carry some amendments in the course of the Committee stage because otherwise we cannot have a Report stage. Unless that is left out the Finance Department—whatever else is devolved—will remain firmly in its matrix in the Northern Ireland Office.

It stands to reason that the difficulty and therefore the bureaucratic labour of the Finance Department in keeping the accurate check and tracks it keeps on the doings of the other Departments will be much greater during the period of rolling devolution than it is at present when all those Department are—not literally but at any rate metaphorically—administratively under the same roof.

I do not believe that I have exhausted the subject. Indeed, it may be argued that in criticising the explanatory and financial memorandum for being cursory and scrappy my own few suggestions that I have thrown out as to obvious forms of expenditure which will be incurred are in themselves inadequate for the occasion, but we debate the resolution under some limitation of time, the absence of which before it was embodied in the Standing Orders of the House was painfully felt by hon. Members finding themselves in the Minister's present position. After indicating, and I hope proving, that the expenditure incurred cannot be limited to the costs of the election I leave the opportunity for the Government to explain why it is not covered in the explanatory and financial memorandum and included in the money resolution that is before the House.

10.44 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. John Patten)

I am pleased to have the opportunity straightforwardly to explain to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) why we need the money resolution.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the Government had attempted to treat the House scurvily. I hope that, after I have replied to him, he will feel that that was perhaps a little strong. I hope, too, that he will forgive me for appearing for a brief moment not to lend both my ears to what he was saying. I shall try in future to do so. Ten years in the Byzantine complexities of an Oxford common room taught me to listen in several directions at once.

The purpose of the money resolution is to seek the approval of the House for expenditure out of the United Kingdom Consolidated Fund on the next and subsequent Assembly elections and by-elections. Under paragraph 11 of schedule 2 to the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 such elections are excepted matters. As such they will remain the responsibility of this sovereign body in the event of partial or full devolution. That is why we have to make provision for the elections out of the United Kingdom Consolidated Fund.

The cost of the next election has been estimated at £750,000, not including any extra security, which would be provided by security forces already available. Police and other security overtime costs would be met from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. It is that fund, rather than the United Kingdom Consolidated Fund, from which the costs of running the new Assembly, should it come into being, would be paid.

The explanatory and financial memorandum correctly and clearly relates to the precise provision and effects of the Bill. It does not refer to the annual running costs of the Assembly. As I said, those will be met from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. We estimate—we cannot yet estimate with precision—that the annual cost of running the Assembly will be about £2 million. That sum will be met from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

Is the Minister saying that an increase in the expenditure out of the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund does not result in an increase in the expenditure out of the United Kingdom Consolidated Fund? I appreciate that the sum is directly from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund, but surely the consequence of an increase in the total budget of Northern Ireland must be to increase the issues out of the United Kingdom Consolidated Fund.

Mr. Patten

Extra sums do not have to be covered by a money resolution appended to the Bill. The explanatory and financial memorandum makes it clear that it correctly relates to the precise provision and effects of the Bill. It does not refer to the annual running costs of the Assembly.

Mr. Powell

In that case, in being presented with a financial memorandum, which, from the view of the House, is like any other, the House is being misled. I use that word with no overtones. The normal effect of a financial memorandum is to tell the House roughly what the Bill will cost so far as can be anticipated. Instead, the House has been told only what it will cost in direct, not indirect, payments, from the United Kingdom Consolidated Fund, let alone from public resources generally. On the basis of what the Minister said, surely it must follow that the provision for increases in issues from the Consolidated Fund is inadequate.

Mr. Patten

I am grateful for that lengthy intervention. I have described the legal position precisely as it stands according to the provisions of the Northern Ireland Bill. Section 13(1) of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 states: The Consolidated Fund of Northern Ireland shall continue to exist but there shall cease to be an Exchequer of Northern Ireland separate from the Consolidated Fund. That is precisely the case. The House votes moneys to Northern Ireland. That is still called the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. It is from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund that the Government will correctly pay the money for the running of the Assembly—the payment of its staff, Chairmen, Deputy Chairmen and Members. The Bill requires only that moneys be voted to pay for the election and that suitable provision should be made for subsequent elections and by-elections.

Paragraph 10 of schedule 2 to the Bill provides that section 4(2) of the Northern Ireland Assembly Act 1973 shall apply to subsequent elections and by-elections to the Assembly. The explanatory and financial memorandum states: The expenses for the next Assembly election are estimated at about £750,000. That is what the money resolution is about. That is why it is correctly laid in the form attached to the Bill.

Mr. Gorst

I hope that I am not being unduly foolish in not understanding my hon. Friend, but in reply to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) he appeared to say that the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund would be impoverished by about £2 million, which would otherwise presumably be spent in other ways in Northern Ireland. Am I correct in that assumption?

Mr. Patten

That could be the case, or the House could vote extra moneys to the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. Whether "impoverished" is correct in connection with the Assembly is a matter for judgment. The fact that the basis of Supply is as I have described it means that the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund will meet the estimated cost of £2 million for running the Assembly.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make new provision for the resumption of legislative and executive functions by the Northern Ireland Assembly and by persons responsible to it and to amend the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 and the Northern Ireland Assembly Act 1973, it is expedient to authorise any payments out of or into the Consolidated Fund which are attributable to extending section 4(2) of the last-mentioned Act to subsequent elections of members of the Assembly.

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