Welfare Reform Bill: Final Stage

Executive Committee Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 10:30 am on 26 May 2015.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker 10:30, 26 May 2015

As a valid petition of concern was presented on Friday 22 May in relation to the passing of the Bill, the vote will be on a cross-community basis.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

I beg to move

That the Welfare Reform Bill [NIA 13/11-15] do now pass.

Before proceeding, first of all, I express our sincere thoughts, best wishes and prayers to the First Minister and my party leader, Peter Robinson. We continue to remember Peter at this time, as well as Iris and the family, and we trust and pray that Peter will make a speedy recovery.

No one more than I knows how much we depend upon the ability of our First Minister and my party leader. During all the discussions over the last number of weeks and months, he has been a tower of strength and has been by our side, and I want to personally say that we miss him in the Chamber today. This debate will be the worse for not having him with us as we proceed.

Over the last few weeks, welfare reform has never been far from public consciousness. Much of that has been due to media speculation surrounding our lack of progress and the ramifications that that could have for these institutions and, more importantly, for wider society. As Minister with responsibility for these matters, I feel that it is incumbent on me to say a few words to put today's proceedings into context and to underline my personal commitment, and that of my party, to Members to oversee the implementation of welfare reform measures contained in the Bill together with the schemes of mitigation agreed by the five main parties at Stormont Castle in order to deliver the best possible welfare system for all the citizens of Northern Ireland into the future.

I think that we all recognise that the Bill sets a new and very different course for our welfare systems. No one could possibly argue with the overarching policy intent to reach out to individuals who have become detached from the rest of society and who are, too often, trapped in a state of worklessness and benefit dependency as well as to ensure that our system is fair to the taxpayers who fund it and is sustainable into the future. The Bill represents a concept and a contract with individuals and families who are in need of support. For those who are able to work, we believe fundamentally that work should always pay, and, for the most vulnerable in society, we believe that our welfare system should provide the support that they need.

Those are the basic principles upon which our welfare state was founded, and, in bringing forward this legislation, it was those basic principles that received support from a wide range of stakeholders during the legislative passage of the Bill to this stage. Similarly, it was the engagement of political parties at Stormont Castle in December that helped me to frame not only this legislation but the package of mitigating measures that parties have agreed are essential in order that we do not lose sight of those principles. We can debate the levels of support that are needed and provided as, indeed, we have done during the fraught passage of the Bill, and that is only right, given that the cost of social security benefit in Northern Ireland is in the order of £5 billion per annum. I believe that, if we adhere to the two fundamental principles that work pays and that the welfare system supports, we will go some distance in providing a better welfare system.

As elected representatives, we have a responsibility to ensure that the hard-earned contribution of taxpayers is sufficiently recognised in how we deliver welfare to the wider population. It is undoubtedly a fact that we all, as elected representatives, would like to do more for those impacted by these reforms and who are dependent on social security benefits. That much is evident from the amount of time and the extent of debate that the Assembly has given to the Welfare Reform Bill. However, I firmly believe that the time for talking is now over. I believe that now is the time for decisions and for getting on with the implementation of reforms. Unfortunately, the fiscal reality for Northern Ireland is that we cannot afford a more expansive and expensive welfare system than the rest of the UK. If we spend more on benefits, the harsh reality is that we will have less to spend on schools, hospitals and all the other public services that we rely on. I believe that, with the mitigation schemes that we have negotiated with DWP, Her Majesty's Treasury and internally in our own political structures, we have achieved that balance between mitigating measures in the Bill and spending on public services for Northern Ireland.

It may also be helpful to some Members if I can provide assurances that claimants will be supported throughout the reform process. As Minister with responsibility for the voluntary and community sector, I understand and value the work carried out by the independent advice sector in providing support and guidance to many people in Northern Ireland, particularly when they are at their most vulnerable. On a daily basis, benefit uptake officers in the Social Security Agency (SSA) see the value of that service when they regularly signpost claimants to the advice sector for advice and support on debt or money issues. However, I also acknowledge that, whilst front-line Social Security Agency staff do, on occasions, refer claimants to the advice sector, there is not an agreed process currently in agency guidance.

I want to ensure that the statutory and voluntary sectors work closely together when welfare reform is implemented. I have asked the agency to put in place a process whereby all claimants who would benefit from advice and/or support on debt or money issues will be signposted to the advice sector. It is important that that is introduced into the guidance for decision-makers, particularly those delivering the discretionary support scheme.

I also want to promote the role of the advice sector during the process of the implementation of welfare reform to ensure that claimants understand that independent support and advice is available to support them. The programme of information that my Department will be launching to support welfare reform will include elements that will promote the role of the independent advice sector.

The move towards a system of universal credit (UC), which is designed as an in-work and out-of-work benefit, sits at the heart of the Welfare Reform Bill. The concept of a universal credit was supported and seen as a progressive change by a wide range of stakeholders during the Bill's passage. By the time universal credit is fully implemented, it is anticipated that 37,000 households will be either newly taking up or taking up more benefit as a result of universal credit and that an overall increase in entitlements of approximately £39 million per annum will accrue. A package of transitional protection will ensure that there are no cash losers as a direct result of the managed migration to universal credit where claimants' circumstances remain the same. Universal credit will also tackle other barriers to individuals taking up work, such as providing support for childcare costs, therefore encouraging lone parents to work.

Another issue that was raised was the social sector size criteria, or the bedroom tax as it has become widely known. Members will be aware that my party and I have continually opposed the bedroom tax, and we have secured Executive agreement to measures that will protect current and future tenants from any financial impact of the bedroom tax, initially for the entire period of the new Government.

The Executive recognise that I also have to balance protecting claimants from any negative aspects of the bedroom tax with ensuring the best use of the social housing stock in Northern Ireland and have agreed that I should develop a scheme that protects existing and future tenants from any reduction in housing benefits for their tenancies unless there is a significant change in their personal circumstances or they are offered suitable alternative accommodation.

At Consideration Stage and, again, at Further Consideration Stage, Members may recall there was also a great deal of discussion around the outworkings of the five-party talks held at Stormont Castle in December. Those talks resulted in an agreement to fund a package of mitigating measures to alleviate some of the harsher impacts of various welfare reform provisions.

Let me also put on record my commitment, my party’s commitment and that of my party leader to make the necessary resources available to fund the package of measures that the five parties agreed at Stormont Castle. Let us remember that it was a five-party agreement. I have been disappointed in some in the House who want now, almost like Pontius Pilate, to wring their hands and almost to cleanse their conscience as though, somehow, they had not signed on the dotted line. Today, the people of Northern Ireland need to understand very clearly that it was a five-party agreement.

Members will be aware of the subsequent debate on the detail of the mitigating schemes. I reiterate to Members that I believe that we have now attained the balance between what, in an ideal world, we would like to do and what we can afford to do. The schemes agreed between the five main parties of the Assembly will offer additional protections to many. There have been a lot of negative comments about claimant groups not being protected and the marginalised being ignored.

Let us reflect on what was proposed in the Stormont Castle Agreement. For disabled people, a disability protection scheme is proposed to help them to transition from disability living allowance (DLA) to the new personal independence payment (PIP). This will provide for a payment equivalent to up to one year’s full DLA payment for people who are unsuccessful in claiming PIP, and it will also guarantee claimants who will receive less under PIP 75% of the shortfall for up to four years. The scheme will also offer victims and survivors who do not qualify for PIP the opportunity to make a claim for a similar payment.

For all benefit claimants and families on low working income, there will be a new system of financial help when they have a financial crisis. This will be related to the levels of minimum wage, and the Executive have agreed to maintain the funding for this service.

For people who might be impacted by the bedroom tax, now or in the future, there will be full protection from any cuts in housing benefit.

For all working-age families receiving universal credit, there will be flexibility in how frequently they receive their benefit and in making direct payments to social landlords. We will also ensure that universal credit payments are made to the main carer in cases where there is concern about the impact of single payments to households.

Finally, I turn to the supplementary payment scheme, which has, in some way, led to today’s position. This scheme provides all claimant commitments with full protection. These claimants are families with children, the long-term sick and adults and children with disabilities. It is not accurate for some to claim that my party and I do not support providing protection for those groups. As Members proceed in the debate, I ask them always to be very mindful of the words that they use and the impact that they create on those whom they claim to support and defend. Generalisations often miss the facts and cover the reality of what goes on daily to provide help and support for our many vulnerable and disadvantaged people

The issue is what we can afford and what is deliverable for people who do not currently claim social security benefits. In those cases, we have offered financial support to claimant groups that can show that they are in financial crisis. I believe that our approach has been fair, legal, affordable and deliverable.

Let us remember that those were the criteria that were set out by the First Minister. That was the challenge that was given to the parties over the last number of days. If they had any suggestions, ideas, amendments or proposals, those would have to be within the parameters of what was set out as being legal, affordable and deliverable. It is for others to reflect on the impact of their proposals on the rest of Northern Ireland's public services.

We have come a long way. When we set out on this journey, people said that we could not change things. My predecessor Nelson McCausland negotiated a package of measures, which were the envy of many other jurisdictions. I have heard that said in conferences and in discussions with other persons from the rest of the United Kingdom.

We have now gone further. The welfare reform system that the Bill will bring in is not that of the UK Government. It is distinctly different: it is made in Northern Ireland. Contrary to what is being said, it provides much greater support for adults with disabilities, for children with disabilities, for families with children and for those who are long-term sick. It not only protects existing claimants but ensures that support is available for future claimants covered by the supplementary payment scheme for suffering financial crisis, which is a direct consequence of the changes. It also protects current and future tenants from the financial impact of the bedroom tax.

This is not simply an aspiration. We are putting substantial resources into this. Over the next three years, our proposals will mean that those in need will receive over £200 million more than they would have received under the GB scheme. In UK terms, that is the equivalent of £6 billion. That demonstrates how far we have gone to offset the harsher effects of the UK Government’s reforms. That demonstrates how we have ensured that we have negotiated what we believe is best for Northern Ireland. However, there is only so much that we can reasonably do. We need to strike a balance between welfare and other services on which we all, including those receiving benefits, rely. We cannot and should not focus on the welfare system without taking into account the impact on other services, including our health service, our education service and services for our children and young people.

A tremendous responsibility rests on the House today. It is a question of choice: either we adopt the Bill and secure the real additional benefits associated with our proposals for the most vulnerable in our society, or we do not and instead give way to what will be an immensely worse outcome for those whom we serve.

I place on record my gratitude to the Chair and members of the Social Development Committee for their work. To Members of the House, I say this: we have disagreed, debated and negotiated, but there has been in-depth scrutiny of the Bill, much of which has been positive. Much has been achieved, which involved hard work.

I say to those Members who signed the petition of concern: you will have to explain to the people whom you represent why you have failed to ensure that you protected their best interests and that their welfare was at the heart of your actions. I believe that my party colleagues and I, with those who support the Bill, can justify that we have endeavoured in all good faith.

In conclusion, I want to say that I am disappointed by the allegations made by the party opposite that, somehow, I misled the House and withheld papers and that my officials were involved in some sort of clandestine operation. I want to make it very clear, without any equivocation, that I have expended every effort, all avenues and all possibilities. I pay tribute to my officials, who have worked extensively before Christmas, during Christmas, after Christmas and up until today to ensure that we got an agreement. Others need to ask why that was not enough. I move the Bill.

Photo of Paula Bradley Paula Bradley DUP 10:45, 26 May 2015

I rise to speak in favour of the Final Stage of the Welfare Reform Bill. I thank the Minister for bringing it forward, and I thank him for his opening comments.

I believe that when we, as Members, were elected to the Assembly, the public entrusted us to protect the best interests of all society, including the vulnerable, and also to ensure that we maintain good financial control. Often, this is a difficult balancing act, and it involves making some very difficult and unpopular decisions to ensure the long-term viability of this region of the United Kingdom. Both the Republic of Ireland and other regions in the United Kingdom have seen austerity measures being put in place. Welfare systems in both jurisdictions have been overhauled to reflect the different economic landscape that we find ourselves in today. In my view, the Stormont Castle agreement, along with the various measures negotiated, as the Minister said, by my party colleague Nelson McCausland, endeavoured to protect those who may be hit worst by welfare reform. As the Minister also stated, all Executive parties sitting around the Chamber agreed to that.

I find that some people sitting in the Chamber today are completely arrogant to the fact that, for some reason, the economic realities of this present economic world do not apply to Northern Ireland. That astounds me. I believe that the Stormont Castle agreement was the best compromise between facing our responsibilities as elected representatives and protecting the most vulnerable of our electorate. The welfare system was developed from an ideology to help those who could not help themselves; it was designed to be a hand-up and not a handout. Unfortunately, over the years, our system has evolved into one where claimants are finding that they are better off out of work than they are in it and where young people are so disillusioned that they now view the welfare state as almost a career choice. We are bombarded with TV shows that depict those who have made a clear choice to live off the taxpayer. The welfare system cannot sustain that, and, more importantly, people who genuinely need help find themselves tarred with the same brush and feeling a stigma about accepting the help that they, of course, so genuinely need.

I believe that the supplementary payment scheme in the Stormont Castle agreement will protect those whom the system is designed to help, while those who are capable of supporting themselves will find added impetus to do so. We have invested so much in providing jobs and training that people should not have an excuse for being able to do nothing. When I was growing up, the mantra was that if you were not earning you were learning. This is not a witch-hunt but a wake-up call. If we do not pass the Bill, we could see a collapse of our institution and a possible return to direct rule, which will mean that welfare reform will be brought in as it has in the rest of the United Kingdom, with no protection for those with disabilities, those who are ill and those with children.

We have a moral duty to accept the Bill, with the supplementary payment scheme, as agreed. We have to step up to the mark and be leaders to protect the most vulnerable.

Photo of Martin McGuinness Martin McGuinness Sinn Féin 11:00, 26 May 2015

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. First of all, I extend my warmest best wishes to the First Minister, Peter Robinson, for a speedy recovery. I want to make it clear that we have in our thoughts and prayers Iris and the rest of the family.

I have worked with Peter for the last eight years in the Office of First and deputy First Minister. Throughout all that time, even though we have different political allegiances and sometimes different political opinions about how we take our work forward, we have never had anything other than a good personal relationship. Of course, there have been commentators out there who, every time they get the opportunity, try to portray relationships here as poisonous and as though people hate each other and so forth. In terms of my relationship with Peter, nothing could be further from the truth. So, it was with great concern that I learned yesterday morning that he had taken ill and been brought to Dundonald hospital and then on to the Royal Victoria Hospital. I think that he has made a major contribution to the progress that we have made here over the last eight years. It is a source of great concern that someone like him could be hospitalised with the illness that he is dealing with. We are very sincerely and genuinely concerned, and we hope that he will recover from this and be back in his job.

Obviously, we are dealing today with very important matters in whether we are going to move forward in the Assembly to ensure that, in our deliverance for citizens, we deal with that on the basis of the huge challenges that we all face against the backdrop of the changes that have occurred in recent times. There is a big focus today on welfare. Obviously, the British Government's approach to welfare is a source of great concern, but this is not just about welfare — this is bigger than the issue of welfare. Sometimes I think that, even within the media and people commenting on the predicament that we find ourselves in, you would almost think that it was the only problem that we face. Our concern is wider and is about the grave implications of the further cuts threatened by the Tories as part of a £25 billion reduction that will be outlined in the July Budget. Obviously, our concern has to be about what proportion of that will affect us.

These cuts, which have been described as "eye-watering" by Tories themselves, will affect the most vulnerable and will lead to the loss of thousands of jobs in vital front-line services in areas such as health and education. They also formed absolutely no part whatsoever of the Stormont House Agreement. Last week I spoke to someone who was in Downing Street and who spoke to key officials there. He said that only one word could describe what is coming down the tracks at us in July. The word that he used, which was not mine but his, was "brutal".

This week we are facing into a building crisis in the political institutions here in the North. The immediate difficulties that we are facing into have been triggered by the decision to bring to the Assembly the welfare Bill, which, in my opinion, does not implement the protections agreed at Stormont House and subsequently for children with disabilities, adults with severe disabilities, the long-term sick and large families.

Capitulating to pressure and demands from the Tories in London is, in my view, a major tactical error. However, the crisis we are facing, and I say this to all the parties in the Assembly, is not of the making of any of the parties here or in the Executive. The crisis has been created by the austerity agenda of a Tory Administration in London that is attempting to decimate our public services and punish the most vulnerable people in our society.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Martin McGuinness Martin McGuinness Sinn Féin

No, I will not give way. In the recent elections, Sinn Féin stood against Tory austerity and for social justice and equality. Our approach was mandated by over 176,000 voters, almost 25% of the popular vote. In contrast, the Tories received only 9,000 votes in the North, just over 1% of the vote. Chris Hazzard got more votes in South Down than the 16 Tory candidates who stood in the Westminster elections in the North. It is a party that does not have a single Assembly seat or local council seat. They have no democratic mandate for their austerity policies here in the North of Ireland, yet they have already taken £1·5 billion from the Executive's block grant.

The British Government's Cabinet of Tory millionaires has announced plans for further eye-watering cuts of £25 billion to our public services and our welfare protections for people with disabilities, the long-term sick and large families. Those new cuts are set to begin almost immediately, and they will devastate our core public services. In meetings that the party leaders attended last week, they will know that I challenged the British Secretary of State Theresa Villiers on two occasions for a breakdown of how that £25 billion raid would impact on the people of the North. She refused point blank to tell me. She told us that we would have to wait for the July Budget. Here we are, talking about vital budgetary matters affecting the future of our people, and we are being told by the Secretary of State that we have to wait until the Chancellor of the Exchequer announces the July Budget before we will know the implications of where the axe is going to fall on vital front-line services delivered by our Departments and of welfare cuts impacting on people who have already been threatened by the Tory welfare cuts agenda.

Of course, it also raises the question as to what is coming down the tracks at us in July. It will even impact on the negotiations that took place during the course of Stormont House in relation to alleviating the plight of those who would be affected by the welfare cuts. There is all sorts of speculation about taxing carers' allowance and taxing welfare recipients. From our perspective, we need to get everything that we are doing here into kilter with the need to ensure that what is coming down the tracks from the British Government in July is fed into our planning for the delivery of vital services for people in the future.

The approach of the Secretary of State and the British Government in relation to the refusal to tell us how that is going to impact on us — indeed, we are not the only people who are not being told; they are not even telling people in England thus far — is absolutely unacceptable. We made it very clear in our election manifesto that the Executive need a viable Budget for front-line public services and welfare protections for the most vulnerable. Sinn Féin will not support a welfare Bill that does not contain those protections, and we will not be part of any agenda that punishes the poor and dismantles public services.

In my view, the measure of any society, and, indeed, of any Government, is how it treats those most in need and those who are most vulnerable.

Photo of Martin McGuinness Martin McGuinness Sinn Féin

No, I will not give way. In the face of such devastating Tory cuts, our public services, our welfare system, our Departments and the Executive are, in my opinion, not sustainable. None of the Executive parties stood on a platform of implementing those Tory cuts, and Sinn Féin will not abandon children with disabilities, adults with severe disabilities, families with children and the long-term sick. That is why we moved a petition of concern to stop the passage of the welfare Bill, and I welcome the fact that the SDLP has supported our position.

It has always been my view that the outstanding issues in the Welfare Reform Bill can be resolved, but this requires political will from all parties in the Assembly to protect the most vulnerable. Make no mistake about it: the biggest threat to our political institutions remains the ongoing Tory austerity agenda of cuts to our public services and the welfare state. This is a time when the Executive parties need to stand together to defend our public services, particularly in health, education and welfare. We need to stand up for the people who elect us rather than acting in the interests of a Tory elite. We need an immediate negotiation with the British Government for a Budget which protects our public services and for fiscal powers to give us control over our economy.

Of course, we are not alone in our battle against austerity. I note that the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, will today make an important anti-austerity and anti-cuts speech. Of course, they are on the right side of the argument. They are on the right side of history. I appeal to all Assembly parties to join them. The Scottish Executive have requested a tripartite meeting of the representatives of the Scottish, Welsh and local assemblies. We should take up this offer and develop a common position in the Executive and with the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly in opposition to Tory austerity. The current crisis has come about solely through the actions of the British Government. It can be resolved only by the actions of the British Government. They have attacked the most vulnerable in society, slashed the Budget for public services and undermined the credibility of these institutions.

We in Sinn Féin are clear on what needs to happen. It is the platform that we stood on in the recent election: protections for the most vulnerable; a workable Budget; and powers to grow the economy and create employment. We believe these are the aims that all parties could and should unite around. Sinn Féin has worked and maintained the institutions over the past eight years in the face of great provocation and attack. Power sharing, partnership and devolution are the only ways forward. These principles are the basis of the institutions here in the North. Any undermining of these basic principles by the actions of the British Government or parties will be unacceptable.

What the people require is an Assembly that delivers and has the Budget and powers to make a difference in people's lives. There is still time for the parties and the British Government to change tack and deliver a new Budget that delivers for our public services, economy and people. If a choice has to be made between standing side by side with the Tories or standing up for people here, our economy and public services, I know what side Sinn Féin will be on.

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

Many people have attempted to set the context of the debate in a much broader range of positioning and recent agreements than is the case. I think that we have to remember that where we are today with austerity measures is not just because of the ideological position of the Tory party, which, as the deputy First Minister rightly said, has got no mandate here in the North, but because of the more recent crash in the banking regulation sector. We are asking the most vulnerable people in our society to pick up the bill. We ought to remember that in setting the context of the Welfare Reform Bill debate. We do not want to be complicit in the Tory party's morally unjustifiable attack on the most vulnerable and marginalised. There has to be a much broader debate about what type of society we wish to create and live in.

Whilst I was canvassing during the recent election, I was struck by the number of people who are at home all day, having had to give up not only their jobs but a large part of their life to care for others. As you all know, we have an increasingly ageing population. I met a number of people on the doorsteps who are caring for family members who have dementia or indeed have had a stroke and who are still on long waiting lists for adaptations and home improvements. There is little help from others; certainly not from the public sector because there is just not the money to provide that help. That is something that struck right at the heart of me, particularly as I came from a health and social care background. It is those very people, who look after the most vulnerable in society, whom the Tories wish to attack further, if we are to believe their leaked manifesto and budgetary commitments, in which they talked about taxing disability living allowance.

We have not come to our decisions lightly. It ought to be remembered that the SDLP, along with the Ulster Unionist Party and the Green Party, sought to amend the Bill. Over 30 amendments were tabled and rejected by the DUP and Sinn Féin. In fact, the DUP lodged a petition of concern against those amendments, so, rather than us going to Sinn Féin's position, we welcome Sinn Féin following us on welfare reform. I recall that, on the day, we warned Sinn Féin that the bedroom tax was, courtesy of its votes, in the Bill. We hear much today about how we risk losing the mitigation powers for the worst excesses of the bedroom tax, but that is not the case. Scotland has already mitigated the bedroom tax in its delivery of welfare reform.

My party colleagues and I wish the First Minister a speedy recovery. I hope and pray that he makes a good recovery and that his family are supported. As someone whose family have suffered a recent illness, I know the stress that it causes and the effect that it has on the wider family circle. We certainly wish him a good and full recovery. Nonetheless, a few months back, Mr Robinson and, I believe, the Finance Minister were allowed by the deputy First Minister to go off and make a deal at Westminster. That is against the joint nature of the office, and the deputy First Minister could have referred the matter to the Attorney General had he chosen to do so, but he did not. He allowed the First Minister to go off and do his own deal. It was out of those meetings that, we strongly suspect, welfare reform was coupled with the block grant. We feel that we have had a gun put to our head — metaphorically speaking, thankfully — with the threat of fines. The British Government should remove that threat. That is the first thing that they should do.

In their approach to the North of Ireland, this British Government are the most partisan that we have seen in 20 years. In fact, they have threatened to breach the Good Friday Agreement with their proposals on the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). We will not stand for that. We will take whatever action is necessary to fight against that, including redress to the courts if need be. I welcome the intervention of Charlie Flanagan, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in the South, on that, as well as the Irish Government's robust stand and their challenge to the British Government.

We have been asked to vote for a Bill that we do support and that we had sought to amend. In the recent correspondence that has now been shared with all the parties, I note that other parties shared our concern. On behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mike Nesbitt registered his protest at the side deals that have been a feature of this Administration and were a feature of the previous Administration, in which Sinn Féin and the DUP are and were the two largest parties. As we have seen all too often, those side deals start to unravel. They are seldom in the interests of all the people right across the community in Northern Ireland and, indeed, are very often in those parties' political interests.

Therefore, over the past week, we have — for the first time, in some cases — had access to some of the papers being exchanged between the DUP and Sinn Féin.

I, like many others, do not know why Sinn Féin was so slow to pick up that the vulnerable — people with disabilities, children with disabilities, and the long-term sick — would not be protected under the Welfare Reform Bill, because those were some of the very amendments that we sought to enshrine in the legislation. We wanted those in statute, not in guidance or regulations. We wanted to make sure that that was part of the type of society that we wished to create and part of the type of protections that we wished to give to those same people.

My party and I recognise the difficulties in setting a Budget and the time constraints that we work within, but it is not yet too late for all parties to get around the same table and thrash out the concerns about welfare reform that we each have. Therefore I ask the DUP to consider the time frame again and whether it would be in the best interests of us all to have a mature negotiation in which all of the parties are included all of the time.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

If the narrative that the Member is painting to the House and to the public is the case, then why did her party, along with the four other parties, sign the Stormont Castle agreement? Let us be very clear: all the information was available to everybody in the room. I ensured that the most senior civil servants were available: the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service was there; the head of the Social Security Agency was there; and all the relevant information was there. Why did we have an agreement and why, today, does that agreement lie in tatters?

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

I thank the Minister for his intervention, because it allows me the opportunity to state, again, that we reserved the right to amend. My party tabled numerous amendments, which were petitioned against. Was that the best use of a petition of concern — to petition against amendments — if you were going to seriously listen to our concerns? You cannot have it every way. You cannot say to us, "Let's have a mature debate, let's hear your concerns" and then petition against them so that they are chucked out and do not stand any reasonable chance of being heard or being reflected in the legislation.

There are others who, over the last few days, have spoken to the SDLP about our responsibilities in protecting the institutions. They have said that, once again, the SDLP should bear the full and heavy load for others. And, yes, I am proud to say that the SDLP as a political party puts the needs of the people and the institutions before our own political well-being on many occasions. This time, however, we are fed up with the side deals and the bad grace that often persists between Sinn Féin and the DUP from which we all have to suffer. If it was not for the photo ops, we would seldom see them working in unison for the good of the people.

We are asking Members to reflect on what role they have played in the Stormont House Agreement and welfare reform and to reflect on why we have a loss of confidence in the British Government, which, as you know, will be responsible for bringing forward the other aspects of the Stormont House Agreement: parades and dealing with the past. The SDLP is concerned about how that will be brought about at Westminster, and that is why we have a lack of confidence.

The welfare reform debate is about protecting the vulnerable — protecting children and families — but it was SDLP MPs, such as my colleague Alasdair McDonnell and others, who voted against the welfare and benefit caps and sought to amend many of those amendments at Westminster, unlike some other parties. Here, too, we will defend those who are most in need of a voice.

Others talk about the Tories and making work pay. I think that we could all subscribe to that value or belief, but what are we seeing? We are seeing zero-hour contracts, agency workers and temporary jobs. We are seeing an erosion of many of the rights and entitlements that workers have fought for over the past 100 years, including a decent wage.

I will finish on this note: we have to remember that people here in the North are much worse off, whether in work or out of work, than people in GB. In March 2015, an income tracker by Asda showed that the average disposable income for a family in GB was £185 and only £92 for the people of Northern Ireland. That simply is not good enough. The message that we want to send to the Tories is that we are still a community coming out of conflict. They have ignored our cry for help to move Northern Ireland forward.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker

We need to have some order to hear the contributions.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

The UK welfare system today is still that broadly envisaged in the Beveridge report in the 1940s: a safety net of support for those who genuinely need it. We want to see the sick, the disabled, the working poor, families, children and our older people all being supported whilst adults who are fit to work but currently are unemployed are supported back into the work space. Ulster Unionists very much agree with the belief that people who are fit to work should be better off in work than on benefits. We want more people entering the world of work, individuals and their families prospering and being better off, and we want Northern Ireland to prosper.

Universal credit was an ambitious project. Despite its shambolic roll-out in GB, it still might just work. The Department for Work and Pensions has claimed the success of transferring the welfare claims of single people to the new benefits system. However, we are still some way from gaining success. Earlier this month, only approximately 52,000 of the 7 million prospective claimants were in receipt of the new benefits, but more and more are being added. Until it starts to handle more and more complex cases, there is little on which to really judge the success or failure of the new system.

When the Westminster Welfare Reform Bill received Royal Assent on 8 March 2012, no one could have expected that it would take more than three years before the Assembly reached the Final Stage of the Bill covering similar rules in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, the scale of welfare administration has become increasingly unsustainable in recent times, and reform was inevitable. The dated system was preventing individuals and families from improving their life chances. The trap of welfare dependency was beginning to catch entire families.

This is the most difficult and controversial Bill that the Assembly has faced in recent times. My party does not like everything in it. We proposed several amendments. We were successful with some and unsuccessful with others. The Bill at least delivers some reform to a system that clearly is no longer fit for purpose. Amendments were made to the GB legislation to reflect local concerns, and extra funding was set aside by our Executive through the Stormont House Agreement discussions to moderate the effects of the changes. This has been built into the 2015-16 Budget.

The aim of the Bill is to simplify benefits, improve work incentives and reduce administrative costs. The changes are occurring against a background of the UK continuing to increase its cumulative deficit. Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives have all committed to Budget break-even; they disagree only over how fast they each would bring it into balance. The reality of the recent UK elections is that there is no going back. I think that Labour is even reviewing the position that it took. I also recall Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, highlighting that, with the old GB benefits system, it took almost an hour for an experienced welfare supervisor, using sophisticated computers, to establish whether someone would be better or worse off if they worked a few hours more.

We had a very complicated system that was very costly to administer, and there was a lack of transparency as to whether individuals would be better off in work. Benefit traps are preventing our constituents from working to help themselves and their families.

We do have choices. If this Bill is not approved, we will be the only part of the UK using the old benefits system. There will be less funds in many other public areas. Let us be clear that there is no money tree. There is no going back asking for more money. We have been there lots of times over the past three years. There were crunch talks around Christmas last year, and we got an offer of a settlement at that stage. If we do not approve this Bill, there will be even less money for health, less money for education and less money for Departments and other publicly funded bodies.

If this Bill is approved, the potential of further penalties and unplanned departmental cuts will be averted. Penalties were discussed earlier. Penalties come simply when we decide to deviate from the welfare system. The Westminster Government simply take that money off our block grant. That is what a penalty is: we choose to differ, and therefore we pay. How can we argue to other parts of the United Kingdom that that is unfair? How can we argue that to this Government, whose members represent areas where they have a different benefits system? Why should they permit us to introduce a more generous benefits system to Northern Ireland and not pay for it? That is an argument that some would wish to win by going back to negotiations. However, I am firm in the belief that that would go nowhere. Experience of the past three years shows that that is the case.

If we choose to deviate from the welfare system that applies elsewhere in the United Kingdom, we will have to pay for it from our block grant. That is the political and economic reality. Fines have been indicated — essentially clawbacks of our deviation to date — of £14 million, then £87 million and then some £114 million this year. The figure is projected to reach £250 million next year, and I understand that the First Minister has said that it could even be £500 million the following year. This is what is coming down the line if we do not implement change. Politics is supposed to be the art of the possible. That means that we all have a responsibility to examine not only the pluses and the minuses of this Bill but the implications that will flow from the Bill not being approved.

In addition to the welfare clawback or fines, if this Bill is not approved the offer of borrowing will not be there. Remember that, because of delays last year, there was an additional £100 million deficit. We were afforded borrowing last year to avert further drastic in-year cuts. Let us remember that, last year, there were in-year cuts of 4·4% across many Departments and the overall Budget to claw back deficits that were running up. The longer we take to make decisions and the longer we avoid financial decisions, the worse will be the long-term implications. There is poorer and poorer planning around where those cuts can be made, and they are implemented in a much speedier fashion than would otherwise be the case. I understand that, if we do not approve the Bill, the borrowing to cover the £100 million from last year will be required in this year's Budget, and, of course, the hundreds of millions of pounds that were offered to us to pay for a voluntary redundancy scheme will no longer be available. They will not be on the table. That was part of the deal.

What would be the implications of all that and other aspects for the Assembly's Budget, which is with our Finance Minister and is due to be brought before the Executive and ultimately the Assembly to finalise it? Well, to balance the Budget, further cuts would have to be announced. I understand reliably that that figure is in the order of £600 million. The community and voluntary sector has already suffered compulsory redundancies. There is no doubt that if the Budget problem deepens even further if the Bill is not approved, there will be thousands of compulsory redundancies, instead of voluntary redundancies, across the public sector. How else do you balance the Budget? There has to be a balancing of the Budget. If the Executive are not prepared to do that, we know that there are mechanisms within the legislation that will pass that responsibility to senior civil servants who will set the Budget at 95% of last year's Budget.

Take the health service. Failure to implement welfare reform and finalise the Budget could mean an 8% reduction in the health budget — not an increase to deal with those increasing pressures, such as the growing waiting lists and the delays at our accident and emergency centres. There is a huge responsibility on everyone who is thinking of opposing the Bill to explain where the £600 million gap in our Budget comes from. How is that going to be filled? Or, how are we going to avoid the inevitable crash, as I see it, when civil servants will be forced to take such drastic decisions?

The question to Sinn Féin, today, is very clear: vote for the Bill with all of its local amendments and additional safeguards, or reject it and wait a few months for Westminster to implement it for them, with, potentially, no additional protection. If the Assembly survives — I say, "if" — which I think would be highly unlikely, is Sinn Féin prepared to watch these powers and all other powers being handed back to Westminster? There may, of course, be an Assembly election, but, if there is, we will come back to face the same problems, and the same issues will arise. If there is a failure again, in a few months' time, and if there is stalemate, I do not think the United Kingdom Government could sit around while such drastic cuts would be affecting the people of Northern Ireland, in terms of not only our health service but a wide range of public services.

In addition, if the Bill is rejected, the Northern Ireland social security administrative burden will grow and grow and grow. Let me explain. In Great Britain, there is a clear commitment to move to the new computer system. Recently, an official indicated to the Social Development Committee that the ageing UK current social security system cost £1 billion a year to maintain and run. When, eventually, everything transfers to the new system, that system will no longer be required. So, how is Northern Ireland going to run the current social security system with its rules and regulations? What is it going to cost us to maintain that large, burdensome computer system so that we can have the luxury of having different social security rules and regulations here? I have not heard any costs of that. I am not saying that it is going to cost £1 billion, but the administrative burden will cost hundreds of millions of pounds on an annual basis. So, on top of all the other voids, another cost is coming in. The alternative suggested by the official was that we operate a paper system for our social security in Northern Ireland, which, of course, may have even higher administrative costs. Certainly, that is not a practical option.

Over the years, it will be increasingly difficult and, indeed, almost impossible to calculate the difference between the new system and the old system. That is where the uncosted, Gerry Adams, Sinn Féin, Southern-campaign directive guaranteeing protection against all future welfare changes unravels. It is undeliverable, uncosted and irresponsible. It is so sad that we have major parties in Northern Ireland that are prepared to run with the line that there will be no change to the welfare system in Northern Ireland.

I want to put on public record that, on Friday morning, the Ulster Unionist Party met some Sinn Féin representatives in Stormont Castle.

It was one of the last chances to find out whether there was room for negotiation. Remarkably, the Sinn Féin representatives told us at the meeting that they had costed proposals that would guarantee protections for existing and future claimants and that it would be done broadly within the spending envelope already agreed in the Stormont House Agreement. We did not believe them, but we were prepared to, at least, consider it. Surprisingly, four days later, and even in the course of this debate, we have heard nothing. We are still waiting for a copy of those proposals. Sinn Féin was being irresponsible once more, even until the last minute.

It was with bemusement that I learnt that a petition of concern had been placed against the Final Stage of the Welfare Reform Bill in March and has been repeated again for today's debate. Sinn Féin has supported many amendments and approved the details of the Bill that are presented today for final approval. In fact, on the specific issue of contributory employment and support allowance (ESA), an issue on which Sinn Féin now professes opposition, this is what Mickey Brady said on 10 February:

" I argue that clause 52 ... is a good clause".— [Official Report, Vol 101, No 8, p102, col 2].

It is so good that Sinn Féin is now wholly opposed to it. Sam McBride quoted Martin McGuinness as having told the Sinn Féin ard-fheis:

"Our protected welfare system has eliminated the Tory cuts", but then Sinn Féin flip-flopped, when the Southern command wagged the Northern tail.

One of the worst aspects of this flip-flopping is the failure to govern: the failure to lead and the failure to take responsibility, with the knock-on adverse effects that will fall on the people of Northern Ireland. Then again, should we really be surprised, considering that this is the party that claims that it stands against cuts, four years after implementing consecutive cuts? The Belfast Agreement, approved by the people of Northern Ireland, accepted Northern Ireland's position in the United Kingdom. This means that we receive UK welfare benefits and, if any changes are proposed, we must pay for them out of our remaining block grant.

Billions of pounds of subventions are already coming to Northern Ireland and, on average, our citizens are in receipt of thousands of pounds more than those in other regions of the United Kingdom. Yes, there is some argument over whether it is £7 billion, £8 billion or £10 billion, but the reality is that our citizens are receiving considerably more funds from public sources than those in any other part of the United Kingdom. Sinn Féin fails to acknowledge that reality. It seems to think that extra welfare costs will be paid for from the money tree, and it seems to wish to emulate the Greek form of economics and bring that to the Northern Ireland economy and government. I do not want such failure. Sinn Féin seemed to be willing to implement welfare reform in Northern Ireland whilst fighting austerity in the Republic of Ireland. That failure to govern or take difficult decisions in Northern Ireland will affect every one of our citizens. Have no doubt of it.

This morning, on Radio Ulster, I heard Paul Terrington, the current head of the Institute of Directors, indicate that stability in the Administration is crucial for economic growth in Northern Ireland. He went on to say that the single issue of stability, the continuation of the devolution process around corporation tax and all those things are in a vacuum at the minute. We do not have political stability to sell ourselves elsewhere or bring in new investment and we do not recognise the realities of financing our local Administration. We are creating instability and making it more difficult to bring jobs in and more difficult for existing employers in Northern Ireland to invest. The issue of corporation tax is being held back. It was a part of the agreement but, if it were devolved, what exactly would Sinn Féin be proposing? Would it propose increasing corporation tax, perhaps to pay for some of the additional welfare benefits? The Budget has to balance, and there seems to be a lack of reality in actions that are being taken by those who should know better. Sinn Féin is showing the citizens of Northern Ireland and, indeed, the Republic of Ireland that it is unfit to govern and cannot create stability either in its decision-making or its ability to live within the Budget.

At the last Sinn Féin ard-fheis, Mr Brady said that, during the recent Stormont House talks, the relentless tide of austerity was abated. How was it abated? Our Budget is determined at Westminster. That is part of the Belfast Agreement, and we have to live within the Budget that comes to us. Sinn Féin was so anti-austerity that it agreed to cut 20,000 posts in the public sector; posts that we cannot afford to maintain. It was so anti-austerity that it was a cheerleader for a Budget that has witnessed its own Education Minister admit that he will have to make 1,500 teachers and support staff redundant by September. Again, how has the tide of austerity been abated?

On top of the supplementary payment fund and all the other protections, he even claimed that Sinn Féin delivered a £564 million welfare package. That is absolute nonsense. Is he claiming that Sinn Féin secured each and every one of the mitigation measures? Is he claiming that Sinn Féin solely secured the additional funding for the transfer from DLA to PIP? Does he forget that many of the safeguards were already agreed over 12 months ago? <BR/>The simple fact is that it said originally that it would not implement welfare reform, then it agreed to do it, and then it flip-flopped once again. It is unstable government. It said that future claimants would be protected. They cannot be. That is the reality. How do we continue to calculate into the future, whether it is one year, six years or 10 years, the difference between the benefits that someone in Northern Ireland would get under the old system if we do not change and the system that will be applicable in other parts of the United Kingdom? It said that it has alternatives, but it has never shared them, and we have still not heard today what those alternatives are.

During the Bill's stages, there were decisions by the DUP to kill off the vast majority of formal amendments through the abuse, in my mind, of the petition of concern. Was that done as a diversionary tactic to save Sinn Féin's blushes at the time? Perhaps. But it did, as others said, prevent the Assembly from reaching its view in a simple vote. The Bill we are being asked to vote on today is better shaped than it was three years ago, and there was an opportunity to at least mitigate some of the worst consequences that would flow from welfare reform.

I welcome my party's amendments to the Bill. The early amendments that went down in April 2013 highlighted some of our concerns about the frequency of payments, the need for split payments, the provision of medical evidence and a desire for a Northern Ireland PIP pilot scheme. While the Bill is better for those changes, we would have preferred additional changes, such as improvements in welfare advice.

Let us recognise that there are many positive changes, as the Minister highlighted. The frequency of payment has moved from a monthly universal credit payment to twice monthly. There is provision for split universal credit where there are issues in households. There is the direct payment of housing benefit to landlords to prevent the increasing likelihood of evictions if money that was designed to go to housing benefit was not actually used for housing costs. That is another positive change that was being built in. Then there was the discretionary housing protection. There were other changes, such as the reduction in the maximum period of sanctions from three years to 18 months. Provisions were built in to protect those who have a disability. That was done in a time-limited and proportionate manner. So, significant changes were built into the raw legislation that came here. I am firmly of the belief that, if we do not approve it, somebody else will, at some point, approve a system of welfare reform for Northern Ireland. We do not know whether they will take those mitigations into consideration. The responsibility will pass to others because budgetary and other issues mean that, in the long term, it is simply not sustainable to maintain the position of not adopting these measures.

During its passage, the Social Development Committee undertook the task of reviewing every aspect of the Bill. On behalf of me and the rest of the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly group, I take this opportunity to thank Michael Copeland for his outstanding hard work on the Bill. Anyone who observed his work on the Committee was left in no doubt about his genuine interest in not only ensuring that the reforms did not have a devastating impact on communities across Northern Ireland but that they were as fair as possible. He certainly set this party's course of direction on the Bill.

Aspects of the DUP's management of the Bill and the financial management related to it have been unhelpful. Unsurprisingly, however, after presiding over the mismanagement of previous Budgets, the DUP sought to lay all the Executive's financial ills from last year at the feet of failure to progress welfare reform. That was despite the £87 million in fines accounting for less than half of the £200 million shortfall in the Executive funds. Of course, never ones to miss a chance to spin a tale to suit their own needs, they almost sounded as if they convinced themselves that what they were saying was absolutely true. Of course, it was not. Basic mathematics and honesty were not important. Nevertheless, the failure to progress the Bill came at a cost of £87 million, which we did not have to spend on other public services. Not only were key public services cut to pay for that, but it happened late in year.

Members will recall that the June monitoring round was finalised, I think, at the end of July, and it was then perhaps another couple of months before each Department announced how it was going to claw back the amount that was levied on it within the short, six-month period that remained. That is the worst way that any Government can manage. Short-term clawbacks, little planning and little notice — that is poor use of public funds, and we are in danger of repeating that this year. I say this to those who will vote against the Bill: you bear a huge responsibility. That is coming down the track. That is the political reality, and avoiding it does not solve the problem. Other costs will come back from other Departments to pay for the failure of the Bill to go through. Some parties, such as Sinn Féin, saw no contradiction in standing with posters earlier this year saying, "Stop Tory Cuts" while, at the same time, individual Ministers were implementing the reduced budgets that had been handed to them. I mentioned that earlier.

I will get back to the journey of the Bill. It now appears that it will fall at the very last hurdle. Sinn Féin has looked South and remembered that, there, it claims to be the anti-cuts party.

So, they are expressing their opposition to the Bill, regardless of the implications for the people of Northern Ireland, regardless of the most vulnerable and regardless of potential cuts to our health service — perhaps £200 million is coming out of health. How will you explain that to our most vulnerable citizens who are in ill health and need medical interventions? I would like to hear an answer from any Sinn Féin Member remaining to contribute to the debate. How will they solve that? How will they avoid that? Wishing for something different does not deliver it.

The Dublin leadership of Sinn Féin has viewed the Welfare Reform Bill as a threat to exposing the rank hypocrisy of what its party does daily in Northern Ireland compared with what it says, which is that it opposes austerity in the Republic.

So, the question is clear: is Sinn Féin prepared to reject today's Bill, lose the additional protection that comes with it, terminate the supplementary payments fund and remove all the other positive aspects that were linked to it during the negotiations at the end of last year, all for the sake of a few votes in the Republic of Ireland? As we go forward, I ask the people of Northern Ireland to remember how different parties voted on this matter and, further down the line, when the inevitable starts to happen, to realise who caused it and recall the warnings that everybody clearly understood were coming down the line. Yet politicians, it appears, are choosing to ignore the political reality. I support the Bill.

Photo of David Ford David Ford Alliance 11:45, 26 May 2015

I will commence, Mr Speaker, as you did, by extending good wishes on behalf of my party colleagues to Peter Robinson. We trust that we will see the First Minister back in his place and fulfilling his duties at an early stage.

For the record, I should stress that I am speaking from the Back Bench, though I have no doubt that the Minister for Social Development will appreciate the support of at least one Minister in the House today. When I say that I "support" the Bill, it is in the context that Alliance is firmly in opposition to many of the welfare reforms and opposed them in the only place that mattered: the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster. That was where those decisions were taken, not here.

There is much talk about welfare powers being devolved to these institutions. The reality is that welfare powers are not devolved in any genuine sense. Right from the post-war settlement — in fact, possibly even from Lloyd George's old-age pensions, but my memory does not go back that far — we have had the reality that, on the basis that people in Northern Ireland pay UK taxes, they get UK social security benefits. The expenditure under annually managed expenditure (AME) is adjusted to deal with that without regard to the block grant. That is the position that we are in, and that is where we now stand with these measures, which have been passed by the UK Parliament. Our powers to make any change are extremely limited.

It is fine for some Members to say, as Mr McGuinness did, that the Conservatives have a minuscule mandate in Northern Ireland, which is, of course, true. I notice that even the Ulster Unionist Party seems to have realised that casting off the Tories was probably a good thing electorally, but the reality is that, whether we like it or not, whether we approve of the electoral system or not and whether we think that it is fair or not, the Conservatives have a mandate as the Government of the United Kingdom. All parties that accepted the Good Friday Agreement and the principle of consent need to live with that. In the context of a UK Government, the Conservatives have the power to decide things, and we have distinctly limited powers as a devolved region.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will the Member acknowledge that, whilst the legislation is required to be approved here and we can deviate from it, we must pay for any deviation? So, we have the authority to change it, but we must pay for it out of our limited block grant.

Photo of David Ford David Ford Alliance

I entirely accept the Member's point, which I will go on to in a minute. That is where I believe that the nationalist rhetoric about welfare in this place is simply not correct. We have, as Mr Beggs has just reminded the House again, extremely limited powers to make any adjustments around the margins. We are not an unbridled power or a sovereign state, and we need to recognise the reality of where we are.

It is fine to talk about issues like the Human Rights Act, where I have no doubt that, because of its particular implications for the Good Friday Agreement, many in the House will seek to oppose any potential changes that the Tories may introduce, but this is not the Human Rights Act. This is the fundamentals of living within our means, dealing with the budget that we are given and making such modifications as we can. We may work with Scotland and Wales on many issues — indeed, in my ministerial role, I work with the Scottish Cabinet Secretary on many issues — but we cannot on the issue of social security, which is fundamentally an issue for the UK, not at all devolved in Scotland in Wales and only nominally devolved here. However, we did make those mitigations and we did make those changes before Christmastime in Stormont Castle amongst the five parties, and then we incorporated them into the Stormont House Agreement, and that recognised the practical limitations of what we can do. We cannot do all that we wish to do. We have to live within the administrative possibilities and we have to live within the financial realities, and we had a very detailed examination of those. Civil servants from DSD and the Social Security Agency put a lot of effort in then, and have since, to put the detail on that, for which we should be grateful, but we need to recognise that that is the reality and that that is what five parties signed up to — to live within the reality, to make the ameliorations and to accept that that was the best that we could do —

Photo of Sammy Wilson Sammy Wilson Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Treasury), Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Work and Pensions), Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Education)

Does he also accept that the changes that were made and presented to the Executive reflected exactly the kind of groups that Sinn Féin and others said, including his own party, that they wanted protections made available to? That has been faithfully reflected, yet oddly enough, despite the fact that the money is there, the protections are there and the groups that were identified are covered, we now face this situation today.

Photo of David Ford David Ford Alliance

Yes; Mr Wilson makes an entirely valid point. We dealt with those issues in detail in Stormont Castle and, working with the Governments, we got them into the Stormont House Agreement, yet we are left in the position where it is unclear as to exactly why some people who made that deal have reneged on it.

We also have to recognise that, when we reached the agreement in Stormont Castle, all of that had a cost to other public services — a very significant cost. If I remember correctly, we started off talking about something in the region of £40 million amelioration coming from other aspects of our budget. We got it up to £93 million annual average cost in Stormont Castle, and that is money coming directly from other services — directly from services that are provided to protect vulnerable people and people in need: health and social care, classically so; housing; job skills and employment work; I might even add in the issue of justice. Those who require those services are all seeing a reduction in those budgets because money is being put into propping up the social security budget.

It is not just a matter of health, although Mr Beggs correctly highlighted the fact that health is the largest of those issues. The £93 million in the Stormont Castle Agreement that is being put into social security funding will result in a direct cost, if it is proportionate, of between £6 million and £7 million on policing in Northern Ireland, and we could look at many other examples. We have made that balance; we have sought proportionate changes that would ensure that we maintain essential public services at the same time as we ameliorate welfare cuts, but we cannot go any further than we have gone, and that was a reasonable accommodation. It is the job of a responsible Government to make those difficult decisions. It is great to be in government at a time of expanding finances and nice opportunities, when Ministers can appear in front of cameras and smile at things, but the reality of government is that we need to learn to take difficult decisions, to deal with the difficult hand when we are played it at difficult times, and to be realistic and accept those.

In that respect, it seems to me that Sinn Féin and the SDLP have to prove that they can be responsible around budgetary matters in difficult times in just the same way, frankly, as Members on the other side of the House need to prove that they can be responsible and recognise reality in other respects. The critical aspect is that the Government have to make the decisions based on the context in which we are living at the time.

Power-sharing requires compromise, rising above narrow ideology and reaching an accommodation, and it means aspiring for the common good. That is what was required, and that is what I believe we achieved at Stormont House on welfare reforms. If we do not pass the Bill, all that we agreed in the Stormont House Agreement potentially falls.

Do Members really want that? That will mean nothing at all for the voluntary exit scheme for those civil servants who wish to leave and have built up their expectations over the last months that they will get the chance to go. It will mean absolutely nothing for dealing with the past, new institutions, additional funding for inquests and all that was promised to victims, the bereaved and those who were injured. A lot of hopes were built on that, which now stand the risk of being crushed because people cannot agree the Bill. It will mean an immediate loss of last year's £100 million loan, with an expectation that it will be added to the burden of repayments this year, and there will be nothing at all for the additional funds that were expected to be invested in integrated education and shared education. If we do not agree the Bill, we have the prospect of full-blooded Tory cuts with no amelioration whatsoever.

Sinn Féin is making much about its claims to protect those who are dependent on social security benefits. The reality is that Sinn Féin is leaving them in a worse position. It is leaving them with a loss of public services, whether those be health, justice or job skills services, and leaving people worse off because of continuing fines that are being paid back to the Treasury rather than being put into any services here.

The SDLP claims to be the guardian of the Good Friday Agreement. The Ulster Unionists gave up on the Good Friday Agreement a while ago, we were never quite sure exactly how much Sinn Féin was committed to the full detail, and the DUP would claim that it never supported it. If we cannot work the system of power-sharing that is before us, we call into question whether Members have any commitment at all to the Good Friday Agreement. Members who signed the petition of concern are in danger of abandoning the Good Friday Agreement along with the Stormont House Agreement.

Photo of Dolores Kelly Dolores Kelly Social Democratic and Labour Party

Under the d'Hondt principles of the Good Friday Agreement, I do not recall the Alliance Party being entitled to two Ministers.

[Interruption.]

Photo of David Ford David Ford Alliance

I am sorry; I am devastated. If somebody cannot tell the difference between a mathematical formula and a principle, we have a real issue.

If people are prepared to throw out the Bill without recognising the effects that doing so will have on those who are most vulnerable in this society and the dangers that lie ahead for public services in general, those who are dependent on those public services and for victims of the past who are expecting something to emerge from the Stormont House Agreement, they really are contradicting the principles of the Good Friday Agreement as well as those of the Stormont House Agreement.

It looks like Alliance will end up being the only party that is in support of those principles and the only party that is prepared to be fiscally responsible and socially progressive. The Alliance Party is not afraid to accept that difficult decisions have to be taken at difficult times. When people reach an agreement, they should stick to the agreement five months later. We will, therefore, support the Bill, not because we want Tory cuts to be implemented but because we want to stop future Tory cuts being implemented.

Photo of Gregory Campbell Gregory Campbell Shadow DUP Spokesperson (International Development), Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Cabinet Office)

I join others in wishing Peter Robinson a speedy recovery.

Given the removal of OFMDFM Question Time, it seems somewhat strange, when we in an open-ended legislative debate that could go on for hours, for us to take a lunch break of two and a quarter hours; hopefully, the Business Committee will be able to meet. That seems absurd, but I am sure that the Whips are discussing it as we speak.

A number of issues about the Bill need to be brought to a head. When it comes to what most people in the House would like to see, welfare reform does not divide us. We would all like to see a belt-and-braces, super-duper welfare reform package. I presume that almost everyone in the Chamber, as well as outside, would want to see that in place. However, that is what we would like to see. That is what we would want to see in a perfect world. What we have is not perfect. It is rather imperfect, and there is no additional money. Given that we were told by a Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition that there was no additional money, does anybody seriously think that the Conservatives, bereft of the Liberal Democrats and now governing on their own with a complete majority, will say, "Yes, we did say that with the Lib Dems in tow, but we have now had a think about it. We are going to give everybody else in the UK a £12 billion hit, but we will overlook that for you people in Northern Ireland and give you a bit more money."? It is not going to happen. It simply is not going to happen.

The reality is that we have to do whatever we are going to do within the confines of our Budget. When we come to that point — I know that there are some, particularly in Sinn Féin and the SDLP, who do not seem to be at that point yet, but everybody else seems to be — we then have to decide what we do. Do we sit tight and hope, Micawber-like, that something will turn up? When my head comes out of the sand, will somebody somewhere, with this magic money tree that everybody talks about and nobody knows where it is, deliver hundreds of millions of pounds to deliver what we would all like to see? It ain't going to happen.

What do we do then? If we all wish that it was better but know that it is not going to be, do we sit tight and then it will get worse? That is what is going to happen; it is going to get worse. Or do we adopt the better way and try to mitigate the worst excesses of a welfare reform system that is, as everybody else in the UK admits, better than what they have? When I speak to the Scots Nats, Plaid Cymru, the Conservatives and Labour across the rest of the United Kingdom, they say, "I wish we had the system that you people have." When I say that we might not have it, they say, "That is your call." We are making it today. This call is being made today.

Over the course of the last month, we have heard from Sinn Féin a number of pie-in-the-sky economic issues. In fact, I was really glad that our former Finance Minister made the quote before I made it: it was not really Karl Marx economics, it was Groucho Marx economics. I notice that the deputy First Minister referred to the Member Mr Chris Hazzard, and I am glad that he did. Who will ever forget the car-crash radio interview before the election, when the Karl Marx economics of Sinn Féin was that, if you run up a credit card debt, we will write it off? These are the people who will say that we can get a better welfare reform package. Of course, they also said that they want to safeguard not only existing claimants but all future claimants. The current DLA claimant rate, in some parts of Northern Ireland, is three times greater than in the rest of the UK. If it becomes four times greater, do they want to safeguard it? If it becomes five times greater, do they want to safeguard it? Commentators ask, "How do you account for future claimants?". They answer is that you do not. You cannot, because they are future claimants. You do not know what it will be, yet Sinn Féin wants to say that we have to get a budget and reforms that take account of the unknowable.

Photo of Sammy Wilson Sammy Wilson Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Treasury), Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Work and Pensions), Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Education)

Will the Member accept that the fantasy economics extends even further than that? On one hand, they claim that there will be £1,500 million lost to claimants as a result of welfare reform over the next five years, yet they believed that, by negotiating with the Government before Christmas for slightly above £500 million, they could ensure that none of the people who will be affected would lose out and that £500 million would cover £1,500 million of reductions. Does he not think that that maybe shows that their grasp of numbers is not great?

Photo of Gregory Campbell Gregory Campbell Shadow DUP Spokesperson (International Development), Shadow DUP Spokesperson (Cabinet Office) 12:15, 26 May 2015

I thank the Member for his intervention. I think he was underselling it a bit when he said that their grasp of the numbers is "not great". "Not great" does not come close. The reality is that we have a Conservative Government in place for, in all likelihood, five years. The subvention is £10 billion a year. People ask why we cannot go it alone. It is 50 billion of those over the next five years — 50 billion of those. That is why we cannot go it alone.

I have heard a lot about anti-austerity. I remember, and I am sure many here remember, that, four months ago, the talk across Europe, in Spain, Italy and various countries, was that anti-austerity parties were on the rise, which they were; that they were getting more votes, which they were, and that they were becoming more strident in their demands. Then, four months ago this weekend past, an anti-austerity party was not just on the rise, but became the Government of Greece. Then we heard, "You are going to see stuff happen now; you are going to see austerity confronted and smashed." What do we see four months later? The Greeks are at the IMF, saying, "Please, can you bail us out? Please, can you do something? We cannot meet your demands." So much for the mighty anti-austerity measures and the great anti-austerity party. I wonder where Sinn Féin, the great anti-austerity party of Groucho Marx rather than Karl Marx, will be?

The reality is that we are where we are. We have got to cut our cloth. People might not like it — I do not like it — but it does not change where we are. We have got to get on, mitigate what we can, do our best for those in need and do our best to secure the best deal — and we have got the best deal in the United Kingdom — or else it gets an awful lot worse. I support the Bill.

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I am speaking for Sinn Féin, which stands for a number of key principles in its involvement with these institutions, including protections for the most vulnerable, a workable Budget that will enable us to deliver on the Programme for Government across all commitments, and the securing of additional powers to allow the Executive and the institutions to grow the economy and create employment.

I have heard it said over the last number of days that Sinn Féin is sleepwalking into this debate and does not listen to people. I remind people that we do listen. We are, in fact, just out of an election, and those of us who were on the campaign trail spoke collectively to several tens of thousands of people in their homes, on their doorsteps and at social gatherings and public meetings. I assure Members, and anyone else for that matter, that we do listen, and we heard loudly and clearly what people were saying. They are telling us that confidence in these institutions is low, and that they are worried about their future, their welfare and cuts to services. It is regrettable that some of them lay the blame at the door of these institutions rather than where it actually belongs, which is with the British Government; but is a discussion for another day.

The point I would make is that our party came out of the election with 176,000 votes. We are very pleased and privileged to have secured that very significant mandate. We have that mandate across the island of Ireland, in all the political institutions that the people have a franchise to elect into, and we are very proud and privileged to have that.

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

No, I will not give way. Thanks, Minister.

We are proud of that. What is very clear is that the fundamental principles we stood for were endorsed by that high number of people. They are the commitments that we made during the election and they are the commitments that we are going to hold to dearly as we proceed. What will happen in the weeks and months ahead, I do not know, but I do know this, and Martin McGuinness made the point very clearly earlier: Sinn Féin is not remotely interested in these institutions collapsing, but, equally, these institutions are only worthwhile if they are delivering for the people that we collectively represent, and I mean collectively as in all of the parties here.

I will make the point again that the Tory Government, who are the body responsible for the position that we find ourselves in, have no mandate here whatsoever, whereas the parties around the table here do, and we have a responsibility to discharge that mandate to the best of our ability for the people we represent. Nobody in this room, the last time that I checked, represents any electorate outside these Six Counties.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

No, I am not giving way. I thank the Member.

I just want to make the point that we do listen, and we did listen. Not only that; when we make a promise, we will stand by that promise.

I want to make a couple of points before we go on. People are making remarks willy-nilly. They probably do not understand what they are saying themselves. The first thing is the whole question of fines. People say that we are being fined, and I have heard Members saying that that is money down the drain. Well, actually, I remind people that the money that is being taken off us by the British Government currently remains in the pockets of those welfare recipients. If it were not for Sinn Féin, the SDLP and others who have been resisting those cuts, those people would have had that money removed from their pockets already. Those are the most vulnerable in our society. When all the parties talk about defending the most vulnerable, that is the type of people that we are actually talking about. That money has not been lost or squandered or gone down the drain, as someone mentioned in the last number of days. That money remains in the pockets of those who are most vulnerable and who desperately need it.

I will also make a point for those who like to delude themselves about the machinations of Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin is a national party, and we do not have to be dictated to by one part of the country or another. When people refer to where Sinn Féin in the North takes its orders from, let me say this: Martin McGuinness, for example, is a member of our national executive, our ard-chomhairle, as are a number of other Members on these Benches. We are not dictated to by any one part of the country or any individual. Sinn Féin has a very strong, committed, collective leadership that has representation from throughout the whole country. Let me assure anyone who has any doubts or any delusions in their minds: the decisions that we come to have been thought out, considered and acted upon on a national and collective basis. I think that is what it should be. You will not find any individual in our party faltering against another because our party is united. We are an anti-austerity party. We are a party that wants to work with all of the other parties, building the economies, North and South, and treating people fairly. That is what we will continue to do. As I said earlier, we are very proud and privileged to have received the very significant mandate that we continue to receive, and we will exercise that mandate very judiciously.

I will also make the point that continuing attacks on Sinn Féin during this debate or, indeed, others is a bit futile because it will not resolve anything. In case you have not learned anything over the years, criticising Sinn Féin is not going to make us shift one way or another. We will do what we have to do, what we need to do and what we think is in the best interests of the people who we collectively represent. Criticising Sinn Féin is really a waste of your time.

I did not want to go there, but I want to make one point, particularly in relation to the SDLP and Dolores Kelly's remarks earlier. I think it is very unfortunate that parties seek to waste their time and energy today in the debate taking sideswipes at Sinn Féin, or, indeed, any other party, when the real focus of our dispute has to be with the British Government. I will say this — I do not want to return to it later today, and I hope that nobody else has to — had the SDLP worked in good faith during the implementation period for the Stormont House Agreement, maybe, just perhaps, they might have been able to deliver on some of the points that they have been making.

That is by the by, however, because the last point that I want to make in regard to that is that the people who we represent want us to work together. They do not want us sniping at one another. They do not want parties bickering, complaining or criticising each other. They want us to knuckle down, roll our sleeves up and get to work to tackle those very serious problems that people out there face.

The Minister, in his opening remarks, praised his officials, and rightly so. I want to place on record my gratitude and thanks to all the officials in his Department, including the Social Security Agency, who regularly come to the Social Development Committee and take a lot of time to explain things to and work with the Committee, and likewise throughout the whole Welfare Bill issue. However, by the same token, the Department officials do not set policy. That is the job for the parties around this Chamber. The officials do not set the policy.

There was progress. Parties reached an agreement in the Stormont House talks. We all agreed on that. We may disagree about what precisely we agreed — that is another day's argument — but, nevertheless, we made progress. As I have said, subsequent to that, we had further discussions about implementing the Stormont House Agreement. Ultimately, it came back — the Minister made the point earlier — and we were told by officials via the DUP that the deal that we wanted, which was to support current and future claimants, was not legally, operationally or financially deliverable. We dispute that. What we are saying is that the parties should decide the policy that we pursue, and we then have to get that enacted. Officials work very hard — I want to endorse the Minister's praise of the officials — but they do not set policy. Therefore, our party will not determine its policies based on what officials tell us. We have to listen, learn from what they are saying and work our way round the obstacles. We need to get round those obstacles politically, not simply acquiesce to them. That is the point that I wanted to make about the Department's officials.

Crucially for us, even though progress was made, it was not enough, and we have made that very clear. That is why, on 9 March, we said clearly that we would not continue to support the Bill as it goes through the House: it and the commitments and schemes did not go far enough. Essentially, we have two problems that we have to deal with. Both of those problems —

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

No, thank you. Both of the problems that we face originate in Westminster. They are the savage cuts to the block grant, which are well rehearsed — £1·5 billion over recent years — and the equally savage cuts to welfare, which the British Government want us to impose on people. Crucially, we have more of the same coming to us in July. Let us repeat that we are talking about treating with respect the most vulnerable. They include the long-term sick, large families with children who will be affected by the benefit cap, children with disabilities and adults with severe disabilities. Let me make it very clear that the Department's officials gave us figures for those categories: a family with a child on disability premium would lose up to £1,750; ESA time limiting would cost people £5,100; adults with a severe disability premium would lose £4,500; adults with a disability premium would lose almost £1,000; and the benefit cap would impact on some families to the tune of £2,300 or perhaps more. Those are the figures given to us. Of course, we know that the history of figures is that they could change by this time tomorrow, but it will be for another person to deal with that argument.

I want to conclude on a very simple point. In the last while, we have heard a lot of very strong and solid voices from wider civic society, which has stood together. I want to praise them again for coming to the Committee for Social Development during the evidence-gathering sessions on the Bill. There were people from the trade unions, Churches, community and voluntary sector and rights-based NGOs, including the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission. They spoke very well and cogently on the serious and negative impact that the welfare cuts being imposed by London would have if implemented here on the people whom we all represent. We need to focus our minds on those people. We represent people here. We do not represent people in Birmingham or anywhere else. We need to learn from and be in solidarity with all those people. The offer from Nicola Sturgeon to the devolved Administrations to sit down and work together on this issue is a very worthy one, and it would be foolish for anyone not to take up that offer.

I say to those in wider civic society that it is time for those who have identified the problems to work together to find solutions. Solutions do not lie just in the Chamber. Yes, we have the responsibility to pass legislation, or not, as the case may be. Clearly, today, we will not pass it. That is a decision that the Minister has foisted on the Chamber. Nevertheless, I call on wider civic society to work with all the parties here. This problem will not go away. The Bill will not pass today. We are then into unknown territory, and it is up to the parties to work out where we go. I would far rather that the parties —

Photo of Mervyn Storey Mervyn Storey DUP

Will the Member give way?

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

I cannot give way, sorry. The difficulty —

Photo of Alex Maskey Alex Maskey Sinn Féin

OK, I will not give way; it is not the case that I cannot. I do that respectfully. I did not want to go there. This is legislation, and everyone can take as long as they need to talk in the Chamber today. However, the clock is ticking, and the Speaker has warned that he will interrupt.

I just want to finish my remarks on this point: parties here have a major responsibility on their shoulders. We in Sinn Féin have no hesitation in standing our ground against austerity. People inside and outside this Chamber have a responsibility to stand up against the cuts to the block grant and welfare, as well as the cuts that are coming down, yet again, from London from 8 July.

In the same way in which we are talking to people in the Twenty-six Counties over the head of parties, politicians and vested interest groups, I say that people out there in civic society have a voice and should use it very strongly. The people's voice was made very clear to us in the election campaign, and I presume that other parties heard the same.

We have a job to defend the people we represent, particularly those who are most vulnerable. The parties here who want to challenge the austerity measures that are coming from London and want to work with civic society out there, whether it is the unions, the community and voluntary sector, the Churches or all those organisations that very rightly put on the table the very negative impacts of the cuts if they continue to be implemented, should work together and challenge directly where the responsibility lies. Despite the differences around the Chamber, the responsibility for the cuts does not lie with the parties in the Chamber or the Executive. It lies in London. I call on people here and in civic society to stand up to London, stand together and look after the best interests of the people we are elected to represent.

It is time for people who want to equivocate on where the responsibility lies to get off the fence. The Government in London are quite clearly signalling that much more savage cuts will be imposed on us. Those will be to welfare and very important public services. We are saying to people who are against that that we should work together to challenge the British Government that are trying to impose those cuts and, if need be, stand up and name and shame the parties who are willing to acquiesce to that agenda.

Photo of Mitchel McLaughlin Mitchel McLaughlin Speaker 12:30, 26 May 2015

The Business Committee has arranged to meet immediately after the lunchtime suspension.

I intend to discuss with the Business Committee whether we should resume the debate at 2.00 pm to fill the slot that has been left by the cancellation of questions to OFMDFM. I will communicate the decision of the Business Committee through the party Whips as soon as it has been made.

The debate stood suspended. The sitting was suspended at 12.31 pm.

On resuming —