Transcripts For BBCNEWS The Week In Parliament 20170708 : co

Time to ditch it or keep it . What should be done with the limit on pay rises in the Public Sector . The low pay epidemic is a threat to our economic stability. It is not fair to bankrupt our economy because that leads to people losing theirjobs and losing their homes. The governments new chums are the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. But one observer warns them, watch out. This is a great moment for them and nobody can take it away but there are many snares and many responsibilities, particularly they do have to make some concessions to bring back Power Sharing devolution, which is overwhelmingly in their interest. And its a Hung Parliament with close votes expected. Ties could occur. But its the other sort of ties that are most concerning male mps just at the moment. I wont be taking interventions from anyone whos not wearing a tie. Do you think that there is a risk of a Slippery Slope which might lead that member to refuse to take interventions from members who are sartorially challenged in other ways . But first, have we reached last orders . Is the government about to call time on austerity . The Foreign Secretary borisjohnson and his cabinet colleague michael gove let it be known they think the cap limiting Public Sector pay rises to 1 should now be lifted. But the chancellor Philip Hammond said Government Policy had not changed and it was vital to keep financial discipline in place. At Prime Ministers question time, the labour Leaderjeremy Corbyn said the Public Sector pay cap was causing real hardship. 6 million workers already earn less than the living wage. What does the Prime Minister think that tells us about seven years of a conservative government and what it has done to the Living Standards of those people on whom we all rely to get our public services, our Health Services delivered to us . Let me remind the right honourable gentleman of what happens when you dont deal with the deficit. Its not a theoretical issue. Lets look at those countries that failed to deal with it. In greece, where they havent dealt with the deficit. Yes. What is. What did we see . What did we see with failure to deal with the deficit . Spending on the Health Service cut by 36 . That doesnt help nurses or patients. Can she take some tough choices and instead of offering platitudes, offer some real help and real support for those in work, young people who deserve better and deserve to be given more optimism, rather than greater inequality . Prime minister. We actually now see the proportion of people in absolute poverty is at record lows. I know that the right honourable gentleman has taken to calling himself a government in waiting. Well, we all know what that means. Waiting to put up taxes, waiting to destroy jobs, waiting to bankrupt our country, we will never let it happen. In a later debate, a former Tory Chancellor weighed in. If she were to give way to this weeks lobbying on this subject, it would be a political disaster because the government would be accused of a u turn and a surrender and it would set off a wave of pay claims and it would set off a wave of pay claims across the entire Public Sector, which the opposition are obviously looking forward to taking part in, if they can provoke them. It would also possibly be an economic disaster. In the exceedingly fine city of norwich, we have three nhs trust, two local authorities and a teaching hospital, thousands of Public Sector workers, who contribute to our economy and who, at present, are struggling to make ends meet. Surely this government must understand that austerity is dying on its feet, invest in these people, lift the Public Sector pay cap and you will invest in norwichs local economy. It is a win win for everyone. In many services, workers have received additional pay to the i national increase. Teachers had an average pay rise of 3. 3 in 20152016. More than half of nurses and other nhs staff had an average increase of over 3 in 2016. Liz truss. And incidentally, pmqs is now available as a podcast, when you can listen to the whole of the session. Just search for bbc Prime Ministers questions in your podcast app. Talks have broken down over the future of Northern Ireland, its a sentence with a very familiar ring, but its happened again this week. The dup leader Arlene Foster, here seen on one of her many recent visits to downing street, declared that she was disappointed that talks to get the Northern Ireland Assembly Going again ended without success. Stormont was suspended in january following a row over the costs of a Heating Scheme in Northern Ireland. A new factor in the protracted talks to get devolution re started has been the deal struck at westminster between the minority conservative government and the group of ten dup mps. The Democratic Unionist Party is also the Biggest Party at stormont. The Northern Ireland secretary spoke to mps about the breakdown in talks. But i am clear that the return of inclusive devolved government by a Power Sharing Executive is what would be profoundly in the best interests of Northern Ireland. Does he think there is a role for a new independent, impartial international perhaps, chairman of the talks, with fresh eyes and a new mandate . In the past that too has played an important means of shifting things. The speaker and indeed the Secretary Of State will no my other commitment to devolution. But some point there is not going to be a realisation that the pact could possibly be dead. It is deceased of life and it is no more. Well, the confidence and supply agreement that allows the dup to prop up theresa mays government continues to cause moments of resentment in the commons, chiefly from labour mps. In particular theres anger at the £1 billion cash sum thats been given to Northern Ireland as part of the deal. Jonathan ashworth. Mr speaker, i want to talk about the Spending Plans of 2017 where he can find a billion for Northern Ireland but nothing for nurses in england. The Prime Minister found £1 billion to keep her ownjob, why cant she find the same amount of money to keep nurses and teachers in theirjob, who, after all, serve all of us . Then came this attack on the dup at Equality Questions on thursday. Dup representatives have described homosexuality as repulsive, wrong, vile, immoral, offensive and obnoxious. Does the minister agree that it is these hateful remarks themselves that are repulsive, wrong, vile, immoral, offensive and obnoxious and they should have no place in politics, let alone in government . The dup once ran a campaign called save ulster from sodomy. Isnt it time to save Ulsterfrom Bigotry . The views that she has set out are absolutely not ones that i agree with or indeed i think are shared by this house. So, some moments there from commons questions on thursday. Well, with me in the studio now is lord bew, who is professor of irish politics at Queens University belfast and an author of many books and articles on the political history of ireland and Northern Ireland. Lord bew, welcome to the programme. Thank you. Firstly, talking about the dup, bit of an unknown quantity on this side. Yes. Of the irish sea. Why is it that the dup have now largely superseded the Ulster Unionists as the main party of unionism in Northern Ireland . Well, the dup began in the bible belt to some degree, fundamentalist religious areas of Northern Ireland and dr paisley was the leading figure in the late 60s, 70s, 805. Hed struck many blows against the ulster Unionist Party, but youre quite right, its only in recent years that they have become the hegemonic force and got the ulster Unionist Party really on its knees. And is that because sort of soft unionism, shall we say, Maytriach Unionism is largely just evaporated . Its more complicated than that because the dup has adopted many of the policies, effectively the policy of Power Sharing with sinn fein, originally pioneered by david trimble. And also the new dup person, in the old days, the free presbyterians of dr paisleys own church were the caders, who organised elections and things like that. In the last. Since the good friday agreement,. Since the good friday agreement, the new Oxford University press study of the dup shows only one in seven new members are actually free presbyterians. A blistering attack earlier this week. Are the dup sort of proud of the fact that they are so much a non liberal party on social issues . Well, they could defend themselves by saying their position isnt different from the german chancellor, because they sit in a parliament which has legislated for gay marriage and theyve accepted that, while they themselves are not in that place. But it is true that the dup has opinions in this area which are different than that of the mainstream british parties. No question about that. It is also true that, to go back to the younger members, jeff dudgeon, who is the great figure of gay rights for Northern Ireland, the one who really fought when there was really intense discrimination against gay people, played a heroic role. Jeff dudgeon says we talk to the younger dup people, theyre actually quite relaxed about gay marriage. So even there, there is actually a transition going on. Now, the dup agreement with the conservative government, i suppose, cuts both ways within Northern Ireland. Irish nationalists, no doubt pleased that a large sum of money is coming Northern Irelands way, but not happy that a British Government is siding so firmly with one side of the ulster divide. So i presume its seen both ways . Yes, the point about that is, of course, even in the last few days weve seen the Irish Government weighing in on sinn feins side on the Irish Language issue and the truth of the matter is that both governments, since the agreement, indeed in winning the agreement, tony blair felt it necessary to be very strongly pro unionist, have had to take up these different languages and thats part of the game. So its a difficult, fluid situation and on both sides, really neither government, if you take the whole matter in the round, actually could be, in all honesty, could be in any circumstance neutral in some grand sense, of course so. Both have a responsibility to behave with a certain basic fairness and both of them have tried to do that and still try to do that. Now, theres no doubt at all about it. The dup mustve enjoyed their Time In The Sun in the past two weeks in london and belfast. Yes, they have and i think this is a danger. It is understandable, they have been through. Politics these days, everything changes so quickly. In the latter half of last year, they are probably, in most peoples eyes, to blame for the Irish Language question becoming so difficult in Northern Ireland because of the short sighted attitude they took. Again, the whole question of the heating scandal, these things were not well handled. They had a very bad Assembly Election, partly as a result. Suddenly, a few months later, they have an astonishingly successful General Election and in which its not so much what happens here, its the fact that their vote went up so much and sinn fein in the Assembly Election was only 1000 votes behind them. Its 53,000 behind them in the General Election, in the same little space. So they suddenly find themselves having beeen down, theyre up, and the danger is when you are up, you think im wonderful and you dont take a self critical attitude towards the way you operate politically. And you dont realise the need for great care because there are many snares now that face them. This is a great moment for them and nobody can take it away but there are many snares and many responsibilities, particularly they do have to make some concessions to bring back Power Sharing devolution, which is overwhelmingly in their interest. Lets move on now to Power Sharing. There didnt seem to be a lot of progress made in the talks to get the Stormont Assembly restarted, despite all the parties claiming that they want to see the Stormont Assembly restarted. Are we heading for direct rule from westminster . In the very short term, we have a form of indirect direct rule and weve already had it with certain key pieces of housekeeping carried out by westminster. But youre not really going to know until the autumn and there are so many imponderables there. For example, the whole question of what is going on in irish politics and sinn feins role there, and how it perceives what it does in Northern Ireland and it is very hard to calculate, but how they perceive, how their actions in Northern Ireland will play on their fortunes in the south. So there are things that. Both parties dont. Are in a place they didnt expect to be. Sinn fein did not expect the dup huge vote, which just characterised the General Election, which means calling for a border poll, a big sinn fein policy, is meaningless now. So theyre in a place where some of their policies are falling apart. And the dup also in a place where they didnt expect to be because of the outcome of the westminster election generally. They need to think it through, both of them. Do you think sinn fein genuinely wants to see the Stormont Assembly restarting . Thats very, very hard to answer. But i would say that on most days, you would assume that for the public opinion, the irish public to have a good opinion of sinn fein. Its better for them to be operating stormont. The caveat to that is that brexit, because it so threatens the Irish Economy and tens and Tens Of Thousands Ofjobs are at risk as a function of brexit and also, by the way, the position of the European Union is currently in negotiation. The combination of these positions is such that there is more hostility towards britain in general, notjust the dup and therefore sinn fein can get away with a more anti british stance than they could have before brexit. Thats a simple fact of the matter, that it has definitely increased the anti british sentiment. It has not at all reduced pro british sentiment in the unionist community, but it has definitely increased anti british sentiment among even the softest type of catholic nationalists all over the island. Some thoughts on the politics of Northern Ireland. Now, a look at one or two of the other stories around westminster this week. A minister has faced shouts of shame on you in Westminster Hall from campaigners for the waspi movement, that is, women against State Pension Inequality those who say that women coming up to age 60 were given too little notice of the change in their official pension age. The 2011 pensions act meant that no woman affected by the 2011 act would have to wait more than 18 months, from the date that they might have been expecting their pension, and for some, the changes are much less. The government must do all we can to assist everyone affected in retraining and employment, and provide support. Shame on you that commitment to provide support is clear, unequivocal and ongoing. Thank you. Shameful order the emotional aftermath of the horrific fire at grenfell tower. In the commons, a Housing Minister is close to tears as he talks about his meetings with residents in north kensington. Hearing the harrowing accounts of survivors has been the most humbling and moving experience of my life. The families tha