That is actually where I was getting to. Unfortunately, the decisions that we have had to date—a budget statement two weeks ago, the Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill today, and a full budget Bill probably in June—are not the inevitable consequence of reluctance from the DUP to do the work that is required. The very next morning after election day last year, we were saying, “Let’s get
back into Stormont, and let’s do these things.” We did not lay down any conditions, but Sinn Féin laid down conditions that fell nothing short of blackmail.
Sinn Féin made demands for things in the talks that they knew they would not have got through the Assembly. Even when it came to the Irish language, they could never have persuaded the other parties, some of which have said they are sympathetic to some movement on the Irish language, to give them the kind of Irish language Bill that they wanted. So, what did Sinn Féin do? They made the decision not to go back into the Assembly until they had been given an assurance that there will be delivered, as a price, some things that they could never have negotiated, debated, argued for or persuaded anybody to give them had they been using the Assembly mechanism. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) continually tries to share the blame, but let me make it clear that we are having this debate today not due to any reluctance on behalf of my party; it is because we will not give in to the kind of blackmail that we have experienced from Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin make things even more difficult, because even if someone was daft enough to give them what they wanted, they create such a toxic atmosphere in Northern Ireland that they would be pilloried for it. For example, an MP, who was elected to this House but did not attend, was seen dancing around a garage at midnight, mocking the victims of IRA terrorism—people who were taken out of a minibus on their way home and gunned down—and then they say, “We want to sit down and talk about the way forward and about respect.” When the former Finance Minister does the same, it is impossible to reach an agreement that would get us back into the Assembly.
We welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has acted, and she has not actually been tardy, because had this Bill been presented to the Assembly, it would have been presented around this time of the year anyway. Some poor Finance Minister in the Assembly would have been standing up and enduring—I used that word deliberately—a six-hour debate about what should be in the Budget, and they would have been gnashing their teeth and continually reminding the Speaker, “This is not what the debate should be about,” and MLAs would simply have ignored him or her and continued to talk about it anyway. The Minister has not been tardy with the timing. If the Bill had been brought forward earlier, we would not really have known by how much Departments would have been underspent or overspent for the year. This is as close to the end of the year as we can get. When it gets to June, the final accounts will be made available, so we will know that if changes and adjustments had been made in the last couple of weeks in the month, they can be reflected in the figures that are given.