My Lords, I have raised issues pertaining to health in Northern Ireland before. I think I quoted figures before that show that, out of a population of 1.8 million, we have 280,000 people waiting for their first consultant-led out-patient appointment. Of those, approximately 90,000 are waiting over 12 months. At the end of June this year, a further 83,746 patients were waiting for admission to hospital. Of these, 18,000 had been waiting longer than a year. For performance figures for A&E, sadly we are at the bottom of the table for the whole of the United Kingdom again—not meeting any targets, but in fact at a worse level than any other part of the United Kingdom. Whichever way you look at it, this crisis in health has been building up for some time. Its origins date from before the Executive ended, because the trend had already been established, but it has now accelerated. These figures refer to the summer, and we have not even begun to get into the issue of winter pressures.
I have drawn your Lordships’ attention before to the fact that I believe that the Government should take control of health back here to Westminster on humanitarian grounds, on a temporary basis. Bear in mind that it happened with welfare reform—the decisions were taken and then the powers were sent back to Stormont. That happened because there was a political disagreement. These figures may mean a lot to somebody or they may mean nothing to anybody, but I can assure Members that what we are seeing here is real harm done to a significant number of people. That is why we really need to take action.
The problem we have at the moment with the absence of a Minister is that nobody can take long-term financial decisions. We are taking decisions within a very short timescale, and anybody who knows anything about health knows that you cannot do that. It requires time and planning and it is very inefficient if it is all done at the very last minute. A Minister could enter the scene and take decisions on even mid-term financial planning. Immediately an Executive is formed it can be taken back to Stormont. Some people say that there is a risk of creeping direct rule. I am not in favour of direct rule; I believe in devolution, but we are dealing with a magnitude of something here. There are 5,600 vacancies. Last week, I visited a hospital. One of the bays in the ward had to be closed because there were not sufficient staff.
9.45 pm
This leads me on neatly to Amendment 8, which deals with pay. At the moment, there is nobody to agree even agreed payments. The health service has not had increases; the Police Service of Northern Ireland did not get payments for 2017-18, to say nothing of 2018-19. We are depending on these civil servants, front-line workers in the health service and police to keep us safe yet, as I understand it—I hope I am wrong—there is no mechanism to deliver a pay rise. What would the reaction be if that were happening here? With all the publicity there has been on policing issues, on the Department of Justice, and on the pressures of numbers in prisons, we say: “You are not getting your pay rise”. These are not demands; they are agreed through the proper mechanisms yet they are just lying there.
I appreciate the Minister’s dilemma on this and the political issues surrounding it. However, just like the Hart issue and the pension issue, this is a step above and beyond a simple matter of politics. People’s lives will be blighted by these waiting lists and they are getting longer and longer. I respectfully ask that the Minister recognise the significance of this. I can imagine nobody objecting to having a proper Minister appointed, on a short-term basis, to deal with these matters. I beg to move.