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Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North): My right hon. Friend will probably be aware of current press speculation that there will be a shift of funds in the Department of Education that will gravely affect those schools in Northern Ireland that are the most deprived. That would seem to go contrary to the PAFT--policy appraisal and fair treatment--approach. Will she take this opportunity to deny that?
Marjorie Mowlam: There are no plans to shift money from deprived schools to other schools in Northern Ireland. The PAFT criteria are there and we have repeatedly said that we support them. All we have done is shift £4 million from within budget to ensure we get class sizes to less than 30 for five, six and seven-year-olds and to help many schools avoid sacking teachers. As a result of the cuts introduced by the Tories over the past two years, many schools--both those in deprived areas and others--are hurting badly, so that money has been reallocated. However, there are no plans to deprive deprived schools more than others. We are looking at what we can do to help all schools in Northern Ireland, because they are facing
severe financial stringency as a result of the plans put in place by the Tories last year, which are coming forward into this year.
It may help to answer those questions about education if I mention some proposals that we are trying to move into policy as quickly as possible to tackle unemployment and get young school leavers off benefit and into work.
I am pleased to say that figures for unemployment in Northern Ireland are decreasing and that unemployment is at one of its lowest levels for almost 17 years, but we are having trouble getting into work young people who have been unemployed for more than six months. That is an appalling waste of the young people's talents and skills, which they have never been able to develop. We look forward very much to the announcements by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who will announce this week a comprehensive welfare-to-work strategy, funded from the one-off windfall levy on the privatised utilities. We want to use that in Northern Ireland to break down barriers to the long-term unemployed.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South):
Have we an assurance that, in the Budget, a designated proportion of the windfall tax, if it comes through, will go specifically to Northern Ireland--or must we continue to look for crumbs?
Marjorie Mowlam:
We certainly will not be looking for crumbs. I guarantee to the hon. Gentleman that we shall get nothing less than our fair share--our fair proportion--of the windfall tax. We want to ensure that it is used effectively on training schemes so that young people get a good training.
I know that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members have lobbied in the past in support of training schemes that were being closed down. We shall consider those carefully, but we want to be sure of the quality and standards of training schemes that operate in Northern Ireland.
Rev. Martin Smyth:
I welcome that answer and encourage the Secretary of State to go down that road, so that we are training not just to keep people off the streets, but to prepare them for jobs that are needed in this modern age--not for some of the things that we have trained people for in the past.
Marjorie Mowlam:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I am sure that he will agree that the one way to get young people into work, once we have trained them, is to ensure that the investment that comes to Northern Ireland stays there. An unequivocal IRA ceasefire would be the best way to achieve that, because that would give us the stability to allow peace to develop and jobs to stay and survive.
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed):
I wish the Secretary of State well in her task, because, when the Northern Ireland Act 1974 was introduced, she was just taking over the job that I had done in another life.
During the short period of the most recent ceasefire, the increase that took place in Northern Ireland's tourism industry, with tourists coming from outside Northern Ireland, was an especially encouraging source of employment; it is, and will be, denied to the Northern Ireland until, at long last, a lasting ceasefire can be established.
Marjorie Mowlam:
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that contribution. He is right: despite the hard work of the
Mr. Ken Maginnis (Fermanagh and South Tyrone):
I wonder whether, when the Secretary of State talks about parades, she will recognise the fact that people will fail to come to Northern Ireland, not because of parades, but because they fear the violence that is threatened by Sinn Fein-IRA in the selected cases where they hope to create trouble and encourage the actions that the IRA showed on the streets of Lurgan a couple of weeks ago. Is it not the case that, by pandering to, and believing in, the possibility that the IRA will declare a ceasefire, against all the evidence that is available to the Secretary of State, we encourage that unease to continue?
Marjorie Mowlam:
I assure the hon. Gentleman that no Labour Member panders to any group in relation to the position in Northern Ireland. I agree that the situation in Lurgan and the violence that was evidenced by the shooting of two policemen in the back of the neck are exactly the situations that give Northern Ireland a bad name. I agree that the violence arising from the present circumstances related to the parades causes the problem.
However, does the hon. Gentleman agree that, until we answer the fundamental difficulty of two competing rights, the violence will not go away? People have a right to march, which I fully acknowledge is a fundamental right to which they are entitled. Equally, people have a fundamental right to live without fear or intimidation. The contradiction between the two, and the way in which we accommodate the two, is the question that we must answer.
All that we have at the moment, with those competing rights, is a growth in fear and tension on all sides. As the hon. Gentleman knows better than most hon. Members, that fear is very obvious now; that is what we must deal with in relation to this problem.
Mr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Inverclyde)
rose--
Marjorie Mowlam:
I give way to the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis).
Mr. Maginnis:
Insofar as the Secretary of State poses me the question, I must argue that, as long as we deal with the parades issue on a case-by-case basis, we leave ourselves hostage to fortune and to the wiles of Sinn Fein-IRA. Is it not time that the Government established a proper definition of the fundamental right to assemble and parade, and codes of behaviour against which judgments might be made? On such a basis, it would be much more difficult for those who wish to disrupt to do so.
Marjorie Mowlam:
I think I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but will check Hansard to be sure, because I
However, I say to the hon. Gentleman, only by an accommodation shall we avoid violence, because, if a local agreement is not reached, inevitably one side will feel that it has surrendered, lost its respect and had its culture denied and that its members have been treated as second-class citizens. That will lead to situations such as those that arose last year, depending on which group perceives itself as the "loser" or the "winner". That is why only by accommodation and common sense shall we avoid situations such as those that we have witnessed.
I will take one more intervention.
Mr. Godman:
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am very alert on Northern Ireland.
On tourism, may I say that I hope that a couple of hundred tourists arrived in Ballycastle today on the passenger ferry vessel which left Campbeltown this morning, waved off by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland?
Regarding the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), is the Secretary of State in a position to say when the Government will publish their response to the report by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland on under-achievement in schools in Northern Ireland? The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), promised such a response; is the Secretary of State in a position to say when the House can catch sight of it?
Marjorie Mowlam:
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution and I, too, welcome the fact that the ferry left from Campbeltown this morning. It was waved off by the Secretary of State for Scotland; it was welcomed by the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram), who happens to be a Scot, but I am sure that his thoughts were with Northern Ireland when it arrived.
I do not know when my colleague will give a response to the report by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland on under-achievement, but we are studying the Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights report, which is a very full report, and I shall do all that I can to get a response to the Select Committee on Northern Ireland so that the two points are answered simultaneously.
We believe that social and environmental changes, which we discussed during the exchange of questions, are crucial to creating a peaceful environment in Northern Ireland. Settlement and economic growth and training are two sides of the same coin. Further violence and disturbance can only put at risk all the economic progress that people have worked so hard to achieve. Civil unrest would jeopardise the future prosperity that people in Northern Ireland rightly expect.
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