Northern Ireland

Householders would have energy help if power sharing executive was in place, says Heaton-Harris

Households in Northern Ireland are due to be credited with a £400 payment automatically, to help with energy costs this winter as part of a UK-wide scheme.
Households in Northern Ireland are due to be credited with a £400 payment automatically, to help with energy costs this winter as part of a UK-wide scheme. Households in Northern Ireland are due to be credited with a £400 payment automatically, to help with energy costs this winter as part of a UK-wide scheme.

Householders in Northern Ireland would be currently receiving energy support payments if a power sharing executive was in place, Chris Heaton-Harris has said.

The Northern Ireland Secretary raised the prospect of people in the region having to wait until March before the stalled payments are rolled out as he expressed frustration that a lack of devolved administration in Belfast was making the process “very, very complicated”.

The DUP, which is blocking the formation of an executive as part of its protest over post-Brexit trading arrangements, has accused the Government of using the delayed £600 cost of living payments as leverage to try to force the party back into power sharing.

Mr Heaton-Harris rejected that assertion in an interview with the PA news agency and in response singled out former DUP economy minister Gordon Lyons, claiming he could have done more to deliver some of the support payments before he left post at the end of October.

“I really want to make sure we get these payments to people in Northern Ireland as quickly as possible,” he said.

The minister said he had been liaising with Business Secretary Grant Shapps – the minister responsible for making the payments.

“I know it’s also very, very complicated,” he said.

“It would have been much easier had we had an assembly and executive up and running because they had the relationships. People received Covid payments very, very quickly because of the relationships that the executive had and the ministers had with different bodies. The UK Government does not have those relationships.”

Asked if householders would be currently in receipt of the payments if an executive was in place, Mr Heaton-Harris said: “Yeah, I am sure they would be.”

Households in Northern Ireland are due to be credited with a £400 payment automatically, to help with energy costs this winter as part of a UK-wide scheme.

In his autumn statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said all households in Northern Ireland would receive an additional £200 payment, in recognition of the region’s dependence on home heating oil.

While consumers in the rest of the UK have already begun to receive energy support payments, householders in Northern Ireland continue to wait.

People in Great Britain are receiving their payments in instalments, the last of which will be made in March.

Mr Heaton-Harris did not offer clarity on when the payments would be made in Northern Ireland other than to say they would be paid before the final instalments are paid in GB.

“The Secretary of State for Businesses is absolutely sure that everyone will get it and get it completely before the final payments are made across the United Kingdom,” he said.

Sinn Fein has repeatedly stated that had the Stormont institutions been in place, then the payments would have already been made.

But the DUP has disputed this and has blamed the Westminster government for holding up the support.

The region’s largest unionist party has highlighted that the UK government is taking the lead in making the payments in Scotland and Wales and has claimed the lack of executive in Northern Ireland should therefore not be a complicating factor.

Mr Heaton-Harris said the situation in Northern Ireland was different.

“The energy market is different in Northern Ireland to start with, there are very few (energy) companies,” he said.

“The method we would have used would have been through the executive, through the appropriate ministry. And that was all being built up in the run up to October 28. And then it stopped (when ministers left post).”

Mr Heaton-Harris said Stormont ministers, who had been operating on a shadow basis amid the power sharing impasse, could have done more to help to get the payments out before they were forced from post on October 28 under laws that dictate how Northern Ireland is governed in the absence of a functioning executive.

“There could have been people that could have helped a lot more back in the spring and in the summer when there were ministers in place,” he said.

“And I was pushing Gordon Lyons right up to the last minute to try and assist with some of the alternative fuel payments, where obviously there’s a relationship with Invest NI (business support agency), who got out Covid business payments and it would have been much easier to go through that route.

“So, I would gently push back saying we’re not playing politics here.

“We just want to get money to people and it’s been made more difficult without an executive.”