“Peddling fatuous nonsense” – Allister calls out SoS on delayed £600 energy payment

North Antrim TUV MLA Jim Alllister has accused the Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris of "peddling fatuous nonsense" over the delayed £600 payment due to cash-strapped households facing the cost-of-living crisis across Northern Ireland.

In recent weeks arrangements have been made for the payment to be delivered to households in all other regions of the UK, but Westminister has pointed to the lack of a functioning devolved Executive as the reason for the delay in the money being administered locally.

In a statement on Monday morning, December 12th, TUV leader Jim Allister said:

“Not for the first time the NIO is callously playing politics to try and coerce unionists - something they never dared try with republicans during the 3 years of the Sinn Fein boycott of Stormont. This time it is over the long promised £600 energy payment.

“When the Secretary of State says the lack of an assembly and executive is holding up the distribution of this Westminster package he is peddling fatuous nonsense. We still have precisely the same departments, fully manned by civil servants, as delivered the Covid payments. It was LPS and others who worked up the Covid delivery. They still fully exist.

“Sadly, the NIO is shamelessly politicking and trying to force Unionist politicians into submission on the Union-dismantling Protocol. It must not happen.

“Meanwhile, the same Secretary of State on whose instructions last week in the Supreme Court it was accepted the Protocol has ‘disapplied’ Art 6 of the Acts of Union - a key cornerstone of the Union - seems to have come to the EU view that it is the mere ‘functioning’ of the Protocol that is at issue. It is not. 

“It is the very existence of a Protocol which is premised on GB being a foreign country whose goods must be checked and subjected to EU tariffs at an Irish Sea border before being admitted to Northern Ireland. This and our subjection to the laws of a foreign legislature are the sovereignty issues which must be addressed if our integral place in the U.K. is to be restored and if Stormont is ever to return.”