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Good morning John,

Thursday’s ruling by the Coroners Court against the SAS soldiers at Clonoe is a reminder that the campaign to rewrite history goes on.

Those IRA terrorists were killed at Clonoe because they were on a killing ‘operation’. Let’s get real. As my colleague Gregory Campbell said, “the IRA terrorists weren’t out shooting rabbits”. If the four terrorists had not been driving a lorry with a machine gun welded to it, armed to the teeth and just after shooting up a police station, they would likely have never met the SAS.

I told media on Thursday that the verdict beggars belief. We must defend the sterling service of those who stood against terrorism.

Earlier this week, the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, addressed an audience at Ulster University, calling for public service reform in Northern Ireland. While we fully support reform to ensure better outcomes for our people, his remarks ignored a crucial reality. Reform cannot succeed without the necessary financial support and a skilled civil service to implement it.

For too long, Northern Ireland has suffered from historic underfunding and underinvestment in key public services. The current model of delivering vital services - especially in health - is not working.

But when the Public Accounts Committee is currently reviewing the building overspends by the NI Civil Service of £2.45bn ([link removed]) it points to a lack of expertise to build big infrastructure or manage major projects. A key part of reform needs to be a better skilled civil service.

We want to transform care, improve outcomes, and build a system that serves people better. For years this has been talked about. However, to do it, we need more than just encouragement from Westminster - we need better people and better budgets.

The government seems to believe that the answer lies in revenue raising measures by the Executive. It is simply not right that the burden of fixing decades of neglect should fall solely on the people of Northern Ireland, many of whom struggle to match the financial demands on their household budgets already. This being the reality, we will not accept a situation where households here are expected to pay more to compensate for Westminster’s failure to provide fair funding over many years.

If we are to make the changes needed, we require a genuine partner in London. That means real backing to ensure that reform is not just about managing decline but about delivering world class public services.

It is time for the Government to rethink its approach.

We will continue to press this case at every level, seeking to deliver the best deal and best outcomes for Northern Ireland.

Yours sincerely,

Rt. Hon. Gavin Robinson MP
DUP Leader

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