Peter Weir
Strangford · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“Funding was secured for that scheme, and we have been able to take further steps on it. As highlighted by my colleague Diane Dodds, we have seen my successor, the current Minister, be able to implement it at the beginning of September 2021 and funding be made available for it.”
“One of the great fears — I saw it particularly, as Education Minister, from the point of view of children and the domestic setting between partners — was what was going to happen in families when the doors closed and the locks went on. What was happening behind closed doors?”
“There is another significant element of the Bill. I have spoken about it in the Chamber on a couple of occasions. There is always a slight danger that we, as legislators, see legislation as being the end of a process and think that we can pack it away, put it on the shelf and forget about the problem because it has been solved.”
“I welcome the passage of the Bill's Final Stage and commend all the campaigners who have pressed so hard for it and the Bill sponsor. For Pat Catney, hearing some of the tributes must be like hearing eulogies at your funeral, without having to go through the indignity of dying, which is always a double advantage.”
“As highlighted by a number of Members, the impact of period poverty, though not confined to it, has been particularly acute in young women's education. We know that the impact can lead to the missing of education and constraints within education, and that it does so in a disproportionate way.”
“I support the Bill's Final Stage, and I commend the Bill's sponsor for introducing it. I thank the Minister and the Department for the positive attitude that they have taken towards it.”
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“He brought his wealth of experience to the Chair when he took up the role of Speaker. <BR /> <BR />Mention has been made of the good humour that he brought to the role and the gravitas and the good order that he sought in the Chamber. At times, we have seen other institutions become bear gardens, and, given our past and the fractious nature of some of the issues that confront us, there was always going to be a danger of the Northern Ireland Assembly descending into one. William Hay has very much been the glue that has held us together to ensure that debates were held in good order. As was mentioned, that meant, from time to time, being tough on particular Members. Many of my colleagues behind me at times experienced frustration with the Speaker.”
“When a colleague of mine in North Down Borough Council stepped down, I described the occasion as being the closest he would ever get to being at his own funeral and hearing the tributes without actually being dead. There is a bit of an air to this and, to slightly misquote Shakespeare, I come to praise William Hay, not to bury him. <BR /> <BR />As others have mentioned, William came here with a wealth of experience. I cannot claim to have the same length of knowledge of him as either of the first two Members from our party who have spoken. I have known William since 1998 and served with him, first, as a Back-Bencher for nine years. His unique background has been mentioned. He is a Donegal Protestant whose political life, particularly as a councillor, was that of serving as a unionist in a city with a majority of nationalists.”
“I appreciate the response and the fact that there are constraints on budgets. Does the Minister have any suggestions as to how, either through her Department or arm's-length bodies, they can, at least, give some degree of assistance in kind to those events, which may not be a direct financial contribution, but can perhaps ease the burden in other ways?”
“Further to that, I appreciate that arrangements will then be made for a more formal occasion, but I think it appropriate simply to place on record, on behalf of my party and as someone who has served with the Speaker on the Business Committee and the Assembly Commission, my thanks to him for the role that he has performed. It is also appropriate that the House acknowledges its desire to see the Speaker — the soon to be former Speaker — recover and be in the most robust health as swiftly as possible.”
“I thank the Minister for his reply, although I was little bemused by some of the wording. I am not quite sure whether Jim Allister is going to be flung in jail later on today as a dissident unionist. We all welcome the efforts by all agencies to combat the criminal activities of dissident republicans. What assurance can the Minister give that the efforts brought to bear outside jail will be matched by the efforts in jail and, in particular, that dissident republicans will not get their way in the demands that they are making in the prison system?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Is there not a dangerous element of logic in that? If we are saying that we will take 3% of the cuts because that is our population base, the Government could turn around and say that we should get only 3% of the overall welfare budget, which would be an enormous cut in our figure. Surely you cannot have your cake and eat it in that regard.”
“I thank the Minister for his response. It is good that progress is being made and to see improvements in that field. How difficult would it be to recover from any slippage in the waiting times for those drugs?”
“— of simply moving into a united Ireland, getting rid of the £10 billion subvention and, indeed, pretending that that is not there, that is fantasy economics. The motion's wording, unfortunately, is effectively a stunt, and I urge Members to oppose the motion.”
“That is the particular reality that we need to face in the October monitoring round and as we move ahead into next year's Budget. As for the idea that was floated earlier today —”
“I think that where the position of Sinn Féin and, to some extent, the SDLP, is slightly ridiculous is that, yes, we can highlight some of the problems that have been there by way of welfare changes, and we can highlight the restrictions that are there because of the Budget that is given from the block grant, but the solutions to that are not simply closing our eyes or gritting our teeth against the Government in the hope that some great windfall will come our way with the Government saying that they will sign over whatever needs to happen. We do need to face up to the realities that the failure to deal with welfare, for instance, will increase the costs. It will have impacts, particularly on health, on the Budget, and we need a little bit of reality.”
“So, if the Member is being logically consistent, before this new Budget is even produced for 2011-15 — we are in the last six months of that period — he would have us agree a fresh Programme for Government at the same time. How exactly will we do that and then institute a new Budget for a four-year period, which is a few months away from running out? If, however, he has not read the motion correctly and is simply referring to a new Budget for 2015-16, there is not a Budget for 2015-16, so a new Budget will have to be agreed there anyway. Either it is asking the impossible or it is asking for something that will simply have to happen anyway. <BR /> <BR />I indicated that I agreed at least on that earlier point with Mr McKay, who, unfortunately, seems to be away from his position.”
“Absolutely. I shall show every Member of this House the very courtesy and respect that they all deserve, perhaps even a greater level of courtesy than that. <BR /> <BR />Whatever criticisms there are of government, the central thrust in this motion is that the four-year Budget is untenable and that we need a new Budget as part of that cycle. The reality, as has been indicated, is that, even if everybody in this House agreed on what needed to be done, we could not produce a Budget. Yet, the Member proposing this throws an additional obstacle in the way of that because he told us that the Budget should have been the third item in the process. We should have formed a government, agreed a Programme for Government and then agreed a Budget.”
“With respect, we are trying to get in there to fix that, whereas the Member seems to be simply —”
“I will give way in a moment. I look forward to an announcement, particularly from the Ulster Unionist Party, which tabled the motion, that it is so disgusted with this Government that they will today resign from government. I give way to the Member for Dundee West.”
“That seems to me an unlikely source of abiding anger at the Budget: you feel so strongly that you have to abstain. <BR /> <BR />Valid criticisms can be made of government in Northern Ireland. Those from the proposer of the motion — as well as those from the honourable Member for West Belfast across the Chamber, whose consistently expressed love of the SNP makes me wonder whether he wants to be the honourable Member for Dundee West — could hold a little bit more weight, and the motion an awful lot more water, if it were not for the fact that both their parties are members of that Government and may not be walking away from that Government. Today, both were highly critical of government. <BR /> <BR />If this is such a horrendous situation, I can look forward in the summing up of the debate to an announcement from either party —”
“<BR /> <BR />We all remember the days of the Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force (UCUNF). Indeed, the proposer of the motion should be particularly familiar with this because the UCUNF candidate in Strangford was one Michael Nesbitt. Yet, mysteriously, that appears to have been forgotten about. That side of it beggars belief. <BR /> <BR />There is also, as mentioned and dealt with by Sammy Wilson, a range of things that, supposedly, the Executive have failed to agree. They failed to agree on the Maze and on ESA — I have to say, the Ulster Unionists took the same position. We are left, supposedly, with a Budget that is broken. Like Frank Maguire in the 1979 vote of no confidence, the honourable Minister, on behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party, was there to make sure that he abstained in person.”
“I suppose that, like others, when I first read the motion, particularly the detail of it, I was somewhat befuddled. Indeed, it seems quite clear that that is a sentiment shared by its proposer, as he clearly seemed to contradict himself. <BR /> <BR />At times, I do not find myself, as was shown on the radio even this morning, very much in agreement with Daithí McKay. I do agree with him on at least one point, which is that one of the financial constraints that we operate under is the wider position taken by the Government centrally at Westminster. Therefore, I find the motion astonishing, given the fact that the Conservative Party, which is the main part of this Government, was in alliance with the Ulster Unionist Party at the last general election, with this as its manifesto pledge.”
“Is a more appropriate analogy Private Pike? Is the Member being a stupid boy?”
“I thank the Minister for that response. One concern that is often raised by residents, not just in this case, but in the wider context of where action is being taken that could potentially damage the environment, is that, by the time the Department has been notified and is in a position to take action, developers, or whoever, feel as if they have a window of opportunity to cause whatever destruction they want before there is any intervention. What assurances can the Minister give that the NIEA or, indeed, any other organisation can act fairly much instantaneously to prevent destruction, so that those looking to create that destruction could be stopped without there being any particular delay in the situation?”
“The Minister will be relieved that I am not asking anything on planning or local government, although, as he shakes his head, I am tempted to do so.”
“— but there is not a prospect of the House rejecting the report, because it was a predetermined outcome from day one.”
“You specifically mentioned Gregory Campbell. He was never even the Minister for Social Development. He was in DRD. You cannot have it both ways in that regard. <BR /> <BR />This is a clear witch-hunt; it is a farce. Yes, the Assembly is on trial, but it is on trial because of the pantomime of a motion, which seems to be act one in a series of pantomimes that some of the parties opposite are bringing. Consequently, I am very happy to stand beside the Minister today and say that the House should reject the report —”
“No, in case there has been a lack of understanding, I was referring to the SDLP Ministers who, in the previous Assembly, presided over a farrago of mismanagement of the Housing Executive, which this Minister is trying to clear up, not for the benefit of himself but for that of social housing tenants, time and time again. This Minister should be commended for that. Indeed, it is noticeable that the Member opposite is accusing with her usual level of accuracy. She accuses Gregory Campbell of being the guilty man.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Member who spoke previously said that the honourable thing to do for Ministers who are mucking up is to resign or to throw themselves on their sword. If there is culpability, the current Minister's predecessors in the SDLP should have resigned a long time ago, as they presided over millions of pounds worth of mistakes that were made in contracts. A blind eye was turned, and, clearly, there was a lack of drilling down into the details of the Housing Executive on that basis.”
“Surely if we are to get the best possible delivery for all those people, which is something that I would have thought, tacitly, we should all acknowledge, we need to ensure that we get the best possible bang for our buck from public expenditure. That was the appropriate response taken by the Minister when he heard of the prospect of many millions of pounds of savings being made from the way in which the windows were installed. Indeed, the public would get a better and more cost-effective service. Every penny that is saved in one sphere of social housing can ensure that more people benefit from social housing. However, that is not the priority for Members; rather, it is to don the black cap and carry out the witch-hunt against the Minister.”
“Kneecapped, indeed. One would have been almost happy at the level of kneecapping, but that would not have satisfied the blood thirst that there is in the Chamber towards the Minister. <BR /> <BR />Indeed, when you look at what happened, there is a phrase that is quite often used in any case, which is: "Who benefits?" If you are looking for a motive, you ask: "Who benefits?" From that point of view, there was no personal financial gain for the Minister, and, from the meeting, there was no financial gain for Turkington's, which did not receive a single penny as a result of this. Those who did benefit were the public and the purse of Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />Mention has been made in my constituency, as it has been in others, of the need for greater provision of social housing and better provision, particularly for those most deprived.”
“Indeed, it seems to me that Mr Allister is relishing that; he, at least, is not backing off from that earlier assumption. One wonders, therefore, what level of open mind was brought to this report. Indeed, it is clear that there was no open mind whatsoever. There was a predetermined outcome that the Minister, because politically he does not suit other parties in the Chamber, was to be strung up and foisted on the scrapheap of political life.”
“I use the phrase of Mr Hussey, the last member of the Ulster Unionist Party to speak, who said that the Minister should have faced up to "the inevitable verdict". <BR /> <BR />That is a very interesting phrase: an inevitable verdict is one that is predetermined, and that goes to the heart of this report. My colleague Mr Wilson, in opening for my party, indicated a string of quotations from various members of the Committee, who seem to have passed sentence beforehand. Indeed, you might as well have walked into a courtroom, in days gone by, to see a row of judges, each wearing the black cap, before the trial had even started. If not a judicial execution, we are certainly seeing an attempt at political execution before we even reach day one of this report. <BR /> <BR />Various parties have indicated that the Minister should resign.”
“If we are concerned about the people who do not vote, certainly on the basis of the last European elections, it is the party of the Member opposite in particular that they were not voting for. That party got its lowest ever vote on that basis. <BR /> <BR />Like the Member who spoke last, I am not a member of the Social Development Committee, so I just want to make a few general comments. I agree with the Member on one thing. He is right when he says that this goes beyond the issue of the Minister and towards the credibility of the Assembly. However, the credibility of the Assembly is ill served when, to use his image, we have a pantomime of a report brought by a Committee that operated with a predetermined outcome.”
“It is difficult to follow such ringing sincerity from across the Chamber.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. BMAP is very cross-cutting; indeed the Minister, in his statement and answers to questions, has made reference to transport, employment, economic development and housing issues, all of which touch upon a range of Departments. What legal advice did the Minister seek before going ahead with this without the approval of the Executive? Will he make that legal advice available to the House?”