Jim Wells
South Down · Democratic Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In November 1982, I made my maiden speech in the Chamber, and, here we are, 40 years later, and I am making my last speech in the Chamber as a DUP MLA. I was the last person in the Public Gallery when the Assembly collapsed in 1976.”
“<BR /> <BR />Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence and for your patience with me over many years. Unfortunately, Mr McGlone has just left the Chamber; I was about to thank him. I have enjoyed my 27 and a half years in this Building.”
“I wish that I could, but I have only five minutes. <BR /> <BR />That was so that a very small number of Irish language zealots could go in and register their marriage or civil partnership in Irish or in dual language: £261,000. Did anybody stop to think about whether there was a more cost-effective way of doing that?”
“We are all perfectly happy with a genuine expression of people's culture. That is fine. However, when the language is so cynically used by militant republicanism, unionism has difficulties. Why, for instance, is there no translation into Irish of the words, "United Kingdom", "Londonderry", "Northern Ireland" or "Her Majesty The Queen"?”
“The Member has made the point for me. The official who came to the Committee made it absolutely clear that £261,000 had been spent already. It was farcical to bring that before either the Finance Committee or the Assembly, because the money had been spent and the processes had been set up.”
“If they want the unionist community to accept the Irish language as a genuine cultural expression, they should get rid of the political baggage and extremism, and stop using the Irish language as a political weapon to try to subjugate unionism.”
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“If there is the slightest doubt in my mind that a judge could rule on a Minister doing a solo run, my advice to the House is to pull back quickly, because we could be going over this cliff and into a situation from which we can never recover. We are not giving the junior Minister, Mr Lyons, a ladder to climb down on. We are not asking him to eat humble pie and to seek forgiveness, we are just saying, "Give us a bit more time on this. Give us the two or three months that we all need". <BR /> <BR />Mr Beattie is right: I slept in on this. I am the first to accept that until I read the critiques of the Bill, I was not aware of its implications. I sat meekly and allowed expedited passage to go through.”
“Does he accept from me that, once we go past tomorrow, it does not matter how much confusion or vagueness there is? It is a done deal. It will get the Queen's assent, and we will be stuck with the implications of the Bill. If it turns out, as I and others expect, that it allows Ministers from that side of the House to go on solo runs on projects that would never have the support of my community, those who march through the Lobbies today in support of it will have a difficult question to answer to their electorate. That is the point that I am making. <BR /> <BR />To go back to the earlier point, it does not matter what Mr Bullick, Mr Stalford, Mr Allister or anybody thinks. The question is how will a judge interpret the powers of Ministers if this is sent to a judicial review.”
“I accept that. What I can say is that, as Mr Stalford admitted, there is confusion, debate and a lack of clarity on the implications of the Bill.”
“It does not matter what Mr Bullick thinks or what well-educated people like Mr Stalford or Mr Lyons think; it is what a judge will think when he — or she; I am glad to say — is ruling or what he or she will make of it when the issue is challenged.”
“They have all looked at it with a forensic legal mind and have all come back to say, "Hold on, here. There is something amiss". <BR /> <BR />Remember this: if the Bill becomes legislation, we will be stuck with it for ever. There will be no turning back. After tomorrow, we will have it for the rest of our political careers. One thing is certain: those who have stood up this afternoon with such great enthusiasm and read the scripts that their spads have given them and said that they are in support of it will never allow it to be amended or changed. We are going over a cliff, and there is no way back. <BR /> <BR />There is a point that has not been raised.”
“Mr Allister QC, who, unfortunately, cannot be with us today, raised very valid concerns about it, and I noted that a former leading Member for South Belfast was in the newspapers at the end of last week raising his concerns. Many people have said, "Hold on a minute. This legislation is not all that it seems". <BR /> <BR />What are we asking for? Are we asking for the Bill to be ditched? No. Are we asking for it to be shredded? No. What we are asking for is what, I know, many DUP Back-Benchers want to happen. Many of them want it set aside for a few weeks to allow for an in-depth analysis of the critiques of the Bill that have been made by people who are much better educated than I am and even better educated than Mr Stalford, which is saying something.”
“They were well-thought-out, well-argued pieces in a leading local newspaper, the 'News Letter'. He went through the Bill forensically and line by line and made what, I thought, was a very well-argued case that the Bill should be put on hold temporarily. He also raised the point that, in his opinion, the idea that three Ministers in the Executive can stop anything is a fallacy; it does not exist. He made that argument. The response from the First Minister was, "Well, we are going ahead anyhow". She did not deal with his concerns. Then, there were the comments from Tughans solicitors, who also raised important points about it.”
“<BR /> <BR />I in the Speaker's Chair last Tuesday, and my duties required me to be totally impartial, I was asked to inform Members that amendments to this crucial legislation had to be in by 9:30 the following morning. That is a very unusual procedure. At least Mr Beattie was wide awake and was able to dash to the Business Office and table his amendments. You do not give less than 24 hours' notice for this type of legislation. The question that I have to ask is this: why the rush? Why is the debate being held at the very end of an Assembly term? Is there an attempt to push it quietly through without public scrutiny? <BR /> <BR />In the middle of all that, Mr Bullick made his comments. They were not Twitter messages, Mr Stalford; they were not.”
“<BR /> <BR />There is one, however, and I have received many emails from people from west Tyrone, many of whom would vote for Mr McGrath's party, who are deeply concerned that the legislation will be used to force through the Dalradian Gold mining application. There is huge opposition to that in west Tyrone. I understand that it has been referred to a public inquiry, but, after that reports, it will still be the Minister's decision whether it will go ahead. Many people in west Tyrone are concerned about that and concerned that the Bill has suddenly emerged out of nowhere. There have been 24 days between the publication of the Bill and today's debate. That is insufficient time to deal with such controversial legislation.”
“I asked Mr Stalford, "Why the rush?", and he said, "Because we adopted emergency procedures". That is not the answer. Why did you adopt the emergency procedures? Why did you have to rush this through? The Chairman of the OFMDFM Committee said that it is important that we get major planning applications processed as quickly as possible. Will any of those applications be processed between now and October? Absolutely not, for various reasons. First of all, try getting a planner on the phone at the moment during coronavirus. Try getting anything decided at the moment with coronavirus. There is no huge stack of applications waiting to be processed.”
“I have listened with interest to the comments made by Mr Stalford, and, no doubt, Mr Lyons will read from a script given to him by an adviser. I know that there is deep concern on the DUP Back Benches about the Bill. I am aware of the concerns of many, but I am also aware of the system and how it works. Those who think outside the box and those who have concerns will be brought in and educated, and they will be drilled, frogmarched or stampeded through the Lobbies to vote for something that, they know, in their heart of hearts they cannot support. <BR /> <BR />No one has told me why we are in this position. It is 27 July, and the Buick judgement has been with us for a long period. There was ample opportunity to address the issue, and it was not taken. The legislation was expedited through the Chamber.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Maybe it has not been made clear that there is no time limit when one is dealing with legislation.”
“Thank you for that very generous offer. <BR /> <BR />What Mr Beattie proposes does not stop those projects going ahead. It does not stop major infrastructure being implemented. What it does is that it closes a loophole that could lead to solo runs on many more significant issues.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I know that he is about to finish the text that he was given to read to the Assembly today by one of the special advisers. What he has not addressed, as he comes to the conclusion of his remarks, is why we have to make a final decision on this today and tomorrow. Why, given the doubt that he accepts exists, can we not set aside a bit of time for cool reflection and come back to this in October? If I am wrong and Mr Beattie is wrong, we will say so when we have had an opportunity to consider the Member's views, the legal opinion that he has received, which, of course, we will not see because it is private to the Executive, and the views of all others who are concerned. Why the haste? The Member has not given a reason why, on 27 July, we have to rush this through.”
“I think that that is what the aim would always be.”
“I would never want that. I am sure that nobody who has worked with Richard Bullick would say anything against his professional advice or legal integrity, but he has made the crucial comment. He has told the House that there is conflicting legal advice. Is the Member prepared to accept Back-Benchers being whipped to vote for something when there is that confusion, given the important of the issues involved? He still has not answered my question: why do we need to make a final decision on this today? Why can we not reflect on that conflicting advice and come back in October?”
“If there is any degree of doubt, surely the sensible thing to do — he has not addressed this issue — is to park this for several months. Where is the rush?”
“First of all, it was an in-depth article in a leading newspaper, which was then followed up by another in-depth article in a leading newspaper. The question is not the fact that it appeared on Twitter; it is the name of the person whose account it appeared on. Does the Member accept that Richard Bullick was absolutely instrumental in the St Andrews Agreement discussions? He was a leading adviser to the DUP for something like 17 years. He has one of the finest legal minds in Northern Ireland. Also, it was not just his legal opinion; Tughans solicitors also have grave concerns about this. All I think any reasonable person is saying is that there is a degree of doubt about this. Even the Member has seemed to indicate that he has some doubt.”
“If there is doubt, and there clearly is, between those who think that this will stop solo runs and those who think that it will facilitate them, the obvious thing to do is to postpone the Further Consideration Stage of the Bill to allow us all time to sit down with the conflicting legal advice to come to a conclusion. It is not to try to railroad through something as important as this at the end of an Assembly term and with 24 hours' notice to table amendments.”
“Mr Storey raises a valid point. There is a conflicting legal advice on this, but the crucial legal advice comes from one of the architects of the St Andrews Agreement: Richard Bullick.”
“You have raised a valid point, and it is incumbent on other Members — the ruthlessly whipped Members — to explain why there is a rush.”
“The reason that Back-Benchers are rolling their eyes this afternoon is not that they cannot understand your speech or do not agree with it; it is because they have been whipped to within an inch of their life to vote for something that many of them are extremely unhappy with but have been told they have to vote for. <BR /> <BR />Does the Member agree that nowhere in the debate has there been the slightest justification for the rush? Nowhere have we been told that this must be agreed at the fag end of an Assembly term. No one has explained why it cannot wait until October to allow greater scrutiny, and no one has explained why I had to sit in the Chair last Tuesday as Temporary Speaker and advise Members that they had less than 24 hours to submit amendments. No one has explained any of that.”
“Former DUP men do not need loudspeakers, Mr Deputy Speaker; I assure you”
“The Member has made a very important point. I assure you that many Members in here do not have glazed eyes because they are bored with what you are saying —.”
“First of all we did not have a poor panel, we had a dreadful panel. Secondly, as Mr Lunn quite rightly said, attempts were made by Commission members and individual MLAs to try to influence the decision made by the independent panel, but the panel totally ignored them. If we go down the route that the Member is suggesting exactly the same could happen again. The panel could say, "we are independent, we have a right to make a decision and, frankly, we are going to ignore what you say".”
“Would the honourable Member also say that one of the errors of the determination is that we cannot pay staff travel allowance as they carry out their functions, for instance for attending a planning appeal or a social security tribunal? We are forbidden from claiming for and paying them a small mileage rate for attendance at those events.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the extra minute. Clearly, the panel, when they made that determination, got it wrong, but have they ever had the honesty to go on 'Talkback' or 'The Nolan Show' etc and actually admit that they got it wrong? That is why I have lost all respect for that determination. <BR /> <BR />What we are doing here is not feathering our own nests, but looking after the people who have had to deal with the abuse and the irate constituents who have come in to complain. Many of those staff have drifted off, saying, "If that is how we are going to be treated by the legislators of Northern Ireland, we are no longer interested in working for them". Those are the people who count. I believe that we, as MLAs, must stand by them even if that is unpopular with the public.”
“We have the obscenity where Members cannot share offices because of the punitive controls that are placed upon them for doing so. They have got it completely wrong.”
“Every penny that we spend, in our office cost allowance, will be published and scrutinised by the press. A few years ago, a local newspaper contacted me and asked, "Mr Wells, how can you justify spending £1.50 a week on a local newspaper?" I said, "That is your newspaper." He said, "That is a very good use of taxpayers' money." The point is that that is how minute the available detail is at the moment. <BR /> <BR />We have learnt our lessons. There is no problem, for instance, with the Commission setting a limit on the amount of rent that can be paid. However, we have the obscenity, at the moment, whereby MLAs have to forcibly go to their landlords and plead with them to increase their rents, so that they can recoup the rates that are payable, because they are tied to the level of rents.”
“Unlike the honourable Member for North Antrim, I have no confidence whatsoever that another panel can deal with this situation. We are not, and I repeat not — I hope that the public and the BBC get this, because the reporting of it has been far from accurate, in my opinion — asking for a pay rise, and we should not. We are not asking for a change in our pensions. We are asking for fundamental fair treatment of our staff, none of whom have had a pay rise for five years. They have had their pensions slashed and basic rights undermined, and there is nothing we can do about it. That is the difficulty. <BR /> <BR />I have to say that Mr Allister was very eloquent. He raised some points about the appalling abuses of the past, and I agree with him. However, he should remember that there is a fundamental difference between now and 2011.”
“Their argument was that an email address could read something like, "jim_wells_themostwonderfulmlasincetimebegan.com". They said that it could be abused. Why could they not accept that, if we all had our Assembly ".gov.uk" email addresses on our signs, it would have avoided that? However, again, they defended the indefensible. <BR /> <BR />We had a situation in North Down where a young lady, who went off on maternity leave, was forced to return, as a result of the determination, because of the change in the regulations, which are much less favourable to fathers and mothers. It goes on and on. Indeed, there is a case at the moment where an MLA is facing a £20,000 fine for something so minor that most employers would have shrugged their shoulders and forgotten about it. <BR /> <BR />We have so many issues where they have got it wrong.”
“We had a situation where a very experienced and respected Member of the Assembly was fined almost £10,000 out of his pension because he had the temerity to put his phone number on his sign. <BR /> <BR />How dare we put our phone number on our signs so that our constituents, particularly during lockdown, can come and find out how to contact us? Would there be a major democratic deficit, would a tragedy occur, if our constituents could find out our phone numbers? What did the two spokes-gentlemen do, when they were asked about this mistake? They defended it when they knew it was wrong. Then they told us we could not have our email address on our office signs because, obviously, that would bring democracy crashing around our ankles.”
“I contribute to the debate as one who has been around the Building for a very long time. I served on the Assembly Commission for 14 years. I have been an Assembly Member's pension scheme trustee for 16 years. I have served on the Audit Committee, and I have been a Member of the House for 26 years. There are people in the Chamber who were not even born when I was first elected to the Assembly. Therefore, I speak with some experience. <BR /> <BR />In our wisdom, we appointed an independent review panel, and there were two individuals on that panel who had absolutely no time for public representatives, and it showed in their determination. Where they lost my respect in totality was when they had clearly botched the report and made major errors, they did not admit it but tried to defend the indefensible.”
“Thank you to Miss Woods and everyone who has kept to time. We are extremely grateful that the Minister, in a very busy schedule, has been able to sit through all of the debate. Mr Swann, you have 15 minutes.”
“It is accepted, Minister, that the beef and dairy sector are all-powerful within the farming lobby and the quickest to catch the Minister's ear. I draw his attention to the plight of the potato sector. Lots of the produce has been sold as animal feed, rather than to restaurants and supermarkets. Will he bear in mind the need of that sector when he comes to allocating his very welcome £25 million funding?”
“On a point of order, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker. I am raising this at this stage, because the next subject that we are debating is extremely serious. You exercise enormous power in this Building, so can you explain why, given that this is the highest temperature that has been recorded in June in Northern Ireland for 40 years, the heat is on in this Building at the moment? We are about to enter into a heated debate, and it is going to be a long night. Why, oh why, are the radiators on in this Building on the hottest day of the year?”
“Since going public on this issue in the 'Belfast Telegraph', I have received many calls from throughout Northern Ireland. I can tell the honourable Members that the news that will come through from nursing homes will be very difficult to accept and very painful for society. The battle lines in the fight against COVID-19 have moved from our hospitals, which have done tremendously well and deserve our praise, to the nursing homes. How can the Executive make the strategic decision that they need to make, which is to pour resources into our nursing homes, when we do not have the current figures, which are so essential in making such decisions?”
“Many of us welcome the very positive tone from the contributions here today. I think that we are all with you in the very difficult task that you face, but there is always a "but". The "but" is care homes, and I speak as someone with a direct knowledge of what is going on. Why are we not in a position to have up-to-date information as to the number of people in care homes who are affected by the COVID virus; the number of people who have had to go to hospital; and the number of people who have died? Why has that up-to-date information not been given to us daily?”
“<BR /> <BR />My intervention is entirely not in order, but I am glad that it has given me the opportunity to pay tribute to someone whom I regarded as a great friend.”
“I had not indicated that I wished to speak in the debate, but I was one of the Members who entered the Assembly in 1998 with John Dallat. It is appropriate that the Member is speaking now, because I want to pay tribute to John. <BR /> <BR />John and I sat together on many Committees in the Assembly, including his favourite, the Public Accounts Committee. He was the scourge of government overspending. He made an enormous contribution to the House over 22 years and will be missed greatly as one of the very few Members, including me, who arrived in 1998. Many of us would like to be in Kilrea to pay our respects. We will not have that opportunity, which is very sad. I certainly would have been there had I been allowed to do so.”
“Will the Member deal with an issue that, perhaps, has not been raised? I was one who benefited from it, as did several other former DUP Ministers. It is that, when a report was brought from the Standards and Privileges Committee admonishing an MLA or a Minister — well, it had to be an MLA — for his behaviour, a petition of concern was tabled immediately before the debate. That meant, of course, that it required cross-community support. Is there anything in the Member's Bill that would prevent that happening or would that require an amendment?”
“I am looking forward to it, and it is quite clear that the vast majority of Members here tonight are in favour. As we know, a petition of concern cannot be used to block the Second Reading of this Bill. I suspect that, even if Sinn Féin had wanted to do that, it could not find a second party prepared to sign to get the 30 signatures. We will now go into the scrutiny of this Bill. I hope it comes out of that scrutiny largely unamended, because after talking to many Members privately, I know that they think this is an excellent piece of legislation that is well thought through. I wish it all the best.”
“Me lambasting Mr O'Dowd will look very well in next week's 'Mourne Observer'. That is where the vast majority of the material in this Chamber ends up: in the local newspaper, and certainly he is a figure that is not particularly loved in some parts of Kilkeel and Rathfriland. I am disappointed that Mr O'Dowd, who is normally very verbose, long-winded and articulate, has not taken the opportunity to explain — and neither have his Committee members — what is going on. I think he is against it because Mr Howell and Mr Padraic Wilson have told him that he is against it. I would not be surprised if they had actually written his short missive here this evening. <BR /> <BR />I wish this Bill well. I happen to be on the Committee that is dealing with this particular issue.”
“Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, I certainly got away with more than I expected there.”
“RHI was the excuse rather than the reason for Sinn Féin after that famous meeting in the Felons Club, where it was made very clear that the DUP was running rings around the Front Bench of Sinn Féin, and therefore it had to get out. RHI suddenly came along, and Sinn Féin used that as the excuse to get out; it is as simple as that.”
“We are beneath estate agents, solicitors and bookies. You name it, we are beneath it, and deservedly so if you read the RHI inquiry report, which certainly did not paint us in a good light. <BR /> <BR />We have an opportunity. We have two years, because do we dare to go before the electorate in 2022 having not put our house in order? People ask whether the RHI inquiry was worth £7 million. It shone a light into so many aspects of where we have got this wrong.”
“<BR /> <BR />There are Bills, documents and consultations lying in the Executive that will get absolutely nowhere because either one party or the other is using its veto, through its three Ministers, to ensure that that is what happens. He knows that that is what would have happened had this Bill been sponsored by the Executive. In my opinion, he is too clever by half. I believe that, with amendment — and not very much amendment — this Bill will start us on the road to recovery so that people will start to have confidence in this institution. <BR /> <BR />At the minute, we are held in the same high esteem as drug dealers and armed gangsters — and no doubt that will stimulate a writ from armed gangsters saying that to compare them to MLAs is impugning their integrity. There is absolutely no doubt: we are the lowest of the low.”
“I do not think that he has mellowed; it would be an insult to say that Mr Allister could ever mellow. I was with the Finance Committee, so I did not hear what he said to the Executive Office Committee, but he understood when reasonable points were made. <BR /> <BR />It is just unfortunate that Mr O'Dowd has stood up here tonight to represent 27 MLAs. In a very brief statement, he said, "We're against it". They are against it because the Executive did not propose it. He is a veteran of this place — he has been around here since the Boer Wars — and he knows that the reason why that would not work is that his three Ministers on the Executive could veto the Bill, meaning that it would never get out of the Executive. He knows that, and that is the very clever plan that he had to kill it stone dead.”
“That ridiculous situation would happen daily. <BR /> <BR />I am glad that Mr Allister has taken that on board and indicated that he is prepared to amend the legislation. He was a paragon of moderation and sense in the Committee. Any time an issue was brought up, he said, "Yes, I would be prepared to accept an amendment on that". There is a lot of reasonableness here.”
“Therefore, there was a filtering mechanism to ensure that that did not happen, and we will probably need that with this legislation. Without it, I would be fearful that, instead of being deluged with complaints about Jim Wells, the commissioner would be deluged with complaints about various Ministers, particularly those who have to make the really difficult decisions, namely the Health Minister and the Education Minister. Other Departments generally get away scot-free from numerous complaints. <BR /> <BR />For instance, if Robin Swann made the decision to remove an essential service from a rural hospital because he could not get clinicians to carry out the role, there would be 20,000 on the streets, demands for his head and, inevitably, people who, using this legislation, would make a formal complaint.”