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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“Whilst publicly we may have condemned him as wrecking the education system of my constituency, privately there were people saying that that was the right decision. <BR /> <BR />The difficulty with those sorts of decisions is that the malcontents who do not accept the decision might simply refer the Minister to the Commissioner for Standards. Therefore, I agree with Mr Allister that there has to be some filtering mechanism to ensure that vexatious or false accusations are not permitted. Under the old equality legislation, there was a filtering mechanism. There were people alleging religious discrimination even though they were Protestants, the employer was a Protestant and everyone who was interviewed was a Protestant, so there could not have been.”
“I think that I hold the record in the Chamber for the largest number of referrals to standards and privileges, all of which failed and failed miserably. Some failed at the Committee and others failed because my then party had the good sense to put down a petition of concern to protect my integrity. None of them have ever stuck to me. <BR /> <BR />Mr O'Dowd, I am sure, would remember that, during his time as Education Minister, he had to make some terribly difficult, wisdom-of-Solomon decisions that were not popular in certain constituencies. He had to, quite rightly, amalgamate some schools in South Down. That had to be done because numbers were decreasing and there was no other option.”
“I raised with Mr Allister the one concern I had. He gave evidence to the Finance Committee. We tried to pick holes in his argument — I hope that they are all hearing me now, by the way — but he was able to answer them all. There will be people in the Chamber who oppose the Bill, not because it does not have considerable merit but because it is sponsored by Jim Allister. There are people in this room who, if Jim Allister argued that swans were white and crows were black, would put down an amendment to say that was untrue because it was him. Simply because Mr Allister is sponsoring the Bill does not mean that it is without considerable merit. <BR /> <BR />I raised with him the issue that I have concerns about.”
“More importantly, did they realise that, if they had been discovered and the case went to court, the full antiseptic of sunshine and publicity would shine on their acts and that they would have to defend themselves in open court? That would have acted as a deterrent even if they were not convicted. It will be an interesting argument when we come back for Consideration Stage whether a custodial sentence is commensurate with the crime. I can see arguments on both sides, but such were the consequences of the actions of spads from various parties, so serious was the way in which they were acting, and so serious were the implications for this society and Northern Ireland that I believe that a custodial sentence is correct.”
“It was grotesque for those two individuals to sit and sympathise with the permanent secretary when they knew that they were entirely responsible for the leaking of that material. Moreover, I notice that they did not pay the correct postage, which, I suppose, is a level of incompetence. <BR /> <BR />In any other organisation anywhere in private industry, would those responsible for such acts be allowed to continue in employment? Absolutely not. It is those sorts of activities that have undermined, fundamentally, public confidence in the spad system. <BR /> <BR />Members have asked whether there would have been any difference had Mr Allister's Bill been on the statute books. I would have thought that if those individuals had known that, were they discovered, they could face a custodial sentence, they might have acted rather differently.”
“If I had discovered that any special adviser had been complicit in trying to undermine the permanent secretary, I would have expected that spad, or "sped", to resign immediately. <BR /> <BR />You had the grotesque situation, which was mentioned not so much in the report as it was in the evidence, of the permanent secretary of one of the most important Departments in the Government of Northern Ireland rushing into the office panicking because the 'News Letter', through Sam McBride, had obtained leaked information. He was telling the Minister and the special adviser of his angst and of how concerned he was, because there was the potential to name civil servants in follow-up articles, which happened.”
“Many's the time we had discussions, and he was able to direct me on to perhaps a different path as Chair of the Committee, because I was able to understand where he was coming from as permanent secretary, and there were times that we disagreed. At any stage in my career as a Minister, had I deliberately attempted to undermine my permanent secretary by leaking information to the media that was clearly meant to deflect blame for a particular policy away from me towards him or other civil servants, and that had become public, I would have resigned on the spot. You simply cannot undermine the relationship between the permanent secretary and the Minister in that way and have any credibility.”
“That is good to know. <BR /> <BR />We have also noticed from the RHI inquiry that, apart from the mythical example that I used and the actual example of what was going on in Connolly House, the behaviour of some of spads is something that totally undermined public confidence in the whole system. <BR /> <BR />I know Andrew McCormick very well. Andrew McCormick was the permanent secretary in the Department of Health when I was Chairman of the Health Committee. We worked well together. I found him to be a totally honest, principled, hard-working and decent man, and I certainly trusted every piece of advice that I got from him.”
“I noticed that the honourable Member for Upper Bann did not answer the question of whether, on Thursday night, the "speds", or spads — Mr Howell and Mr Pádraic Wilson — had any input into the complete reversal/volte-face/U-turn that happened on the very serious issue of the coronavirus.”
“Was he complicit in going with a begging bowl to Connolly House, and saying, "Please, Mr Howell, please, Mr Wilson, is it all right if I make this decision on this school?". Was that regularly happening? <BR /> <BR />That structure came in after Mr Allister's Act in 2013 because he stopped Sinn Féin employing people who were clearly undesirable as spads. It was brought in to circumvent that legislation; effectively, Connolly House had two super-spads who made all the decisions. I notice that he is not very quick to come to his feet say whether those spads were making decisions for him in his role as Education Minister. Were they?”
“On Thursday night, the Executive made an important decision about coronavirus. Everybody, including his Ministers, agreed to that policy, which was directed by Michael McBride, the Chief Medical Officer. Were Mr Howell and Mr Wilson consulted on that policy? Did they instruct the Sinn Féin Ministers on the Executive to change their view very rapidly by Friday morning? <BR /> <BR />Mr O'Dowd was Education Minister for many years. He was certainly a more acceptable Education Minister than his predecessor, but that would not be hard. Did he, during his time as Education Minister, refer any decisions up to the super-spads in Connolly House? What if there were an inquiry today on his actions as Education Minister? He is shy and retiring as well.”
“That certainly brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "the enforcer". I have to ask: why could no decision be made by the shy, retiring then-Finance Minister, Mr Máirtín Ó Muilleoir? Why could he not make any decision without getting Mr Wilson and Mr Howell on board? That indicates to me that they had a level of power. You criticise other parties — I was using only a mythical example of another party — for having a super-spad, when you had two. At least the spads in the other parties were accountable to the code of conduct.”
“Yes, I certainly will. Unlike you, Mr O'Dowd, I will give way.”
“<BR /> <BR />On the other side, in another mythical Department, we had a situation where very powerful, highly paid spads — no doubt "speds" as well — were liaising between Back-Benchers and the Ministers. However, there was a further step: every decision, as was confirmed by the RHI report but which Mr O'Dowd is very shy about explaining to us, had to be referred up to Connolly House, where Mr Howell and Mr Pádraic Wilson had to give the OK. Those "speds" — of course, they were super-spads because they had control over all the spads in Mr O'Dowd's party — were not accountable to anybody. We all remember —”
“I certainly will not be naming them. I do not want to reveal anything. <BR /> <BR />The "sped" could exercise power and would often arrive at a timorous, fearful Back-Bencher saying that he had the power of his Minister behind him. That did not happen in just one Department. As an obscure Back-Bencher from South Down, I certainly received many visits from "speds", who made it very clear to me that they were not coming within their own right but that they were coming to enforce the view of their Minister. I never knew whether the Minister knew anything about their visits — I do not know — but that certainly gave them a power that was well beyond their position. That should never have happened. A spad should never have been a "sped", but we allowed a situation to develop where they could do exactly that.”
“Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, that is the first time in my life that somebody has said that they are having difficulty picking me up. They might not have agreed with a single word that I said, but they certainly heard me, so there is always a first. <BR /> <BR />As I say, we are continuing with this mythical situation of a spad and a "sped", both of whom are on higher salaries than many of the Ministers in the Executive. One of them exercises the proper spad role and is universally liked in the Assembly, and then we have the "sped" who exercises an enforcement role. In fact, the "sped" exercises a role that is a mixture of chief executive, special adviser and Chief Whip.”
“However, he regards his role as the enforcer — the "sped" — and he exercises power that has never been seen in a western democracy before. Certainly, even Dominic Cummings — we have heard about the power that he exercises in 10 Downing Street — would be envious.”
“There are special advisers, and there are special enforcers. That is a problem that we had for many, many years. I have experience of spads and "speds". At this stage in the debate, it would be totally improper for me to name any individual who cannot be here to defend themselves. Let us take a mythical Department that has a spad and a "sped" who are both earning £92,000 a year. One is a solicitor — very able, very intelligent, very helpful — who certainly does not see it as his role to enforce anything; instead, he acts as a conduit between the Minister and his party and other MLAs. On the other side, there is the "sped". He is on £92,000 a year, and let us suggest that he is an accountant who is very able and very intelligent.”
“<BR /> <BR />By the way, I should have said, when I mentioned Mrs Foster, that I hope that all those who passed thousands of very nasty, evil comments about Mrs Foster three years ago will now have the decency to apologise for what they said, because, clearly, there was an awful lot said that was based on innuendo, false information and downright untruths. I would like to think that the First Minister's postbag will be full of grovelling apologies from those who condemned her when, in fact, the report indicates that she had behaved honourably. I still emphasise that she was very, very badly let down by the spads. <BR /> <BR />I mentioned earlier that I have been in the Chamber for about 26 years, and I have lots of experience of working with spads. There are spads, and there are "speds".”
“I accept much of that. Indeed, Mr Allister suggested that this is only one part — he says a small part; I see it actually as a major part — in the overall reconfiguration of how we govern ourselves in this part of the United Kingdom. There is no doubt that there is a requirement for root-and-branch reform, but I am somewhat surprised that one of the major parties, led by Mr O'Dowd, is suggesting that it will oppose even this tiny step forward in protecting people's beliefs in this institution.”
“However, what it did show is that the First Minister and many other Ministers in this Chamber were very, very badly let down by their special advisers. The question I have to ask is whether, had Mr Allister's Bill been law from 2014 onwards, we would have had the RHI debacle. Would we have had the crisis that this Chamber and the Executive faced? I believe that we definitely would not have. Indeed, you will remember that Mr Allister raised his concerns in 2013.”
“I said in my last contribution to the debate on the Budget that the Assembly was in the last chance saloon and that the public perception of this body is at an all-time low. When this Assembly fell in 1970, there were 100,000 people protesting outside at the bottom of the steps. When it fell in 1986, there were 3,500 people protesting against its closure. When it fell in January 2017, there was one man and his dog, and the dog was a conscript. That indicates to me the level of approval of this institution. <BR /> <BR />We have just had the release of the RHI inquiry report, and I was present on Friday for that. What did it say? It said that the First Minister was entirely open and honest, and that is correct; she was. It said that neither she nor any other Executive member made a single penny out of the RHI debacle, and that is true.”
“The Member will be interested to know that Dominic Cummings, who we accept is the special adviser who wields the second-highest degree of power of any adviser in history, earns considerably less than what many of our spads were getting before 2017.”
“I have been in this Chamber for nearly 26 years. In comparison with many of the debates that I have witnessed, going back as far as 1982, this debate has been good mannered and well behaved. He has not seen a bad debate in this House. When he does, he will recognise it, but there is nothing here tonight that would shock anybody who has been watching this Chamber for more than the last five years.”
“Does the Member accept that there have been coalitions in other devolved Administrations in the United Kingdom — at one stage, in Scotland and Wales — yet they did not need to have extra spads to manage the situation?”
“The Member makes an interesting point. I hope that, during his speech, he will provide us with a detailed explanation as to who Mr Pádraic Wilson and Mr Howell were. In that case, it was not a question of leaking information. The information was automatically sent from DETI and DFP to Connolly House, where these two gentlemen, who were not spads and not subject to any of the controls in the code, weak as they were, seemed to have the final say in everything that any Minister of his party decided upon. I am flagging this up because Members' opinion on this Bill will be very much flavoured by an explanation as to what exactly was going on there, why it was needed and why his Ministers were, not leaking stuff, but automatically referring everything to those two gentlemen.”
“<BR /> <BR />How do you prevent the system that the Member is suggesting, which has considerable merit, from being used, not as a way of controlling Ministers who are out of control, but by malcontents who simply want to use it to attack the Minister for making a decision that is well within his powers and where another Minister might well do exactly the same thing?”
“The Member gave evidence to the Finance Committee on his Bill. There is certainly an awful lot of merit in what he is saying, but there is one issue that I think the House would wish to receive clarification on. There is a fundamental difference between a Member and a Minister. A Minister, by virtue of his or her position, has to take very difficult, and sometimes very controversial, decisions. For instance, the Minister of Education could recommend a school closure, or the Minister of Health could recommend the withdrawal of a service from a hospital, and there could be uproar in the community. The inevitability is that a complaint will be lodged to the commissioner, saying that the Minister is behaving recklessly, unreasonably and without any care for the community.”
“Does the Member accept that it is perhaps not particularly useful to compare spads in Northern Ireland to those in the rest of the world? In every other jurisdiction, a Minister is like an Egyptian pharaoh: when the pharaoh dies, so does the adviser. Therefore, the average span of service for a spad in most other democracies is only three or four years. Here, we have had experience of spads for 15, 16 or 18 years, because, when the Minister changes, the party simply moves the special adviser on to the incoming Minister so that there is no volatility. Therefore, there is no reason for the exceptional salaries that some jurisdictions pay, because there is not the exceptional situation of being in a volatile position that could come and go in a very short period.”
“The Member has talked about the hierarchy of spads. Will he agree that Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea, would have been envious of the power exercised by Mr Johnson?”
“Does the Member accept that that can happen? There is nothing to stop the official, Minister or civil servant, when he gets back on to the Civil Service system, sending that email from his private email address and logging it on the official system saying, "I had to do this in extremis. I am now regularising the situation by putting it on the system", where, of course, it can be the subject of FOI.”
“This knee-jerk reaction that we heard today — every Member stood up and said, "I am not here to raise local issues. I am not here to ask for more money", and then what do they do? They ask for more money. <BR /> <BR />We will have to take those difficult decisions, which will be unpopular, to show that we are mature enough so that when we next bid for extra resourcing from Westminster, we have a clear conscience to say, "We deserve it".”
“Could we honestly say that there is the same acceptance of this Assembly? Could we say that, when the election is held in two years' time in 2022, our public will have the confidence that we are good stewards of their finance? <BR /> <BR />If we cannot prove that after 23 years, this Assembly is in deep trouble, and we are most definitely in the last chance saloon. So, no pressure on the Minister of Finance but, if we get it wrong, I do not think that we will have a twelfth or thirteenth chance to get it wrong again. Therefore, we must start to take difficult decisions. We must start to grow up and mature as politicians and to say that being part of the United Kingdom and taking the block grant is simply not a matter of take, take, take.”
“Finally, may I suggest — these are all difficult decisions — that we introduce a development land tax? A lot of land is being banked. Developers have bought it and are not prepared to put housing on it. The honourable Member for Belfast West mentioned that there is a chronic housing shortage, and he is right. Should we introduce a tax that says, "If you are going to bank that land and keep it out of the development stream, we are going to tax you accordingly"? <BR /> <BR />Devolution came to Northern Ireland at a similar time as to Scotland and Wales. In those two parts of the United Kingdom, public perception of their Assemblies has risen dramatically. They have now bedded into the political system, and no one would dream of asking for those Assemblies to be prorogued.”
“I note that one of the other Deputy Speakers showed a great deal of leniency to the honourable Member for Londonderry Ms Anderson, who spoke on exactly this issue yesterday. It is unfortunate that a mere humble, obscure Back-Bencher like myself is being denied the opportunity to refute the honourable Member's suggestion that the Irish Republic can find €2,300 for every man, woman and child to subsidise a united Ireland when, meanwhile, the cost of the subsidy from the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland is £156 per person. Can they afford the £156 a lot more than the €2,300 from the Irish Republic?”
“Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am following the lead of the honourable Member for Foyle, who said that, if you keep mentioning 45%, you are absolutely home and dry. Let us talk about the impact on the 45% of a united Ireland. What the honourable Member for Foyle forgets to mention is that it is going to cost the Irish Republic —”
“That is why, recently, only 29% of the people of Northern Ireland, after all the gloom and doom about Brexit and all the apparent success of Sinn Féin in the Irish Republic, are keen about a united Ireland. <BR /> <BR />I know that I am drifting slightly away from the 45% —.”
“If we paid them only an average of £150,000 a year, could we get a top-class service? I believe that we could. That is more than even the First Minister gets in Northern Ireland, and it is certainly a lot more than Ministers get. <BR /> <BR />Finally, I listened with interest to the honourable Member for Londonderry Mrs Anderson, who was pontificating yesterday about the benefits of this mythical united Ireland. The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want to go to heaven, but they do not want to die on Tuesday. They may have this mythical view of a united Ireland in the dim and distant future, and it would be nice to have it, but hang on. I have to get the children educated; I have to get my little business up and running; and I have to get my house built. Not now, thank you very much, but in some distant future.”
“Would £800,000 incentivise me? Once you get past a quarter of a million pounds, you are well incentivised to do anything. That is money that is being poured out of the Exchequer. <BR /> <BR />Mr Allister asked a very good question about whether £11 million equated to 275 nurses. What on earth could you get for the total legal aid bill of £26 million? How many nurses or teachers or Roads Service staff would that employ? It strikes me that there must be an upper ceiling on how much we are prepared to pay our top legal people. Remember: this is not their total income; they do not scrape by on £276,000 a year. They can also do some private work to supplement that meagre income. Really, given our situation at the moment, can we justify such vast amounts of money being poured into the coffers of such a small number of people?”
“<BR /> <BR />More importantly, on the bigger figures, I asked the Minister of Justice how much we were paying out in legal aid to our top barristers in Northern Ireland. The average is £276,000 per barrister. When I asked that question, the top-earning barrister was paid £812,000 a year in legal aid. The lady concerned was not amused, and I am off her Christmas card list. She made the point to me, as did Mr Allister, that that was a spike in her income and that it was earned in an unusual year. I asked how much she got in the previous five years, and it was just over £800,000 a year. The people in the law library said to me, "We need this money to be incentivised to produce a top-class service for our clients". Frankly, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would be incentivised for a quarter of that.”
“They have done it in Wales; why should we not do it in Northern Ireland? <BR /> <BR />We have just heard today that the honourable Member for Lagan Valley, the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, has announced that he is giving £2 million to conservation and environmental charities to carry on good work. That is based on the 5p — or one shilling, as some of us would remember it — plastic bag tax. Could we be radical and increase that to 10p? We could, and double the amount of money available for that necessary work for environmental protection. Again, I have no doubt that the honourable Member for North Antrim Mr Allister, who led the charge against the first plastic bag tax, will be up in arms, saying that that is not acceptable, but really — 10p? Is that too much to ask to try to put our house in order?”
“<BR /> <BR />Are we prepared, as an Assembly — this is an unpopular one — to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol? That is not popular — not popular at all. When I suggested that when I was Health Minister, there was uproar, because people said that they would lose votes in the social clubs, the pubs and various other places in Northern Ireland where intoxicating liquors are consumed. We know, however, that such an unpopular decision will save our health service, our judiciary and our social services a fortune, because of the impact of the abuse of alcohol in Northern Ireland. Again, it will take only 10 people from any constituency to lobby their MLA and say that it will bring poverty to Cookstown, Castlederg or Ballycastle for us to be scared and to run from making a difficult decision.”
“It is a not-for-profit company that, again, takes the funding off the balance sheet — in this case, it would be the Department for Infrastructure — and allows private funding to be used to provide a first-class water facility for three million people. At the time when that happened in Cardiff, there was uproar, and the Mr Carrolls of this world, again, were picketing and saying, "This is a disaster. This is the semi-privatisation of our water service". Now, nobody in Wales wants to go back to the old model. They have been freed to invest in upgrading the water and sewerage system to make certain that they no longer have the deficit that we have. They have been able to fund their water supply and sewerage system adequately.”
“<BR /> <BR />Do we have the political will to take Northern Ireland Water? I think that I heard Mr Beggs speaking about this. Mr Beggs, your speech will read marvellously in the 'Antrim Times' next week; I know exactly where it is going. I know that, as I sit down, I will see it in the 'Down Recorder'. I will see it in the 'Londonderry Sentinel' next week. Of course, that is where all these speeches are going. This one is going to the 'Mourne Observer'; I have to say that. <BR /> <BR />The point is — Mr Beggs mentioned this point — do we have the political courage to change the model of Northern Ireland Water to the Hyder Welsh Water model?”
“It is interesting that the honourable Member for Londonderry Mr Durkan mentioned that earlier. He talked about adapting a new model for the Housing Executive that is more akin to the housing associations, freeing the Housing Executive from the constraints of the public purse and giving it the power to borrow money — very cheaply at the minute, in the open markets — in the same way as some of the housing associations do. That will not be popular. Mr Carroll, no doubt, will be placarding this Building and saying that it is de facto privatisation, but it is perhaps the only way in which we can prevent a situation where we have to get rid of 43,000 Housing Executive properties. It is a model that has worked very well in the housing associations. Do we have the political will to do it?”
“We will get people lobbying us and saying, "I will lose votes amongst the nurses and the doctors". Our nursing problem is lying on Bondi Beach. It is in Vancouver; it is in London. Enough nurses are being trained in Northern Ireland to look after the needs of our community, but, sadly, many of them are being headhunted at trade fairs in the autumn. They go to the four corners of the world and do not come back. They marry the first Ukrainian coming down the street in Sydney, and that is it — they are gone. That is our difficulty. Do we have the political courage to say to those folk, "You're going to stay for five years or else you will pay back the large amount of money that it has cost us to train you"? <BR /> <BR />Do we have the political courage to change the model of the Housing Executive?”
“I will be very interested to see, given the fact that Minister Robin Swann, the Member for North Antrim, has asked for £660 million just to keep things on an even keel in Health, whether we will support him when he starts to make the really difficult decisions. I have my doubts. <BR /> <BR />We have a staffing crisis in Health at the moment. We are 7,000 staff short, including 2,400. That has emerged in the very short time since I was Minister. That issue really did not feature in 2015, and now it is a real crisis. Do we have the political strength and will in the House to say to our medical staff, "If we pour scarce resources into training you to be a doctor, a nurse or a physio, we expect you to stay for five years after you have trained in Northern Ireland"? That will be unpopular.”
“Everybody agrees with that, but they also have the caveat, "I agree with that as long as it never affects my constituency". That is the problem. <BR /> <BR />We have some terribly difficult decisions to make. It will involve decisions that are the right decisions to make but which will be very unpopular with our constituents. The only way that we will be able to do that is if all 90 Members in the Assembly commit ourselves to putting through those difficult decisions and do not peel off to form "save our community hospital" or "save our community clinic" groups and start lobbying against those trying to make the right decisions.”
“Are we, as an Assembly, prepared to take the really difficult choices? I was aghast when Mr Swann took the portfolio of Health because I have been there, worn the T-shirt and have the scars on my back to show it. It is a very, very difficult post. I said to Robin, "You're mad. Your job is not difficult, it is impossible", and I will tell you why. During the first meeting of the Assembly, everybody stood up and said how prepared they were to support Robin Swann to make the very difficult decisions to implement Bengoa. Does anybody know what Bengoa says? Does anybody know what Hayes says, Donaldson says or Compton says? What they all say is that we are spreading precious financial resources far too thinly over far too many buildings in Northern Ireland.”
“That is true: neither of us survived the DUP.”