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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“That has to be a good thing. <BR /> <BR />So, we are watching very carefully. I am back on the Finance Committee, and I have taken a note of all that he has said. It will be interesting to see what difference there is between Mr Millar the Back-Bench Sinn Féin Finance Committee member and Mr Millar —”
“When one reads the outpourings of his party about the European Union from, say, even 15 years ago, and sees the almost sycophantic relationship it has with Brussels and Strasbourg, one is surprised; but the good news is that the opinion polls indicate that he is going to get a very nasty surprise come Friday 24 June. I think that it is very clear where this country is going, and not a moment too soon. That will change his outlook, and he will have to adapt to the new situation which is that we are no longer going to be part of Europe. In the next two years, he will be directly involved in helping take the United Kingdom out of the European Union. I think he will find that a very interesting challenge, to put it mildly, but at least he will have about an extra £300 million a year to spend on essential services in Northern Ireland.”
“<BR /> <BR />I am not wanting to be a prophet of doom. I will watch with great interest to see how someone from a party that has a Marxist-Leninist economic viewpoint runs a part of Her Majesty's realm. It will be very interesting to see how that happens. It is a first. Up to now, the Finance Department has been in relatively safe hands. Now we have this —”
“Therefore, I welcome the Minister's commitment to that. <BR /> <BR />I do not welcome for one moment the Minister's commitment to further expenditure on the cross-border bodies. The cross-border bodies, frankly, are a wee bit of a sideline to the main expenditure Departments in Northern Ireland. Whilst they are a nice add-on, some of what they do is not the essential core services that are represented by health, education and employment. No doubt, that gives the Minister and his supporters a comfort blanket, so that he can say, "Look, I am upping the budgets for cross-border canal routes". That is all very interesting, but it is not a priority. The Minister has to focus solely on those issues which we know are going to be absolutely, desperately difficult to resolve over the next few years.”
“Despite all the problems that Health had inflicted on it last year, and under three DUP Ministers, its budget of £5 billion came in within 0·4%. That is an extraordinary performance: to land that spaceship of public expenditure on that postage stamp, and bring home a balanced budget. However, that is becoming more and more difficult. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the Minister's decision this morning to inject further money into Health but it must be a priority, over the next five years, to ensure that there is real-terms growth in health provision. That will have a knock-on effect on the economy generally, because 70% of health expenditure is wages and salaries. Therefore, the more money that we pump into health, the more employment we generate and the better for our economy generally. So it is not wasted money in that sense.”
“When I was there, inflation in Health was running at between 4% and 5%. Inflation in the real economy, of course, was only between 0·5% and 1%. The health trusts implemented a series of efficiency savings, and I was full of admiration for how they dealt with those very difficult calculations. However, those efficiency savings eventually got to the stage where there were no inefficiencies from which to produce efficiencies. In other words, they had looked at all the issues where they felt that money could be saved, and they were getting down to rock bottom. Having forced the Department of Health to do that, and got a leaner and fitter health service, I think it incumbent on us to reward it by bringing about a real-terms increase in Health funding.”
“He can look forward to our hypothecated roughly 3% of that. It is extra money that he will receive to spend on essential services, and some of that can go towards Health. So there is some good news coming the Minister's way, when we get out of this machine — this institution which drains blood out of the coffers of the UK to the tune of over £10 billion per year. I reckon that our proportion of that is about £290 million, and that will be extremely helpful as he seeks to bridge these gaps. <BR /> <BR />However, there is absolutely no doubt that, if the health service is to continue to deliver the first-rate care that we enjoy, that is the right decision. One thing I learnt in my time at Health is that the rate of inflation in Health far outstrips that in the ordinary economy.”
“I return to the main subject, which is of course Health. I have had some experience of the Department of Health, albeit rather short. I applaud and agree with the commitment made by my party and his to bring about a £1 billion increase in funding for Health over the five-year period of this Assembly. That is welcome. It is very welcome that the two main parties have agreed to do that. <BR /> <BR />I accept what Mr Beattie says. We cannot say that we are going to fund Health to the tune of £200 million extra per year and not find it from somewhere. However, I know from the election that I have just fought that Health is the bread-and-butter issue, apart from Brexit. Of course, the Minister will look forward to spending the extra money that he will get under the Barnett consequentials when we leave the European Union on 23 June.”
“I am not being disrespectful; I have the highest respect for the honourable Member. I am just saying that, if part of the Minister's plans in the Budget is to try to bridge the gap through borrowing, I urge him not to do so, because it will leave future generations with a debt that is unsustainable. Northern Ireland has at least got through the recession with a modicum of debt which is serviceable. I do not think that we should go any further.”
“However, as I do not want to impugn the integrity of the Chair —”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, that never stopped you in the past.”
“I am glad that comment was made in the early part of the mandate. <BR /> <BR />He knows the calamitous situation his counterpart in the Irish Republic is facing. I have not checked the recent statistics, but I understand that every man, woman and child in the Irish Republic owes the IMF and the European Central Bank €50,000. Every child born in the Irish Republic inherits that debt. That was because his equivalent in the Republic tried to bridge the gap by borrowing money they could not afford to have lent to them. The result is that a vast proportion of the Irish Republic's income is spent on servicing that debt. At the moment, of course, interest rates are low —”
“Maybe the lesson has been learnt. The other criticisms he made in the Finance Committee will, no doubt, come back to haunt him. <BR /> <BR />I was worried because he was hardly into office — I suppose you could say he hit the ground running; he might have been running in the wrong direction, but at least he hit the ground running — and was talking about borrowing money to meet the gap for essential services in Northern Ireland. The last thing that he wants written on his tombstone is, "Here lies the body of Minister Millar, the Minister who left his children and grandchildren with a huge debt that they will never repay". I know he is a regular visitor to the Irish Republic; he is up and down to the Dáil — the Irish Parliament, in English — on a very regular basis. Surely he must understand the calamity —”
“I would bottle that, because it is the first and last time it is going to happen. I can do it early in my career in this five-year term because it will be forgotten by the next election. <BR /> <BR />We were left with absolutely no idea of the pressures the various Departments are facing. We have no idea of the urgent bids that were made and how many of them were unavoidable. I do not want to quote his words back to him, but I would like to think he feels suitably chastened and will not dare do that again to the House. That is totally unacceptable. Similarly, I would like to think that he will not issue a statement and give us all less than an hour to digest such an important amount of information. Previous Finance Ministers from my party would not have dreamt of doing that because it would have been treating the House with total disdain.”
“I sat on the Finance Committee for several years with the incoming Finance Minister, and I noted his criticism of the then Finance Ministers, Mrs Foster, Mr Hamilton and Mr Storey. I took note of those criticisms. It is interesting that already he has broken one of his golden rules. This morning, he gave us the monitoring round figures, but for the first time ever, I think, in the history of the Assembly, he failed to provide us with the information on the pressures that the various Departments had made known to him, so we are left somewhat in the dark. Far be it from me to congratulate the Opposition, but I thought they were absolutely right to raise this as an issue, because how —”
“And Mr Robinson. And Mr Dodds. Will he accept that, as my colleague has already said, whilst the monitoring round improvements in funding for road maintenance are indeed welcome, if we do not, through either the monitoring rounds or better funding in the main Budget, deal with the situation soon, we are storing up huge problems for the future? If we do not maintain our roads, in 20 or 30 years' time we will have a vast expenditure, because we will have to fundamentally rebuild them.”
“I am sure that the Minister will accept that he is building on the strong foundations laid by his predecessors Mr Hamilton, Mr Storey and, of course, Mr Wilson.”
“My understanding is that mental health in Northern Ireland is funded at a level that is about 30% less than the rest of the United Kingdom. We often said that we would address that situation when we got the Bamford report implemented. We were not aware that Northern Ireland's fiscal position could not be worse when it comes to providing extra resources to deal with this needy part of our community. That will be a difficulty, but at least we now go forward knowing that the basic template is right. I think, therefore, that we can justifiably say that we have taken steps forward in the treatment of those vulnerable members of the community. All those concerned, including Mr Ross, Mr McCarthy, the Ad Hoc Committee and the two Ministers, are to be congratulated.”
“The legislation will improve treatment for some of the most vulnerable in our society, those who up to now have largely been failed as regards resources and legislation as a result of the mistakes made by politicians in 1985. There was a deficiency in the legislation. <BR /> <BR />I will just sound one word of caution. Mr McCarthy raised the issue. The legislation is excellent and fit for purpose, but it will require the allocation of resources. It would be a pity if we built up expectations in our community that we have cracked it and got first-class legislation but then simply cannot find the money to resource adequately the quantum change in treatment for those with mental illness in Northern Ireland. That very difficult issue will have to be dealt with.”
“They have similar legislation, but we were able to examine the mistakes and shortcomings of that legislation and make amendments to our legislation to ensure that that did not happen here. It is first-class work by all concerned. <BR /> <BR />I am absolutely delighted that, tonight, we know for certain that the legislation will receive Royal Assent. It shows the Assembly at its best. To some extent, the fact that there will be so little in the way of headlines and accolades for what has been done also shows a lack of interest in the work of the Assembly. Of course, self-praise is no praise. However, I think that we need to blow our trumpets a bit more often when things are done right in the Assembly.”
“Put pressure on your members on those Committees to get things speeded up or issues resolved". However, my inbox was practically empty during the processing of the Bill because people had confidence in the work being done by the Ad Hoc Committee and the two Ministers. I would package that and keep it, Mr Ford, because it is the only time that you are ever going to hear it as this is our last day. The two Ministers, the two Departments and the two Committees all worked well together. The result is that we have first-class legislation that benefits not only from the fact that we had the Ad Hoc Committee and two Ministers who were committed to the legislation but from our learning from the mistakes of GB. We are about eight years behind the rest of the United Kingdom.”
“We had to delay the legislation to enable the Department of Justice to catch up. That was not its fault — before Mr Ford gets annoyed. At a late stage, we decided, uniquely in Northern Ireland, to have a unified mental health and incapacity Bill that would deal with free citizens and those who were being detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, so there had to be an element of delay to achieve that. <BR /> <BR />The Committee started late and had to work very hard. Of course, there were poor souls who were on all three Committees. That is extremely hard work, but it paid off. Normally when legislation is running into difficulty, individual members who are not members of the various Committees are lobbied intentionally by concerned voluntary groups, the royal colleges and so on, who say, "We are worried and concerned about this legislation.”
“This is perhaps not only one of the most complex and difficult but one of the most important pieces of legislation that the Assembly will ever deal with, and I am glad to say that people got their act together. I congratulate those who worked on the Ad Hoc Committee. I must say that, when I saw it being established — at that time, I was Deputy Chair of the Health Committee — I was dreading it, because I knew that it was inevitable that, as I was on the Justice Committee and the Health Committee, I was going to be on the Ad Hoc Committee. I saw it as being extremely hard, difficult and complex work. There were not 50 killed in the rush to join that Committee. It was a novel approach. Very little Assembly legislation goes through Ad Hoc Committees. You are bringing together two very disparate Departments.”
“I remember bringing in officials from my Department at the time and saying, "We simply have to get this through by the end of the mandate".”
“That is very unfortunate. Even today, we had the naysayers on the TV and radio demeaning the work of the Assembly. At times, they are absolutely right, and we deserve all we get. However, there are occasions when the Assembly performs extremely well. When I was Health Minister, I was extremely worried about the complexity and length of and the difficulties with this legislation. <BR /> <BR />I hope that Mr McCarthy was not indicating that I was the Minister who suggested that Mr Ford could possibly have delayed the implementation of the legislation. I remember a crisis session in Mr Ford's bunker in Castle Buildings one day when we were summoned in. It was looking like it would be extremely difficult to get the legislation through.”
“However, his threat to hover around this Building and Castle Buildings like a ghost from the past worries me. When things go wrong, we can blame him; we will say, "He hasn't gone away, you know; he's watching us". I pay tribute to Mr McCarthy, who has been extremely diligent on this issue. <BR /> <BR />What irks me slightly about all this is that this is an excellent example of two Departments from very disparate political backgrounds, the voluntary sector and the legislature working together in unison to produce first-class legislation. Will we see a single headline in 'The Irish News', the 'Belfast Telegraph' or the 'News Letter' tomorrow morning saying, "Assembly triumph: new legislation on mental health"? Will we see it in the first 16 pages? No, we will not. We will see it, if at all, tucked away in some obscure corner of the media.”
“<BR /> <BR />Given my long history in the Chamber, I remember that I was here in 1985, which was 31 years ago, when the previous mental health and incapacity legislation — the equivalent legislation — went through. That was 30 years ago. A complete generation later, here we are, back with new legislation. I assure you that, even though I am a non-smoker, a non-drinker and a vegetarian, I will not be back here in another 30 years' time when the next revised legislation goes through. I assure everyone that this will certainly be my last opportunity to speak on this type of legislation. <BR /> <BR />Mr McCarthy is absolutely right. Kircubbin will regain a genius in the form of Mr McCarthy. He has certainly made his mark in the Assembly.”
“— and I was the last person to speak when the Assembly collapsed in 1999. Normally, when I do this, I am a harbinger of doom and gloom. Indeed, I made this point in the Assembly when it looked like we were doomed yet again, and the honourable Member for Newry and Armagh Mr Kennedy said, "Would the honourable Member reassure us that he wasn't the last passenger on the Titanic?". Normally, when I speak on the last day, it is seen as gloom and doom, but the Assembly has a new engine. We have been talking about Morris Minors; the Assembly has had a service, a new engine and has been filled up with fuel. It has a much brighter future than it has had in any previous end-of-mandate session.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know, it is a tradition for me to speak on the last day of the Assembly. I was the last person in the Public Gallery when the Assembly collapsed in 1976. I was the last person to speak when the Assembly collapsed in 1986. I was the last person in the Building before it burned down in 1995 —”
“They made you mayor. Will the Member give way?”
“The Member may recall from his experience on the Health Committee that I laid a petition before the House about 18 months ago asking for the meningitis B vaccine to be introduced for children in Northern Ireland. A huge number of people signed that petition. The irony, of course, was that, by the time the petition was referred to the Department of Health, I was the person making the decision about whether the meningitis B vaccine should be introduced. One of the issues I took into account was the fact that that vast petition had been forwarded by the Meningitis Research Foundation and that public opinion was very much in favour of it. The money was found, the meningitis B vaccine was introduced and children's lives will be saved as a result.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. First, I wish to record the historic occasion on which Mr Attwood made his shortest and best speech ever in the House. <BR /> <BR />On a more serious issue, we have once again seen an excellent example of the Assembly working at its best. The Committee, the Minister and the Department have worked together to produce excellent legislation that protects so many in society. The Assembly is constantly criticised by the media for not passing enough legislation: in the past two weeks, the Assembly has passed a record amount of legislation and there has not been one word about it in the media. Can you, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, alert the media to the fact that there is a lot of positive work going on in the Assembly that they, for some reason, seem totally reluctant to report?”
“Each January, the Minister comes to the House and reports on the high-wire act that is negotiations about our fisheries in Brussels. Will she note that Norway and Iceland have thriving, sustainable fish stocks and that they are outside the European Union? Given that, why did she lecture us last week on the dangers to Northern Ireland from the prospect of Brexit?”
“I welcome the announcement by the Minister on this campaign. As he is aware, south Down, in particular, offers an excellent product through its fishing industry. Is there anything specific in this campaign that will target the prawns, the vast majority of which are produced by south Down trawlermen, and other whitefish, which are also very high quality, being produced out of places such as Kilkeel and Annalong?”
“— as a result of a lack of action on this issue over the last four decades?”
“We welcome that, but the Housing Executive, from memory, was formed in 1974, and, here we are, over 40 years later, and we are only getting to grips with this issue. How many millions of pounds of taxpayers' money have been wasted —”
“Time and time again, as a constituency representative, I get this issue reported to me, and I pass the information on to the executive or whatever. Sometimes action is taken, and sometimes it is not. That indicates to me that, until the PAC took the issue up, it was not being treated seriously.”
“It is only when people open their local newspapers and see that society takes this issue extremely seriously that they will stop using social housing as a plaything. <BR /> <BR />The Committee also, in my opinion, made a very sensible recommendation. It said that there should be more cooperation between housing associations, the Housing Executive and statutory undertakers, such as utility companies, to cross-examine the information held by those bodies and identify who is living where and who should not be living where. Again, it strikes me as absolutely obvious that they should check to see who is paying the electric bill, the phone bill, the rates etc to establish who is actually in the property.”
“Therefore, we are talking about roughly £8,000 per dwelling that is occupied by the wrong person or by someone who should not be there. Until recently, unfortunately, the Housing Executive and the housing associations have only looked at abandoned properties, but, in 2012-13, they recovered no fewer than 302 abandoned properties in Northern Ireland. If that is what is going on in only one sector of social housing fraud, what is really going on out there in the real world? The shocking discovery made by the Committee is that, at the time of this report, there had not been one single prosecution for housing tenancy fraud in Northern Ireland. That is an extraordinary situation, given the extent of the problem. I understand that, since the Committee started its inquiry, there has been progress made in a prosecution — and about time, too.”
“Thank you. The Northern Ireland Events Company was mentioned. Well, wait until we get to the report next year on the funding for social housing, and we will see some of the calamitous wastes of money that have occurred in various parts of Belfast and even in south Down. We will see money being squandered that could have been used to build much-needed social housing for people who are genuinely in need. However, as I said, we will have to keep our powder dry until next year for that one, when Mrs Kelly will certainly have an opportunity to lambaste those who have squandered so much money. <BR /> <BR />The money involved is quite significant. Each 100 houses fraudulently occupied, if detected, will save £800,000 in the costs of housing homeless families.”
“<BR /> <BR />I will highlight housing tenancy fraud, whereby social housing is occupied by someone who is not entitled to it. As Members from throughout Northern Ireland, we all know about the intense demand for social housing. I have only to think of Newcastle in my constituency, where there is a huge demand for social housing and a finite supply that is not meeting the need. It is, therefore, totally unacceptable that, whilst genuine families and individuals who are desperately looking for social housing are left out in the cold, there are others who are occupying houses that they should not be entitled to.”
“<BR /> <BR />A week does not seem to go by that I sit on the Committee and my jaw does not drop to the floor as we yet again see the most elementary mistakes being made by senior government officials and arm's-length bodies doing things that an ordinary housewife or ordinary accountant would never dream of doing. We see it time after time, and, if Members think that this latest set of reports from the PAC is interesting, wait until you see the next set. We have had an insight, and I can assure you that, when it comes to the Northern Ireland Events Company report, every mistake that could have been made was made by many people. So here we are, in a very brief debate, reviewing extremely important issues. One thing that is absolutely guaranteed is that the PAC will never run out of issues to investigate.”
“I have never seen Mr Murphy speechless in my life before. <BR /> <BR />I served on the PAC several years ago, and I thought that, as a result of the diligence of people like Mr Dallat and Mr Seamus Close, who were Rottweilers on the Committee and relentlessly exposing all sorts of public scandal on expenditure, by the time that I got back onto PAC, its work would be done. I thought that no further obvious gaffs and mistakes would be being made in Departments and that we would not be spending money very unwisely. Little did I know that, when I returned to the Committee, things would be worse than when I left.”
“Had the Member pursued his Bill, would he not have felt aggrieved if the House had decided to block it at Second Reading and not allowed the nuances of what he was trying to say to be teased out in Committee? Does he not see that as a fundamental issue? He has concerns — they are well articulated — but he is denying the Health Committee an opportunity to tease out his arguments. If he remains unconvinced, there will be another opportunity at Final Stage to vote against the Bill. He is denying the debate that everyone else believes is required.”
“The Member is making valid points, but is he telling me that he is going to vote against the Bill moving into Committee, where many of his concerns can be addressed and the arguments teased out? Is he advocating that we vote against the principle of the Bill going to Committee or saying, "Take it to Committee and consider the points that I am raising"?”
“I understand that sackcloth and ashes are the order of the day. I have just realised that I missed question 2 to OFMDFM. I got slightly confused between the two sets of questions. I apologise to you and the House for that. <BR /> <BR />Minister, some of my close relatives are Swiss. When I visit them, I am appalled at how the capabilities of graduates from our part of Europe compare with the those of the Swiss people in European languages. Surely we are sending out the wrong signal to industrialists and investors when we say that, instead of expanding modern languages and its education throughout the Province, we are cutting back. Surely that is the totally wrong thing to do as we attempt to increase our markets throughout Europe.”
“Whilst I am sure that the voluntary groups — I am probably a member of every one of them — are very happy with progress so far, does the Minister not accept that this is a very ad hoc arrangement in the sense that the previous funding was guaranteed for up to three years and organisations knew where they stood? Under his new scheme, they will constantly have to apply with no guarantee that that funding will continue.”
“All the Members from his party who opposed the amendment the last time made the point that there had not been proper consultation. Does he at least accept, unlike Ms Lo, that this was one of the most extensive and intensive consultation exercises ever undertaken by the Assembly?”
“Does the Member note with interest that a member of staff in a clinic in southern England who used to work for Marie Stopes described it as a production line for abortion and, indeed, said that staff were put under pressure to ensure the maximum number of abortions per week in the clinic to generate income for Marie Stopes? That is a totally different regime to what goes on in our five health trusts, where there is no pressure whatever to maximise abortions. They are there to give first-rate care and treatment.”
“I have huge problems with a commercial organisation that terminates the lives of three to four million people each year throughout the world. I have enormous problems with that being in this part of the United Kingdom. What I have even more problems with is that everything that it does is done entirely under a cloud of secrecy. We have no idea what is going on in that clinic because Marie Stopes has continually refused to give us a scintilla of information about it. Therefore, I do have problems with it. I do not want Marie Stopes operating in those circumstances in this part of the United Kingdom. That is one of the reasons for my amendment.”