Sammy Wilson
East Belfast · Democratic Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I only use it to show the divisions that there are in the SDLP. <BR /> <BR />What kind of individual have we got who is laying down and who made this report? First of all, there is an irony. The day I met Mr Bain was about three months after he had written letters and made threats and things like that.”
“If the Commissioner for Standards heard some of the things that Mr Allister has said in the Chamber when he is not on the side of Sinn Féin and is not in cahoots with them, if he heard some of the things that he has said about Sinn Féin, he would be apoplectic. He would have a heart attack.”
“If we accept that we allow the commissioner upstairs to dictate his view of what a debating Chamber should be, we do harm to all of us who like to see a bit of fire and passion in debate. Of course, he did not have to make the complaint because the Ena Sharples of the Assembly was happy to go running.”
“Quite frankly, I do not care what the outcome of the debate is, but the reason for the petition of concern was very clear. This whole episode is not about people being concerned about the standards in the Assembly, and it is not about whether people have abided by the code of conduct.”
“<BR /> <BR />One of the bits in the interview that I really enjoyed was when, at one stage, he demanded from me an answer that I could not give him. I had not read the Hansard reports, and I had not done any work for it because I was not all that concerned.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I start off with an apology: sorry we got it wrong as far as Mr Bain was concerned. <BR /> <BR />I will start by saying that I welcome the debate. I have been waiting for the debate. Indeed, I have probably prolonged my time in the Assembly to take part in the debate, because there is an important issue at stake.”
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“That was admitted and accepted by the First Minister in his speech. Secondly, we have made it quite clear that we will honour any deals that we have made, but that requires all parties in this Assembly to do exactly the same. It is not a case of "You give us one thing and we give you the other". There is no point in our having a Speaker if we cannot resolve the impasse that this Assembly is presently facing. That does not require rewarding Sinn Féin for its intransigence, because this is the unfortunate thing: since this whole process started, Sinn Féin thinks that it can do things without consequence. That may have been the case when it was dealing with the Irish Government, the British Government and the American Government, but it cannot do that here.”
“Thank you, Mr Presiding Officer or Mr Acting Speaker or whatever your position is. <BR /> <BR />It is a bit unfortunate that this debate today will probably be presented as another example of the inability of the Assembly to get on with its business. However, I dare say that the decision today not to deal with this particular issue is essential if we want this Assembly to get back on track and do the things that are necessary, because we are at an impasse. We are not doing the business that we should be doing, because we are tied up with a Budget that has now been frozen and is being diminished as a result of inaction by this Assembly. <BR /> <BR />I want to make some things very clear: first, despite what one Member of Sinn Féin said, we have not pretended that there was no deal on the Speakership.”
“I can understand the importance to the finances of the Executive of having contracts that can soak up money if it becomes available at the last moment, but does the Minister not agree that such core areas of his Department should not be financed on the basis of a hope, on a wing and a prayer that money might become available in monitoring rounds? Why has he organised the financing of those projects in that way, rather than have them as part of his core budget where he can be assured of the money?”
“Would the Member accept that some costs have been done and that the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the United Kingdom has worked out that the emphasis on renewable energy will add 40% to fuel bills by 2030?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Would he accept that when he talks glibly about not giving enough support to geothermal energy, what he is really saying is that the hard-pressed electricity consumers already, through their bills, provide subsidies to the industry, so putting up their energy bills?”
“— just shows the nonsense that Sinn Féin's energy policy is.”
“<BR /> <BR />In a country where we are looking, first of all, for reliable and cheap energy that will meet our needs for the future, to come up with this idea that you can turn your back on fossil fuels and on drilling for natural gas underneath the surface and that you can rely on geothermal power, which even at the best estimate will produce one two-hundredths of our energy needs —”
“Mr Flanagan said that people need to read more. I think that if he had read the NICVA report he might not have got into the trouble he did this morning, mind you. If he would even read the DETI document, he would know that 0·5% maximum of our energy can be produced in this particular form. We are still going to be reliant on the main source of energy that this society depends on: fossil fuel. Indeed, a well to release gas is likely to produce far more energy to produce electricity than a well that goes down to release hot water. Of course, it will be much cheaper than geothermal energy as well.”
“The whole idea of fracking is that you go down through one well and then you have lots of branches off it. All you have on top of it is a barn-like structure that is no bigger than a farmer's barn and can be integrated into the countryside. The impact would be far less than having to dig a hole in the ground, with another one coming up and a power station on top of it. There is a huge difference. Not only has Sinn Féin now been converted to fracking, but it has no concerns about these installations being in tourist and agricultural areas. <BR /> <BR />The third thing is that this has been presented as a panacea.”
“Of course, Sinn Féin now supports it in places like the Mournes, Rathlin and Lough Neagh. What is significant about all those areas? They are tourist areas. In those tourist areas, you will have boreholes, drilling rigs, pumping stations and maybe even a power station having to be built close to the well in areas where tourists —”
“That was the SDLP's contribution to energy in Northern Ireland. The fuel poor have had imposed on them some of the most expensive forms of energy that we could have. It is three and a half times more costly than what is generated at Kilroot or Ballylumford. I do not think that that is a record to be proud of, especially when 42% of people in Northern Ireland live in fuel poverty. <BR /> <BR />Let us look at the issue. First of all, we have a proposal that we should have a form of energy that requires fracking. People can deny it all they want, but 'The Economist' said that "geothermal is the new fracking". It involves drilling vertical wells up to 12,000 ft deep, then horizontal drilling, then putting water and chemicals under pressure, and the pressure and the chemistry shear the deep, hot rock. Shearing or fracking, it is all the same.”
“This was the man who said that, if there had been a waste-to-energy plant for Belfast, he would have stopped it. He stopped the Rose Energy project, but now he is converted to renewable energy.”
“I have no doubt that the Member who proposed the motion has great knowledge of the whole idea of geothermal energy. He knows all about being put under pressure and then having steam coming out of your ears. Anybody who listened to 'Nolan' this morning will know all about that. He is right: the deeper you dig, the hotter it gets. As Nolan dug into his knowledge of the events budget and welfare reform, he certainly got a lot hotter, and people got a lot more light as to how little Sinn Féin knows about some of the issues that it debates. <BR /> <BR />This has been an interesting debate. We are seeing turnarounds and contradictory positions already. On one hand, the defenders of the Fermanagh countryside against the ravages of fracking now say that fracking is OK on certain occasions. Mr Attwood now seems to be converted to renewable energy.”
“I thank the Minister for her answer. What reductions will she make in the Irish-language budget this year as a result of the 6% reduction in her budget, due to her party's decision not to implement welfare reform and, therefore, cause reductions in budgets across the board?”
“How many of the 1,600 jobs which currently deliver welfare benefits to other parts of the United Kingdom are located in Londonderry? Does the deputy First Minister have any concern that 1,600 public sector jobs could be lost to Northern Ireland? Or, is he more concerned about Sinn Féin's pursuit of power in the Irish Republic than about jobs for people —”
“Does the Minister also accept that setting up a separate body involves additional cost? It still means that there has to be liaison with another body and that is where the gaps in effectiveness fall in dealing with crime that is seamless across international borders.”
“I am sure that the Member is not surprised that Sinn Féin wants to protect criminals, especially since most of the criminals who have been referred to were probably their compatriots not so long ago. Does he find it surprising that the SDLP is complicit in that protection of criminals in Northern Ireland and is allowing them to walk away with ill-gotten gains and terrorise the communities in which they operate?”
“Does the Minister find it odd to hear that argument from Sinn Féin when, for welfare recipients, instead of being paid every two weeks, they will continue to be paid every month because of that party's refusal to implement welfare reform? If regular payments help people budget, why is Sinn Féin standing in the way of regular payments for welfare recipients?”
“Does the Member accept that, when budgets are tight, to commit money to spending, especially if it is demand-led, and to have it sitting there is probably the worst use of resources? If something is demand-led, you put down a certain amount of money for it, and, if it needs to be topped up, the best way to do that is through monitoring rounds.”
“— but let us bear in mind that there is always a cost when it comes to the support for it.”
“When we had the Budget debate and I quoted liberally from the Budget document that the SDLP had produced, most of them were not even aware that they were going to sell an airport that they did not own and that they were going to sell the Speaker's house. They were going to sell off half the countryside. Talk about Maggie Thatcher's privatisation programme: the SDLP seemed to be blissfully unaware of its own privatisation programme. Maybe he should check his own party document. I am sure that he has access to it, unless it is kept secret from them. <BR /> <BR />In conclusion, of course we want to see people in further education. We want to see people encouraged to take on training and other things like that —”
“I am sick and tired of this, and it is a sign of the immaturity of this Assembly that we come to the Chamber week after week, and we all know what we want to spend more money on, but we do not know where we are going to take those resources from. Since it does not fall out of the sky or grow on trees, there are hard choices to be made, instead of having a motion that whinges, which we are getting so used to in the Assembly. Even the SDLP talked about the Tory cuts and how we have to resist them. The SDLP actually proposed a cut in the Budget. If we had acted on the SDLP's proposals, there would be less money available.”
“The Executive are committed to promoting further education; it is part of our strategy for restructuring the economy. Indeed, I know that the Minister will probably complain about it, but one of the budgets that got a degree of protection when we set out the four-year Budget was his own, because, along with DETI, his was regarded as an important Department. As a result, he has been able to put additional money into the student fund, not less money. It is demand-led, as has been pointed out, and on occasions in monitoring rounds he would have had to ask for more money if the demand went up. <BR /> <BR />The third thing that I want to say is about what is to be done. If it is to be made a priority, what do we make a lesser priority?”
“When I listen to the economic incoherence from the other side of the Chamber, some mornings I seriously consider bringing in a big copy of Lipsey's 'Positive Economics' or Samuelson's 'Economics' — both of them, as the Member from the Green Party will know, weighty tomes — and beating the Member across the side of the head. I might consider doing it, but I do not do it. <BR /> <BR />The real questions should be whether people leave further education and why they do so. I am sure that the Minister will be able to give us the figures, but, despite all the economic hardship that we are told exists at present, retention rates are actually going up, not down. When we are looking to see what the issue is that we are facing, we have to bear that in mind. <BR /> <BR />The second thing is what is being done already.”
“We have heard quoted the NUS-USI survey, but, of course, it depends what question you ask somebody. If you ask somebody the question, "Do you feel able to concentrate on your studies without worrying about your finances?", I guarantee that you can be fairly sure about the kind of answer that you will get. In fact, I am surprised that only 52% of the students answered yes to that or, indeed, when you ask people whether they are seriously considering leaving education because of the financial pressures.”
“Meanwhile, Sinn Féin is doing its darnedest to make sure that we do not even have the money to finance the existing priorities that we have in this Assembly. It is one of the reasons why I find this motion difficult to support. On this side, we get a bunch of opportunists who jump on every bandwagon that comes along on a weekly basis, yet there is no substance behind anything that they produce. <BR /> <BR />The first thing that I have to ask is whether there is actually a problem. The problem that the proposer of the motion presented is that people are in financial hardship. Lots of people are in financial hardship in the current situation of lack of jobs and wages being kept down at a very low level because of the recession, but does this actually stop people studying?”
“Despite what my colleagues have said, I find it difficult to support this motion because of the point that the Members across the way are trying to make. Namely, they are trying to create an issue that does not exist. They are trying to point the finger of blame where no blame lies, and, of course, it is totally inconsistent with the approach that they have taken on other issues. <BR /> <BR />In the last three weeks, we have had three different stances on what the priorities for expenditure should be for this Assembly from Sinn Féin. Two weeks ago, health should be the priority. Last week, the priority should be the people who are poor. This week, now the priority should be people who are disadvantaged and in further education.”
“When he is going through the litany of the records of previous Ministers, maybe he will also bear in mind the speech that was made by the SDLP Member who talked about the Tory cuts in further education. Perhaps, he will also remind the House that the SDLP, in its Budget proposals at the beginning of this four-year period, recommended a reduction of, I think, £20 million in the budget for further education (FE).”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He makes an important point: lots of factors could influence the figure that he has just given. Does he not accept, however, that many of the welfare reform changes that have been proposed and have been rejected by the Assembly could help to address that problem, because it could make it worthwhile and, indeed, maybe compulsory for people who do not have qualifications to seek qualifications as a way to get state support?”
“I am at a loss to understand how, if his concern is that stored tyres can contaminate the land as they deteriorate, the same tyres, for which he will not give a waste exemption licence in the case that I mentioned, can be used to line a landfill site to stop leachate. Surely if the contamination comes from the tyres, they will contaminate the water sources around the landfill site.”
“When will the regulations be changed? Why does the Environment Agency, when faced with individuals who are prepared to comply, have to come down with a heavy hand in the way that it has done? Why are firms that are already under investigation and which are not operating within the law given waste exemption and waste management licences even though they are under investigation by the Department? Does the Minister believe that NIEA is fit for purpose, and does he not see why there is a problem with waste disposal in Northern Ireland when we have such contradictory behaviour by his Department?”
“Subsequently, of course, the Minister informed me in December 2013 that the company, even though it was under investigation, had been granted a licence to dispose of tyres and to bale tyres. I pointed out to him that it was under investigation. I had a letter from him saying that NIEA had no knowledge that this company was disposing of tyres illegally in Donegal. Unfortunately for the Minister, four months earlier on 6 September, his Department had indicated to my constituent that the Environment Agency was preparing a file to be sent to the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland for this selfsame firm. So, it seems that, even in his own Department, there is confusing evidence given to the Minister. <BR /> <BR />The questions that I really want answered are these. Why do we have such confusing regulations?”
“Aleathea Brown was the officer on site with the 14 police officers and she demanded that he be arrested even though he had written to her indicating that he was prepared to volunteer to come in to be interviewed in the offices. When this was pointed out, she still insisted that he be arrested, and he was taken and held in Antrim police station. He was denied medication for some time, which is an issue for the police. Now, he does not know where he stands. <BR /> <BR />Here is the irony of this all. He could dispose of these tyres to other firms in Northern Ireland. One of those firms is NK Ferguson Tyres in Londonderry, a company that was in December of 2011 exposed in the 'Sunday Life' as operating without a licence, without planning permission and of dumping illegally in Donegal.”
“He was taken to court, and he was fined. He was left with the tyres. Of course, because of the fine and because he had not been able to operate a business for nearly two years, he had no means of disposing of the tyres, and the tyres were put into storage until he could find the money to get somebody to take them off his hands. <BR /> <BR />This is where it takes another twist because, at that stage, the Environment Agency officers visited the site where his tyres were being stored. This meek and mild individual was summoned to the site to find that the enforcement officer was there with 14 policemen. Do not forget that he had never resisted the attentions of the Environment Agency or anything like that.”
“As it turned out, because he had already acquired tyres because he thought that there was no problem and the advice that he had been given when I had taken him to see the head of the Environment Agency was that there would not be a problem, the next thing was that enforcement came down on him. He was easy pickings because he was not one of these boys who had a huge fence around the place and guard dogs or who threatened officers or anything like that. He was a mild-mannered and meek individual. So, he was easy pickings. He was visited by an officer from the Environment Agency, Neil Adair, who told him that he wanted him to come for interview under caution. He did not tell him that he could bring a solicitor. He went along in all innocence and was questioned and, probably because he did not take a solicitor, disadvantaged himself.”
“Furthermore, companies got waste management licences to bundle those tyres, provided they sent those contaminating bundles of tyres to other countries. They could send them to England. They could send them to South Korea — think of the carbon footprint in transferring them across half the world — but you could not get a waste exemption licence for them in Northern Ireland. They could also be used, apparently, for some purposes in Northern Ireland.”
“<BR /> <BR />Furthermore, when you look at another branch of the NIEA that deals with landfill regulations, you see that it was telling people that one of the acceptable uses for tyres — tyres that the Minister told me in a written answer could not be given a waste exemption licence for bundling because there was a danger of chemical leaching — was to line landfill sites. One branch of the NIEA did not seem to know what the other branch was saying. How can anyone deal with such contradictory regulations? On the one hand, some people get a waste exemption licence; on the other hand, others do not. On the one hand, we are told that the regulations have not been signed; on the other hand, we are told you can use the bundles of tyres, which are in danger of chemical leaching, for landfill sites.”
“<BR /> <BR />When I asked the Minister why that was the case, he replied to me in a written answer that in Northern Ireland we had not adopted PAS 107 and PAS 108 because there were concerns about chemical leaching from baled tyres. That was on 30 September 2013. You can understand the confusion of my constituent, who had put a lot of money into the activity, bought equipment, got premises and started gathering tyres, only to find that the literature published by the NIEA was incorrect, the advice given by the head of the NIEA was incorrect and the register that the NIEA had about waste exemption licences was contradictory and contradicted the advice from the Minister.”
“He spent £806 on the advice of the head of the Environment Agency. It was immediately returned to him because, despite what the literature from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency said, there was no mechanism for giving a waste exemption licence for that activity. It was all the more confusing because, when he looked at the Northern Ireland Environment Agency website for the register of firms that had been given waste exemption licences, he saw that firms from Strabane, Kircubbin and Londonderry had been given waste exemption licences for the shredding and baling of waste tyres and rubber chippings. So, he was turned down, even though the literature stated that that was one way of disposing of tyres and other firms had been granted waste exemption licences.”
“The reason given was that, despite the fact that the Environment Agency's own literature at that stage indicated that one of the ways of disposing of tyres was to shred or bale them, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency had not agreed the regulations that had been agreed in Scotland, England and Wales — PAS 107 and PAS 108 — which treated baled tyres as a manufactured product.”
“He proceeded with the business, only to be told later that he would require planning permission, because the Northern Ireland Environment Agency had indicated, when it was consulted, that planning permission was required, even though the planning officers and the Department of the Environment's planning division had said that he did not require it. <BR /> <BR />He obtained other premises, moved to them and was collecting tyres. He applied for the waste exemption licence and expected it to go through with no problem. Within two days, a decision was made that a waste exemption licence would not be granted for the activity that he wished to engage in.”
“I want to set up a business that will employ people and will enable me to collect tyres across east Antrim from a number of people and recycle them in a way that is sustainable". He had applied to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency for a waste management licence and was told that he would have to have certain qualifications etc. Those qualifications were well above what would have been required to simply bring in tyres and bale them, which is what he wanted to do. <BR /> <BR />I took him to see the then head of the Environment Agency, Mr John McMillan. He was given advice by Mr McMillan and was told, "Look, you should apply for a waste exemption licence. There shouldn't be any problem, but it will take some time". He had secured premises and was told by the planners that he would not need planning permission for them.”
“<BR /> <BR />It seems that one of the most popular ways in east Antrim of disposing of used tyres is to put them on bonfires. I have no doubt that one of the reasons for that is that the regulatory regime that we have in Northern Ireland is totally inadequate and totally contradictory and is left to the arbitrary decisions, which are sometimes very inadequate, made by officers in the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. That is one of the reasons why we have a persistent problem with the disposal of tyres in Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />In November 2009, a young man who was clearly eager to start up a business — he was a keen environmentalist and believed he had an idea that could deal with an environmental problem — came to see me and said, "Look, I've a problem.”
“The disposal of tyres is something that is of great concern to the Executive. Indeed, the Department of the Environment's heritage service has already shown its concern in its publication 'Used Tyres - What's All The Fuss About?'. In that, it indicates the extent of the problem with disposing of hundreds of thousands of tyres in Northern Ireland each year. <BR /> <BR />The Environment Committee has also highlighted the inadequacies of the current system — I want to come to some of those by using the story of a constituent — and the way in which the Department of the Environment and especially the Northern Ireland Environment Agency deal with the issue. Indeed, it made a number of recommendations in its report to the Department, some of which are very pertinent and illustrate the problems that have been experienced.”
“I thank those who organise these things for the opportunity to raise the issue today. When I put down the motion of tyres in east Antrim, some people thought that I was speaking about my spare tyre, but it is not that; it is a much more serious issue. It affects the general policy of the Executive in dealing with waste in a sustainable way. The problems that I want to highlight are encapsulated in a story that I will tell about a constituent, who sought to work with the Department of the Environment, only to find himself bankrupt as a result of the way in which he was treated by the Department.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I hate to stop him when he is on a bit of a roll. Will he accept that, under the tutelage of his Ministers, the Assembly agreed the bedroom tax for the private sector, it agreed that the changes in ESA, which account for about £100 million of the cuts, should go through by accelerated passage and it agreed the disability assessment changes in 2010? All of those are part of the £750 million of cuts that he is now ranting about.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. The argument made by the Ulster Unionist spokesman was that the proper place for debating the legislation is on the Floor of the Assembly. We have had a First Reading, a Second Reading and a Committee Stage, all of which the Member who made the claim took part in. What could be more parliamentary than that? He cannot say that he is against this because it has not gone through the proper parliamentary process.”
“You sit on the Committee that investigates it.”
“You have seen the legislation; you are on the Committee.”
“I thank the Member for giving way, and I am glad that she has raised the issue of the bedroom tax. Does she accept that her party introduced the bedroom tax for those in the private rented sector?”