John O'Dowd
Upper Bann · Sinn Féin · Northern Ireland
“As I set out in response to the previous question, we have in place the vacant property rate relief scheme and the small business rate relief scheme, which are very successful. I set aside £10 million in the draft Budget for small business rate relief to be invested.”
“I am particularly keen to hear from those impacted by vacant commercial units and especially about how any phased increase can be implemented in a sustainable way that is fair, proportionate and sustainable within the tax system.”
“I outlined my intent to take that approach in my statement on 18 November, alongside the fact that reform of rating policy should support growth, make better use of property and ensure that the system is fair, proportionate and aligned with wider economic objectives.”
“The accelerator will operate alongside our highly successful Back in Business scheme, which has helped to bring over 100 vacant high street properties back into use since May 2024. Those issues have been the subject of considerable interest and comment in the Assembly, and it is right that we grasp the nettle now.”
“There are no circumstances in which a hard border would be good for the people of Ireland; it would not be good for anyone. Those who suggest that are being naive at best and dangerous at worst, in the sense of not understanding this society. <BR /> <BR />Rural communities along the border are one and the same.”
“This announcement represents the next step in that. That said, I also put on record my intention to strengthen support for small businesses. In that vein, £10 million has been set aside in the draft Budget to broaden the impact of the small business rate relief scheme in order to increase the number of businesses that can benefit from it.…”
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“It has been caused by rising fuel prices, but there is a serious question as to whether the fuel to heat homes and keep people well should be sold on stock markets in the first place. It should never be a commodity that people invest in and make huge profits out of, and some may lose out. Somebody is making lots money out of this, you can be assured of that.”
“<BR /> <BR />When we talk about tackling this, I do not think that £40 million does it. Last year, through COVID funding, the Executive received around £200 million to tackle fuel poverty as a result of COVID and other things. That is the scale that we are talking about. It is not 0·4% of the Budget. It is much, much more. <BR /> <BR />Today, the Assembly, with the Welsh Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, should send a clear message to Westminster that this is on a scale that none of the devolved institutions can deal with. This is not Tory bashing. I do Tory bash, but this is not Tory bashing. No devolved institution can deal with this issue. This is a central government problem. It is a Westminster issue.”
“Whether both parents or however many in a home work, they will be hit by energy cost rises that they never thought possible. <BR /> <BR />It has been estimated that it costs £600 a year to heat an average family home using gas. It is now estimated that, with the increases, it will be over £1,000 a year. That does not take into account rising food costs, the rising cost of putting diesel, petrol or whatever it may be into your car, putting clothes on your children's backs or putting food on the table. All those things are coming down the track at families. I suspect that many families believe that they may be cushioned against that because they are working. You would have to be on a good wage to be able to say, "Right, my energy cost's going up by 100%. I'll be able to absorb that". It is impossible.”
“When we are looking to fund something, we have got into the habit of referring to the amount of money that the Executive have, taking the smallest decimal point that we can find and saying, "That is 0·4%". Last week, another party was looking for 0·5%. Next week, another will be looking for 1%. I do not care whether the Finance Minister is from the Ulster Unionist Party, the DUP or the SDLP or is Jim Allister. I do not care who it is. They can no longer subsidise Tory austerity and deal with events on a global scale such as the energy crisis. <BR /> <BR />While the intent of the motion is honourable and good, it does not recognise the scale of the problem. The scale of the energy cost rises impacts not only on those who have lost universal credit, whether they were working or not, but on families with two incomes.”
“I support the intent of the motion, and we will vote for it. Listening to Dr Aiken, however, I cannot help but feel that he is either deliberately ignoring the scale of the problem or that he has no realisation of it. I suspect that he does realise the scale of the problem. If he understands it, surely he and his colleagues have to understand that it is beyond the financial capacity of the Executive to deal with the looming energy crisis that is coming down the track and, indeed, that is here. Most observers in the field believe that it will continue right up until spring 2022. <BR /> <BR />Dr Aiken has given us a figure of £40 million that the Executive need to find.”
“We have to ensure that careers advice and support are given to parents as well as young people. <BR /> <BR />We also have to change how we measure success in education. If we measure success in education simply by the number of people who go to university, we measure the wrong thing. We have to measure it by how many young people who leave our education system value themselves and become valuable members of society. <BR /> <BR />I commend the amendment to Members. Skills need to be supported and funded, and our amendment ensures that we look at this not only now but over the next three years.”
“Upskilling should always be an option, no matter what employment you are in. That part of our economy needs to be supported as well. <BR /> <BR />I will finish on these points. The Member who moved the motion talked about careers advice and vocational courses. That is a valid point. The main careers adviser in any family is a parent. If you are not aware of the economy and the careers that are out there, you will give the wrong advice. I am at the stage in my life of talking to one of my children about GCSEs and, perhaps in future, A levels. I hope that I am relatively well tuned in to what is going on in the political and economic world, and yet it is difficult to give a young person advice. If I, with my level of knowledge, find that, how do parents without such involvement do it?”
“When I looked out of the window of my constituency office during those meetings, the economic activity that I could see going on in the high street, the town and beyond did not always match what I saw in the papers presented to me by the Department for the Economy. <BR /> <BR />Yes, there are hi-tech and fintech jobs in my constituency. I can see them from my constituency office, but I also see construction workers, hairdressers and people who work in catering. I see those who work in the caring profession. I see lorry drivers, shopworkers and others who, before the pandemic, were often thought of as unskilled. Now, we can certainly see their skills and the benefit that those people bring to our economy. They need support, and they need recognition of the skills that they have.”
“I listened carefully to the analysis and statistical reports of the Member who moved the motion, and I am not here to argue against any of that. It is a concern, however, that a lot of our economic focus is on those who attend university and leave it with qualifications — what skill sets and jobs we can bring in for those people — and that there is not enough focus on those who do not go to university, whether they do not wish to go or do not have the qualifications, and what they bring to our economy and society. <BR /> <BR />Look at the economic activity around you. I often use the example of speaking, via StarLeaf, in meetings that the Economy Committee used to hold.”
“It will not increase skills. It will not increase economic development. A choice was made to ring-fence £145 million in that programme and not in skills, but I accept that choices have to be made. During the pandemic, the Department of Finance has made numerous allocations to skills, including £20·5 million for apprenticeships and £7·7 million for skills and youth training. <BR /> <BR />Upskilling and reskilling our population are key to helping our economy to recover and to addressing long-standing economic issues. That is accepted and a given. I welcome the fact that both the main motion and the motion as amended, should the amendment be accepted, refer to upskilling those with "low, or no, qualifications".”
“A further £21 million is unallocated to protect against the high street voucher scheme overrun, which in itself is about 15% of the budget. The Committee for the Economy has already questioned why such a significant amount of money has been held over. Imagine £21 million being invested in skills. <BR /> <BR />Those were choices. As a former Minister, I accept that Ministers have to make choices — they are not always easy — but a decision was made to put £145 million into the high street voucher scheme. It is a very welcome scheme, and, it has to be said, it lifted the morale of the community. It is very beneficial for hard-pressed families, and its announcement was a change from the bad news that we receive almost daily. However, it will not change the economic outlook of this society. It will not change the economy.”
“<BR /> <BR />With the block grant having been slashed over the past 10 years and remaining below pre-recession levels in real terms, despite much hype around the most recent Budget by Rishi Sunak, there is very little financial space for ring-fenced funding for skills. The latest spending review proves that there is not sufficient funding to ring-fence skills funding. <BR /> <BR />The Department for the Economy has been given considerable funding over the past year for skills and economic recovery. In a previous funding round, the Department's economic recovery action plan, to which I referred earlier, received £275 million ring-fenced funding: £138 million for economic support measures and £145 million for the high street voucher scheme.”
“If skills are a priority for the Economy Minister and, indeed, were a priority for the previous Economy Minister, why have three successive DUP Ministers made no effort to engage with the Dublin Government on that funding and their allocation to our students and education providers? As another real example of the futility of boycotting North/South Ministerial Council meetings, that is the sort of real work that goes on at such meetings, where cooperation between the two Administrations on this island benefits the people on this island, and, again, we see our young people losing out as a result.”
“The disastrous Brexit policy will result in real funding shortfalls for skills providers and learners. The UK's Community Renewal Fund, which was designed to act as a stopgap and provide funding in the area of employability skills and investment in business, will provide only £11 million of funding to the North from a pot of £220 million. It is clearly a significant shortfall on the funding that was available through the European social fund. <BR /> <BR />It should also be mentioned that the Dublin Government, through their Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, guarantee that funding will be allocated to students from the North so that they can access the ERASMUS+ programme, which can improve their knowledge and research.”
“With regard to funding the skills strategy, commitment 34 acknowledges that Brexit will create funding shortfalls in respect of the European social fund. While the skills strategy does not specify the exact shortfall, we know that the Finance Minister has already had to allocate £22·6 million to the Department for the Economy last year so that the European social fund programmes could continue until March 2023. That is £22·6 million that we were unable to spend elsewhere. That is not to suggest for one second that the skills strategy was not an important investment, but we were already getting it funded from elsewhere until we were forced to exit the EU.”
“The opportunity to ring-fence skills funding was within the proposer's gift at that time. Two previous DUP Economy Ministers had an opportunity to ring-fence skills funding, but, for whatever reason, they chose not to do that. The amendment highlights the fact that we have lost substantial funding as a result of our exit from the EU, and we have a motion before us today calling for that funding to be ring-fenced from elsewhere. If it is to be ring-fenced from elsewhere, there will have to be a reduction in budgets elsewhere. As I said, EU funding for skills was transformative from 2014 to 2020. EU funding allocated to the NI European social fund amounted to approximately £210 million, representing 46·7% of the total programme cost.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion and to move the amendment. It is worth noting that the Member who moved the substantive motion is a former Economy Minister and the author of 'A 10X Economy', which received a broad welcome. We have made much comment on and had much debate about that document.”
“Minister, we hear much from the opposite Benches about the harm that the protocol is allegedly doing to working-class unionist communities. Does she agree that the bedroom tax is doing much more harm than the protocol ever will?”
“Is it not lazy rhetoric, in some ways, to refer to sectarianism in the Chamber? Do you honestly believe that the thousands of neighbours you have in west Belfast who vote Sinn Féin are sectarian?”
“It is a point of order. Is it in order for the House to be misled by the Member by statements that are not factual?”
“— it will be difficult to progress from where we are now.”
“We will not allow anybody to treat our electorate as second-class citizens. <BR /> <BR />The question for the future is: how do we ensure that no one in the Chamber feels that they are being treated as a second-class citizen. Until that equation is made —”
“<BR /> <BR />You must also recognise that we currently have the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party refusing to say whether, under the current agreement, if Sinn Féin were the largest party after the next election, they would nominate a deputy First Minister. They cannot say it. How can we move forward and change in that circumstance? Let me make this clear: if Sinn Féin is the largest party after the next election, we will nominate Michelle O'Neill as First Minister. If Sinn Féin is the second-largest party, we will nominate Michelle O'Neill as deputy First Minister, regardless of who is the largest party. If we do not have enough votes to take seats in the Executive, we will be in the Chamber, operating the structures of the Good Friday Agreement and seeking change. Kellie has talked about her mandate.”
“Kellie, we must get to a position where we have equality. However, the Good Friday Agreement, at that point in time, was about bringing to an end a conflict between the two main traditions on the island, nationalism and unionism. You can shake your head all you want, but that is what the conflict was. Have things evolved? Are we in an Ireland of transition? Yes, without a doubt. We are in an Ireland of transition where there are many different views. That makes this a much richer place, and it makes the Assembly richer and more diverse. That has to be recognised as we go into the future.”
“Power-sharing includes our having different understandings of the past. My experience of the British Army, the RUC, the UDR, and all that other paraphernalia that went around this state, is different from yours, but I accept that you have a right to honour that. You have a right to remember the past from your perspective. I thought that you were going to stand up and completely shock me by saying that your party is proud to share power with republicans, the SDLP and Alliance, but you did not.”
“When we reach a stage where somebody on the Benches opposite can stand and say, "I am proud to say that I share power with Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Alliance Party or whoever else gets a mandate to be in the Executive", society will have taken a huge step forward. A huge step forward.”
“I see it as a political philosophy that is forward thinking and inclusive, and that is about the future while conscious of the past. We want to see, in the Chamber and Executive, a working power-sharing institution that represents all the citizens of this part of the island. <BR /> <BR />As I have said in the Chamber before, I am proud to say that I share power with my Protestant, unionist, loyalist — and whatever other descriptions are out there — neighbours. When I was in the Executive, there were two Alliance Ministers. I am proud to say that I was in an Executive that had representation from all the major parties at that time.”
“<BR /> <BR />Looking at the political atmosphere in which we are currently working, our party has serious concerns about the trajectory and attitude of the two main unionist parties in particular — the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party — and about their views on sharing power with their nationalist and republican neighbours. That is the context in which any discussion or negotiation will take place. We do not want to give anyone the impression that we will allow our electorate to be discriminated against. <BR /> <BR />I heard Kellie's comments about the mandate of the Alliance Party, the Greens, People Before Profit and others, and how that is counted. I am deeply proud to be a nationalist and republican.”
“Before I make my substantive remarks, I will let the House know that Sinn Féin will abstain on the two amendments and on the substantive motion. <BR /> <BR />Our party is up for dialogue about the institutions, about how things work and about some of the points that Kellie Armstrong raised on how her mandate is recognised. All that has to take place in an atmosphere where there is equality of opportunity for all in the Chamber and where previous long-standing agreements are honoured by all in the Chamber.”
“— which, if they had been properly used, would have alleviated a lot of the problems that some of our businesses faced and would have given huge opportunities to many of our businesses to create jobs and prosperity for all our people.”
“Yes. As, I think, Mr Muir said, traders, fishermen, farmers and businesses in Scotland would give their hind teeth for what we have at the minute. There are businesses in England and Wales that would give their hind teeth for it because of the added protections that we have. <BR /> <BR />When people say, "Oh, you should never have asked for the rigorous implementation of the protocol", to me, the rigorous implementation of the protocol is this: all the mechanisms of the protocol are properly used, including the Specialised Committee —”
“I will in a second. <BR /> <BR />The reality of the new world that Britain has stepped into is that it is now a third-party country to the European Union. Thankfully, we will have the protocol to protect us from the worst aspects of that, though, even without the DUP's latest stunt, there was always an opportunity to reach the point we are now at with the European Union in terms of changes to the protocol, relaxations, better dialogue and more democracy around the protocol. All those could have been achieved because they were knitted into the original protocol. However, when Britain goes out and looks around the world for new trading arrangements, it will find that it is in a new reality.”
“I have concerns about what is happening in Poland and elsewhere. There is the abuse of human rights. There is the abuse of the LGBT community. The fact that there is an international mechanism to hold countries to account is a good thing. <BR /> <BR />The British judiciary had access to sit on and make representations to the European Court of Justice, and the decision was made to walk away from it, so you cannot for one second say, "Oh, we disagree with that international provider of arbitration. We don't have a place on it". There are people in the Chamber who lobbied to remove your places from it. When Britain goes around the world and tries to sign trade deals, it will find that there will be arbitration, and it will not be on Britain's terms alone.”
“I will give way after this point. <BR /> <BR />What will the New Year party look like? That is the question you need to ask yourselves.”
“Do you have a plan for what happens after Christmas?”
“However, the question in my head is this: what happens after the election? <BR /> <BR />Preconditions have been set, and, each week, new preconditions are set. We have now been told that the DUP is very concerned about the European Court of Justice. They were not that concerned about it when they were writing their seven-point plan or eight-point plan or whatever, but now that Lord Frost has introduced it, they are concerned. In fairness to Mr Allister in the corner, he will wind them up about it until they become more concerned about it. So, you will possibly have your pre-Christmas election; you will have the election results. Some of you may get a bag of coal for Christmas. You might not get the present you wanted. However, what happens afterwards? You have set such high preconditions. Will we be able to come back into the Chamber?”
“As I said, it is a matter for the DUP to decide who is put up to speak. You have a lot of talented people still on the Benches who could contribute to the debate, but that is a matter for you. <BR /> <BR />I am beginning to have a firm point of view about where the DUP is going. They are being wound up by Mr Allister in the corner. He is very effective at that. He knows how to wind and wind and push them. I am convinced that the DUP want an election for Christmas. It does not matter what the EU does at this stage. The DUP, for strategic reasons, wants an election before Christmas. It does not matter what happens, they want to see the result of the ballot under the Christmas tree. Now, that is fine. As elected representatives, we should never fear an election; it is the ultimate test of democracy.”
“One moment. <BR /> <BR />— there was going to be more opportunity for DUP MLAs to have their voices heard. Now they are restricted to one Member speaking in a debate.”
“Yes. It was all rejected. The hardest of hard Brexits was demanded. Thankfully, there was more common sense among the many people who said, "No. We just cannot have a hard Brexit on the island of Ireland. We need to respect the relationships and the foundations on which our peace has been built and moved forward". <BR /> <BR />It is interesting that the DUP has had only one Member to speak: the proposer of the amendment and the Member making the winding-up speech being the same person. They are perfectly entitled to do that, although I thought that, under the new leadership of the DUP —”
“I will make a republican out of you yet, Mr Allister. I am concerned that our laws are made in a foreign land and we do not have powers over ourselves. <BR /> <BR />We had power in Brussels. We had representation. The Member shakes his head to say that we did not; maybe he was not a very effective MEP. I suspect that he was, in fairness to him. We had voices in the European Parliament. We had commissioners, and we had representation at all levels. You and others told us to vote to do away with that and did not give an alternative way in which we would manage the relationships between these islands as we move forward. We ended up with the protocol as the best way to mitigate that situation.”
“Collectively, we have the ability to make our voices heard. I see Mr Allister looking to come in.”
“OK, let us make sure that our voices are heard not only in the European Parliament but in capitals around Europe, in the United States and elsewhere, because that is how we built our peace process. That is how we created the change that was necessary to move away from a society in conflict to a society in peace and transition. Let us use our ability to use dialogue. I have no doubt that, if we establish inter-parliamentary dialogue, Diane Dodds and other DUP representatives sitting in the far corner, Jim Allister, Steve Aiken, my colleagues and I on these Benches will be able to represent the views of the people of the North in a way that makes a difference, because I have more in common with the Members on the Benches opposite and on these Benches than I have with the representatives of the EU or Westminster.”
“Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the debate ended up being about the protocol rather than about the inter-parliamentary dialogue that was proposed last week and, indeed, prior to that. It is about engagement between this institution and the European institutions. It is also about a better understanding of each other's position and of how Brexit has impacted on our society, economy and politics, and how the mechanism that was put in place to deal with that — the protocol — is being managed. I am disappointed to learn that there are those who are opposed to that. They have come up with a variety of reasons as to why they are opposed to it. Some claim that it does not go far enough.”
“<BR /> <BR />The one thing that has been missing from every contribution from the parties around the Chamber is this: how much are your Ministers prepared to hand over to mitigate the universal credit cut of £20 a week? We are talking about tens of millions of pounds. Is the Health Minister prepared to hand that over? Is the Education Minister, the Justice Minister or the Infrastructure Minister? I look forward to firm proposals coming forward that will help to mitigate the cuts that the Tories have made. <BR /> <BR />I will end on this point. Let us remain unified. The Tories are taking £20 a week out of people's pockets; the Executive are not.”
“The Bill, and how it went in the votes, is on the record. <BR /> <BR />The Member says that we want a unified approach, so let us keep it unified. The idea that the SDLP has been running a lengthy campaign around this is, in itself, silly. The Member criticised the Executive only at the weekend for doing this. It is only in this last two weeks that the SDLP has come forward with this idea that the Executive should foot the bill for the Tory cuts to universal credit. I note Nicola Sturgeon's comments last week that we have to stop mitigating the Tories. The general theme of her argument was that we can no longer afford to mitigate the Tories, because they have cut public spending and services to the point where none of the devolved institutions can mitigate them any longer.”
“The motivation behind the motion is an attempt to blame the Executive for the £20 cut instead of remaining on the unified side of the pitch and ensuring that there is a unified voice coming from not only this Chamber but Scotland and Wales that the Tories are to blame for taking £20 a week out of people's pockets.”
“Contrary to what Mr Durkan hinted at in his introductory remarks, that was not the first intervention of the Executive. The Executive have been intervening with the Conservative Party over a period of time to stop this cut, as they have been on a number of other cuts to public spending and finances. <BR /> <BR />In 2019, the SDLP ran the Westminster election campaign on this slogan: "Stop Boris, Stop Brexit". It appears to me, as an onlooker, that your attendance at Westminster has not stopped Boris, Brexit or the cuts to universal credit.”
“However, the first Welfare Reform Bill to come through the Assembly in my time was brought forward by an SDLP Minister. It was at a time when we heard about privatisation of the disability living allowance (DLA), as it was then. The SDLP told us that that would improve the welfare system and would be to the benefit of claimants. All of that has since proven to be incorrect. <BR /> <BR />That brings me to the motivation of the motion. At the weekend, Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, and the First Minister and deputy First Minister here issued a joint statement that called on those responsible for the £20 a week cut to universal credit to stop it. Responsibility lies with Boris Johnson and the Tories. There was uniform opposition to that at the weekend.”
“I support the motion because its intent is worthwhile and good. The motivation of the motion is open to question. <BR /> <BR />There are many Members who have been here for a long time and will remember back to the previous mandate, when welfare reform nearly brought the Assembly and the Executive to the point of collapse. My party often stood alone in opposition to welfare reform at that stage, when universal credit was being brought through Westminster. Originally, it was expected that we would pass a legislative consent motion, and, then, the then Minister McCausland brought forward legislation to bring about welfare reform. The Executive and the Assembly struggled over 18 months; a period in which there was great uncertainty about their future. That uncertainty was based on the fact that we were opposed to welfare reform.”
“It is time for a strategic decision to put the bridge in place to allow Lough Neagh, the largest inland waterway in these islands, to be circumvented by vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. That has huge potential to increase tourist numbers and investment in the area. Genuine concerns among residents have to be dealt with through the planning process; if the planning process shows that concerns are genuine, the scheme should not go ahead, but we cannot have this go on as it is now without a strategic decision. <BR /> <BR />I urge that the Bann Foot be bridged, that the potential for tourism in the area be built upon and that the situation of residents having to travel 18 miles instead of 300 yards over a bridge be brought to an end.”