Stephen Farry
North Down · Alliance Party · Northern Ireland
“Speaking for a party that has a longer pedigree in advocating a public inquiry than both the DUP and Sinn Féin, I nonetheless welcome this announcement, despite the torturous path that we have had and, indeed, the missed opportunities.”
“The first was a reform of the petition of concern to take it back to the original intent when it was designed in 1998. It was clear at that stage that Arlene Foster banged the table and said, "No, never. We are not doing that. That is a way whereby we are going to have to fold on equal marriage: it's not happening".”
“<BR /> <BR />The main points that I make concern the substance of the order. There are probably three aspects that the Minister needs to address properly before the Assembly, and they really relate to what other options he has.”
“That raises the question of why they want to go as far as 2022, especially when I am not sure — I would welcome any clarification to the contrary on it — that there has been formal Executive approval of this.”
“<BR /> <BR />There are three major substantive issues that I do not believe have been properly aired on this: VAT; European Commission infraction proceedings; and, most important, the opportunity foregone to revisit the classification of Northern Ireland Water and the ability, through a separate water charge, to allow it to borrow commerc…”
“While my party was supportive of the Good Friday Agreement back in 1998, at that time, we expressed some reservations around the very detailed nature of the proposals and how those could, in due course, destabilise Northern Ireland and prevent us from realising our full potential. We have been very much vindicated in that analysis.”
The complete record
Every one of 2,504 lines we hold for Stephen Farry, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 23 of 51.
“I am more than happy to give the Member an update, though it is only two weeks since we launched the strategy and so the consultation is still under way. I am sure that the Member will be particularly pleased, given his political allegiance, that I was down at Croke Park this morning for the National Disability Authority conference on opportunities around employment. It is worth noting that what we have done in Northern Ireland has been mirrored in the employment strategy that was launched by the Taoiseach on 2 October. That was the same week that we launched our strategy in Northern Ireland.”
“— was not for people who come to Northern Ireland from other parts of the world.”
“Let us not scapegoat economic migrants. Let us welcome them into Northern Ireland and recognise that they are playing a major role in our society and are adding more to our society than they are taking out. For example, our National Health Service in Northern Ireland would not function if it —”
“I am more than happy to give those to Mr McNarry, particularly if he is committing himself to informing people about the facts, rather than confirming the perceptions and fears that people wish to stoke up for potential political gain.”
“Let me state the facts as they stand: we have problems with unemployment and problems with low and no skills. Those are deep structural problems that existed in our society long before mass migration became an issue. The same applies to what people perceive as problems with school admissions and waiting lists. Those are nothing to do with the fact that people are coming to work and live in Northern Ireland. They relate to problems with our budgets and structural issues in our society that we have not yet got to grips with. <BR /> <BR />The fact remains that unemployment, including long-term unemployment, and economic inactivity persist regardless of the ups and downs of the economic cycle and the numbers coming into Northern Ireland. Those are the facts, and the statistics are there.”
“I think that most people in this society are sick, sore and tired of the demagoguery that comes from UKIP when it is scapegoating the other for the problems that lie within our society.”
“— and scapegoating people coming into our society.”
“I certainly hope that the Member will inform the people of Northern Ireland as to what is really going on rather than engaging in scaremongering —”
“<BR /> <BR />Northern Ireland Social Security Agency and Department for Work and Pensions statistics show that there were between 8,000 and 11,000 National Insurance numbers issued to non-UK nationals resident in Northern Ireland in each of the last four years. That is around half the annual level for the period from 2005 to 2008. <BR /> <BR />It would be unwise to assume a causal link between the claimant count and National Insurance number registrations. Migrants will leave or will not all have jobs at any one time, and some will be UK citizens even if not UK-born. It is, therefore, important not to draw conclusions about whether non-UK-born National Insurance number registrations increase or decrease the number of those not in employment, education or training.”
“An increase in National Insurance numbers issued does not necessarily lead to an increase in the number not in employment, education or training. A report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions and authored by Portes, Lemos and Gilpin shows that there is no impact on the numbers not in employment, education or training related to the number of migrants registering for National Insurance numbers in the UK. <BR /> <BR />It should be noted that not all those issued with National Insurance numbers, outside the routine process when individuals are 16 years old, may be working. It should also be noted that some of those issued with National Insurance numbers, although not UK-born, will be UK citizens.”
“Obviously, as we work through the capital programme for colleges, there may be decisions on the rationalisation of particular buildings, but we are committed to having six colleges in our FE network.”
“At this stage, the situation is, clearly, already unsustainable. We are losing places and staff and going in the opposite direction from what is happening elsewhere on these islands. Until this point, we had been making progress — a gradual, incremental change — on the number of places in our universities. Over the lifetime of this Assembly, we have managed an increase of almost 1,300 or 1,400, which is a significant rate of progress, but we are now moving backwards. <BR /> <BR />On the Member's second point about Colleges NI and the number of FE colleges in Northern Ireland, the intention is that we will continue to have six. It is not on the agenda.”
“This issue needs to be settled so that the universities can plan ahead for the future and so that future students have certainty in the decisions that they make about how they are going to approach their studies.”
“It is certainly not designed to put anything off. It is designed to bring things to a head because the current situation is not sustainable and a decision has to be taken on the way forward. I am very keen to hear the views of the Ulster Unionist Party on what it believes is the way forward. Ultimately, this is a decision that will have to be taken by the Executive; it has to be a collective decision that all of us are able to stand over and which can be embedded for several generations. We cannot have a situation where our universities are facing unstable environment where they are living from pillar to post, from one year to another or from one spending round to another.”
“That stage will come formally through engagement with the Committee for Employment and Learning, on which all the parties in the Assembly are represented, and with members of the Executive. Ultimately, the Executive will be the key decision-maker in that regard. If any party wishes to have a separate meeting with me or my officials regarding these issues, we are more than happy to facilitate that directly in advance of those more formal discussions.”
“Parents, organisations, employers, employees, former higher education students and current students tested their knowledge during the first stage of the process. <BR /> <BR />Stage 2, entitled "Have your say", closes on Friday 23 October and provides the people of Northern Ireland with the opportunity to help shape the future of higher education here. I will use the evidence gathered from this exercise to formulate an options paper, which I will present to my Executive colleagues, outlining the ways in which higher education could be sustained in future.”
“We are now the only region in the UK that is actively disinvesting in higher education. The model we currently use to support higher education is no longer sustainable. <BR /> <BR />That is why I have launched an innovative and experimental approach to engage with the people of Northern Ireland about this extremely important issue entitled the Higher Education Big Conversation. The first stage of the Big Conversation closed on Friday 2 October. It was designed to inform or remind people about why higher education is so important and how it is delivered and funded. It also explored the challenges that our higher education system is facing and drew on the ways in which higher education is delivered and funded elsewhere.”
“With your permission, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, I wish to group questions 4 and 10, and I request an additional minute for the answer. <BR /> <BR />Northern Ireland currently supports higher education through a roughly equal balance between public and private investment. In 2013-14, the higher education institutions’ two most significant sources of income came from annual grants paid through Departments amounting to 37% of their income and tuition fees paid by students, representing 30%. This year, in the context of severely constrained public resources, grant funding for higher education in Northern Ireland is reducing by over £16 million. Meanwhile, tuition fees have remained frozen, subject only to inflationary increases, since 2006. This stifling of investment has led to significant reductions in student places and staff posts.”
“We are not simply proposing that the system carries on in future as it did before. We need to rebalance and reprofile our higher education offer and we need to see a greater shift towards STEM subjects and engagement in the provision of employability skills. Our universities are also potential partners in our apprenticeships strategy, particularly around degree-level apprenticeships, which take into account part-time study alongside someone being in training on the job in that particular context. That is a very tall order, given the amount of money that we are talking about. However, it is achievable if we are prepared to do things differently across a whole range of aspects of how we conduct business in Northern Ireland, from addressing the costs of a divided society through to revenue raising and other reforms in key public services.”
“If that were to go ahead, we would be talking about an additional commitment — again, per annum — from the Executive in the region of around £30 million. Very quickly, you see that we have a funding pressure for higher education in excess of £80 million per year.”
“It is worth referencing where we currently sit in the context of finance. We have had a cut in the region of £16 million in the current financial year. That builds on top of what has been an emerging structural deficit for our universities approximating to £40 million. These are all per annum costs. That amounts to a difference in funding per place in Northern Ireland compared with the rest of the UK of between £1,000 and £2,500, which is a very significant difference. If it is not addressed, it will call into question the quality of our higher education product compared with that of others. There is very real danger there. <BR /> <BR />On top of that, we have quite understandable demands for the expansion of the higher education sector, particularly with reference to the Magee campus in Derry.”
“With particular reference to B&Q, the offer is there of direct assistance that we can provide to any individuals who are very sadly being made redundant in that context.”
“I have to say to the Member that it is very difficult to contemplate ring-fencing anything in the current climate, because real carnage is happening to budgets for skills in both the universities and the colleges. Let me stress that our colleges, in particular, are there to engage directly in the upskilling of the workforce. That is a service for all ages. They will work directly with companies to put together some very particular training programmes, as well as the more general provision that they offer. They are also the key delivery partners in our new strategy on apprenticeships. <BR /> <BR />Beyond what the colleges offer, we also have redundancy services where we can put together particular clinics.”
“Unfortunately, I do not think that those comments apply to the conduct of his own party when it was in office until fairly recently.”
“First of all, let me say that we have to press on with welfare reform. That is of primary importance. I also have to say to the Member that the situation would have been helped a little bit if the decision had not been taken by the Executive regarding the reallocation of the premia cuts that I had proposed to the teacher training colleges. His party was very much party to that decision. <BR /> <BR />Overall, my party did take the view that we were not in support of the Budget. We took that democratic decision because we did not feel that the Budget was sufficiently strategic. However, once that decision had been taken, we honourably followed through with decisions that have been taken to support the legislation around all that and to ensure that our Departments remain within the Budget envelope that has been allocated to us.”
“<BR /> <BR />Nonetheless, this is an area where more work can be done. We also have the potential to access European funding, and great work is happening to put in bids for Horizon 2020. As the Member will be aware, we have a contact-point network in place across my Department and DETI with support from a number of other Departments, with people employed solely with a purpose of processing grant applications to the European Union. Beyond that, we also have North/South cooperation between DEL and the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and also the US-Ireland research alliance, all of which are other ways in which we can bring additional money into the higher education sector.”
“A lot of work is ongoing by way of business and community interaction. It is worth noting that our local universities perform extremely well in the UK context and, certainly, punch well above their weight in areas such as consultancy, knowledge-transfer issues, spin-out companies — those types of indicators. <BR /> <BR />There is, perhaps, greater scope for growth in relation to how we do from UK research council bids. The difficulty there is that we are battling a trend towards the consolidation of big-scale research projects into fewer and fewer universities, particularly as the scale of the project becomes an important consideration. As well as that, we have the issue of being on a different island from that on which things are often happening elsewhere in the UK. That makes the challenge of what we have to do almost double.”
“<BR /> <BR />As higher education funding from government continues to decline, it is clear that our funding model is unsustainable. Therefore I have launched the Higher Education Big Conversation to involve as many people as possible in shaping our unique solution to supporting higher education going forward. Once complete, I will take stock of all options and present them to the Executive.”
“<BR /> <BR />Looking forward, the new strategy for further education extends and reaffirms the role of further education colleges as engines of the economy through skills. <BR /> <BR />The higher education institutions' budgets reduced by £16·1 million, and they have made savings over the past four years amounting to £37 million. I also released around £8 million in spending power over coming years to the universities by reducing the minimum level of reinvestment in widening participation programmes from 20% to 10% of additional student fee income. <BR /> <BR />The universities have acted to protect the narrow STEM subjects which are essential for our future economic growth and prosperity. However, they have had to reduce the number of undergraduate places and have launched early severance and voluntary exit schemes.”
“During the Budget negotiations, I secured an additional £20 million to support skills development, which alleviated the budget reduction to further and higher education. The further education budget has been reduced by £12 million, which follows on from £4 million annual efficiencies that were required in recent years. <BR /> <BR />To help address the budget cuts, colleges have utilised the voluntary exit scheme, with the exit of over 400 college staff. I have tried to ensure that front-line services are protected as far as possible. Inevitably, the required cuts will have implications for the provision offered. Colleges are estimating that there will be approximately 20,000 fewer funded part-time enrolments. Approximately half of those are recreational courses. Colleges are increasing fees for recreational courses to mitigate the cuts.”
“As the Assembly will know, I had proposed the removal of the specialist premia from the teacher training colleges. They are the only colleges in receipt of those very particular payments. The effect is to very much skew our provision of higher education. The decision that was taken by the Executive meant that what would have been a £14 million cut to the higher education sector became a £16 million cut. That will have had an effect on the number of places and the number of jobs that have had to go in our universities. If we had been able to do things differently, we would have had fewer job losses and fewer courses being dropped.”
“Therefore we are, to a certain extent, at a bit of an impasse in this situation. However, the underlying issues are still there. We have a very costly and fragmented system; we are still training a large number of our teachers on a divided basis, which sends out a terrible signal to the future of our education system; and, while our provision is of good quality, it is not keeping up with the pace of international developments, which, in due course, will be felt by way of the quality of our education system.”
“At the moment, we do not see much overlap in the different views coming forward from the institutions. We have had three institutions say that they are in favour of the options under 'Aspiring to Excellence', including in particular option D. St Mary's, while open to cooperation — it is only right that I say that — has, however, rejected all of the options set out in the report.”
“It is appropriate that we find some consensus in the Assembly for a much more sustainable way forward for our teacher education, which will serve not only the future needs of our education system but allow resources to be freed up to invest in other critical skills interventions. It is bizarre that we have a situation where it costs more in Northern Ireland to train a teacher — when, arguably, we have too many — than an engineer, which we have too few of. We have to get our priorities straight.”
“I certainly understand the point that the Member is making, although I perhaps might not express it in the terms that she has. However, the numbers remain a matter for the Minister of Education, and he will take his decisions based on a number of factors. <BR /> <BR />My views on the issue are already well known, and I do not think that it is a sustainable way forward. Frankly, it is a sad state of affairs that we are training too many teachers for our local economy when we know that the jobs are not there for them. That diverts incredibly scarce resources away from other areas of the economy; for example, the areas that we talked about in the previous set of questions.”
“<BR /> <BR />In my view, the option that best achieves this is a single institution that will enable increased sharing and integration and provide a research-rich environment in line with best international practice, although I remain open to alternatives that are financially sustainable. Such an approach would include provision for the respective ethos of the university colleges to be not only accommodated but embraced, as has been achieved in other places such as Dublin and Glasgow. My officials and I are currently considering a number of options and will initiate further engagement with the providers and the wider education sector to find an agreed way forward. I hope to say more shortly in regard to our next steps.”
“Members will be aware that the two reports that I commissioned on initial teacher education infrastructure, the Grant Thornton study and 'Aspiring to Excellence', confirmed that the status quo is unsustainable from both a financial and qualitative perspective. For example, year-on-year, we continue to train too many teachers for jobs that do not exist, primarily to sustain the current institutional configuration. 'Aspiring to Excellence' has provided alternatives to the current structure that could enable initial teacher education to be delivered more cost-effectively and to a world-class standard.”
“To go down that line would add another layer of bureaucracy, divert scarce resources from the front line and make the situation even worse. There are funding councils in England and Scotland due to the scale of their societies and the number of universities that they have. We have three universities and six further education colleges in Northern Ireland engaged in higher education. Operating on that scale, there is not the same case to be made for the creation of a body such as the Higher Education Funding Council for England. In that regard, we need to have a sense of balance and perspective.”
“However, we have to recognise that, very regrettably, we have had to pass on cuts to universities and they would quite rightly come back and ask, "If you do not think that we should be cutting in that area, where do you want us to cut?" We have to trust them to make decisions based on evidence and on the host of factors that I indicated in the initial answer to the question. In whatever way they do it, we will have a very unpalatable outcome.”
“There is not a lot of rationale for a lot of things that are happening. We are in a very poor state of affairs with our governance and the decisions that we have been taking, or rather not taking, on budgets. We are seeing the outworkings of that with what is happening, not just with the universities but further education, other skills interventions and, outside my Department, in a host of other public services. <BR /> <BR />It is worth stressing again that universities are autonomous. We can give guidance, and they are aware of the Executive's direction of travel in that regard, but we need to be very careful about micromanaging them. It would be very easy to say that they should protect courses and jobs on this or that campus or certain types of courses.”
“The university has made announcements in that regard: it has published and announced the number of jobs, places and courses that will go. I can list all of them for the Member, but it would take a while, given that we are talking about a severe situation; however, they are freely available for his information.”
“The size of those cuts is a clear indication of the severity of the budget reductions that my Department, the university, and the higher education sector face. <BR /> <BR />Before making decisions regarding course provision and staffing levels, universities take a number of factors into account, including my Department’s priorities, the needs of the economy and student demand. Reviewing course provision is part of the normal annual cycle and is good business practice. It is a reflection of the current budget position that that led Ulster University to close some courses and consolidate others.”
“<BR /> <BR />To provide the university with some flexibility and to mitigate the impact of the budget reduction, I have reduced the minimum requirement for direct expenditure on widening participation to 10% of the additional student fee income. That reinvestment of student fee income has been undertaken to promote widening participation through outreach activities and support to less advantaged students. <BR /> <BR />The university will rationalise its offerings across its campuses, with Coleraine specialising in biosciences and Magee in computing, engineering and Irish history. The university has already indicated the scale of the job losses and the loss of places over the current academic year and future years.”
“I have had ongoing discussions with Ulster University in relation to the possible implications of the budget reductions to the higher education sector, including proposed course closures and the potential impacts on staffing budgets. While my Department provides funding and sets the strategic direction for the higher education sector, universities are autonomous and responsible for their own course provision and staffing levels. During those discussions, I have highlighted the need to reflect the ambitions of the Executive and the objectives of my Department, including the protection of narrow STEM subjects.”
“Many of the action points are already being taken forward in isolation, because the time to proceed with them is now.”
“I think that I am right in saying that we have engaged with over 300 individuals already at this stage, which is greater than the number of people who often respond to public consultations. <BR /> <BR />I have actually seen the odd public consultation where you have had something extremely technical and only one or two people have actually responded. I think that we are starting from a much stronger base in that regard. The consultation itself is the formal process. As your colleague Mr Flanagan has outlined, there will be issues that people may wish to stress, but we are starting from a good, strong platform. Hopefully, the consultation responses will be favourable and we will be able to move very quickly to put the strategy in place.”
“I thank the Member for his question. Again, he makes a valid comment about the importance of ensuring that public consultations are meaningful. I can reassure him that this consultation is not just coming from a top-down basis whereby Department officials have written something, I am announcing it and it goes out cold to public consultation. <BR /> <BR />What we are launching today has already been subject to work by the disability sector over the past two years. We have had a number of different events where we have engaged with a whole range of stakeholders, from employers through to the community and voluntary sector and those with disabilities themselves.”
“I thank the Member for his question. He will appreciate that I cannot answer directly for Invest NI, which is the function of the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment. I think that the point he makes is well understood and is also reflected in the approaches taken at present through the use of social clauses, which is now mainstream in public procurement right across the public sector. Indeed, as we build upon existing practices in social clauses, there is an immediate opportunity with regard to the type of outcome that the Member is suggesting. I have no doubt that people with responsibility will reflect on what he says about the opportunity through the work that Invest NI does as well.”
“That is why it is important, again, that this is seen not just in isolation but as part of a wider Executive commitment to ensuring that we have that equality of access to people across the board.”
“That can be a more acute issue for those in rural areas.”