Trevor Lunn
Lagan Valley · Independent · Northern Ireland
“I know what I am going to do: I am not quite sure what he is going to do. <BR /> <BR />In discussion at the Committee, we had submissions from the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) and the Catholic Schools' Trustee Service.”
“They are relaxed about this. I know that they have some concerns about the Catholic ethos of their schools, but I cannot believe that the admission of non-Catholic teachers into Catholic schools will change the ethos of those schools at all. There is more of an obligation on teachers coming in to accept that ethos and run with it.”
“All that I can say to that is that the women, mostly, and couples who go to an abortion clinic, advisory service, hospital or private hospital are also entitled to freedom of movement and freedom of action. They are entitled to that under the law that was brought in by the British Government.”
“. Not yet, anyway. We have had this Bill from Chris, two Bills from the Green Party, and I forget the others. It has been a good day and, as others have said — yes, Pat Catney, of course, my constituency colleague, as well — it indicates what the Assembly is capable of.”
“The other day, we talked about the Brook advisory clinic and all the shenanigans around it. Most people here are too young to remember that, but it was effectively the same issue. <BR /> <BR />We are where we are. I hope that the Bill will pass; I am sure that it will now, judging by the tenor of the House. It will be another step.”
“<BR /> <BR />Back in 2015, I decided to visit the Marie Stopes clinic. I wanted to find out exactly what it was about. That year, the police had been called to the front of the clinic 200 times.”
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“I am. What I am doing is contrasting what they have said tonight with the attitude of their parties. Let me put it that way, if that helps. Their parties are not showing compassion to people in a desperate situation. <BR /> <BR />Let me move on. I want to talk about the guidelines, or the fact that there are no guidelines. The Minister gave us the chronological order of all that has happened in this respect. Basically, after all these years, we do not have guidelines. I believe that there may be draft guidelines, but I have not seen them and the House has not seen them. They were circulated to Executive Ministers on a confidential basis.”
“I hear some "hear, hears". I do not agree. I do not doubt for one minute that, in their normal lives, Mrs Pengelly and Mrs Kelly — one of whom I know very well, the other less so — are normally compassionate people. I am talking about their —”
“Two medical practitioners have formed an opinion as described in subsection 1. This is a diagnosis that there is virtually no hope of life outside the womb, and if a live birth should occur, there is no medical treatment that could be offered to alter the fatal nature or improve the chance of survival. That poor woman in that situation must be given a clinical assessment of the potential impact on her life of continuing or terminating the pregnancy.”
“If anybody wants to intervene at any time, please, just say so. I really have difficulty with that. <BR /> <BR />Our amendment has been well trawled over. I do not wish to go through it again. I am tempted to, but I am not going to. Let us look at one part of the amendment.”
“When you hold the view that what happened to the lady I have just described is what you want, show me the compassion in that. I do not get it. I do not see it. I do not believe it. It is not a compassionate attitude —”
“To cut a long story short, the inevitable happened, and the couple had to travel to England, at huge expense, to have a procedure that should have been done here. That is the point of our amendment. <BR /> <BR />There has been a lot of talk about compassion here tonight. A lot of Members have used the word "compassion". Some of them, I believe, used it in the correct way. Ms Ruane, Mr Nesbitt and others have expressed compassion. Others, and I mean no disrespect to Mrs Kelly or Mrs Pengelly, have expressed heartfelt sympathy and compassion, I think, in one case. Mrs Pengelly started her address with the assertion that the DUP is a compassionate party. Demonstrate it. Demonstrate it. It is one thing to say it, but it is another thing to demonstrate it.”
“Every day, clinicians make decisions, which could sometimes be wrong, but, mostly, I hope, are right; I am sure they are. All of them are made genuinely and, as the amendment refers to, made "in good faith". I will come back to that shortly. <BR /> <BR />Mr Dickson, when he so ably presented the amendment, demonstrated a case of a young lady, as we all know, Sarah Ewart. I want to give brief details of another case. Forgive me if some of you have had the same letter that I have. I will not make it too graphic. I will pick out bits of the letter that came from a couple. The couple stated:”
“They have expressed, to greater or lesser degrees, some reservations about this matter, but I think that they are, probably, all on board and would like to go forward with, as many people have said, a few minor alterations, because, frankly, that is all that amendment No 61 needs. I think that it is competent as it stands, but there are differences of opinion over a word here and a word there, particularly "likely", which I notice was mentioned quite a bit. We have been advised by legal counsel that "likely", in these circumstances, is the most suitable word to use. It is the most suitable to give the medical profession the small degree of flexibility that it would need in these circumstances, because medical diagnosis, as surely we all know, is not an exact science.”
“The hour is late, and we have all had a long sit. I do not intend to detain you unnecessarily for too long, but I do have a few things to say, although the Minister has stolen my thunder to some extent. That is fine; he is my boss. <BR /> <BR />First, I thank all the Members who contributed to the debate. It has been quite calm. I know that there have been some disagreements, but it has been reflective and constructive. We clearly have major differences of opinion across the House, but that is OK. It has also demonstrated that this is an issue of conscience for the Alliance Party, because so many of my colleagues wanted to speak.”
“I have sat here quietly, determined not to intervene, because I will have plenty to say at the end of the debate, but really. Dr Ashe is perfectly entitled to make comments like that, but I would like to know, because it is the second time that it has been mentioned, do you actually agree with that? Do you agree that this is bordering on eugenics? Do you understand what eugenics is? How can you compare that to what is before you here?”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. What action is he taking to represent the interests of Northern Ireland and the local universities in that process?”
“I thank the Minister for his answers so far. Does he feel that the levy has the potential to undermine our local apprenticeship strategy and, if so, in what way?”
“I thank Mr Attwood for that, and I wish him luck. If there is some way to bring the amendment to which I refer into the ambit of the Bill again before it is too late, we would certainly be inclined to support it. If it is along the lines of what is already written down, it looks good to us. I am not sure that it would receive the backing of the House because, frankly, it really does not matter what we do in these circumstances as the decisions will be made by the two larger parties. I will conclude here. We will see what comes out of the debate today and have another look at the issue in the cold light of day on a future date.”
“I do not understand why on earth the SDLP would support a petition that renders meaningless its own very worthy amendment — amendment No 30 — which is to do with petitions of concern and qualified majority voting. If Mr Attwood wants to intervene, I will be happy to let him. It seems particularly, to use the word again, perverse to deny a carefully thought-out amendment that we would have supported. I think we can still debate it at some stage, but it does not mean a thing because the petition that your guys signed has rendered it useless. Do you want to intervene?”
“While we might be prepared to see a technical group get some speaking rights and, perhaps, Committee positions, we do not think that it should include entry into a formal opposition or into government. As I said earlier, frankly, we will wait to see what comes out of this. We will look at it at Further Consideration Stage and see where we are. <BR /> <BR />The petition of concern on clause 13 effectively renders the schedule meaningless, so we will probably have to talk about that at some stage. It does seem to be particularly perverse to render the entire schedule to the Bill meaningless at this stage. It took the support of some members of the SDLP to make that petition worthy.”
“Keen observers will probably remember that that is the one amendment that I voted against at the AERC. I am now persuaded to be a bit more open-minded about it. I have listened to Mr Attwood's explanation of what he would like to see and what happens in other jurisdictions, and I do not believe that we would oppose the amendment at this time. <BR /> <BR />I am really sorry about this, Mr Speaker; I have got my papers in the wrong order. Amendment Nos 2, 6, 14, 15 and 17 and clause 17 relate to the technical groups. We are happy with some of those proposals but are less keen on those that allow a technical group to enter opposition or the Executive. We think that this is a change, in principle, to the power-sharing arrangements, which specify that it should be done on the basis of party strength.”
“Either way, we would support that. We have no problem with amendment Nos 2, 3 and 4. We intend to oppose amendment No 5. I will not even bother giving reasons, Mr Speaker. We support amendment Nos 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. We oppose amendment No 14. We support amendment Nos 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. As you can probably tell, our support for the Bill was actually quite wide-ranging, and it still is. I am sorry to the sponsor, but we intend to oppose amendment No 20. <BR /> <BR />Sorry about this, Mr Speaker. It is just as well that we are not time-limited. I will have to come back to one of them. <BR /> <BR />We are OK with amendment No 23. We will support amendment Nos 24 and 25. Amendment No 26, along with No 27 and the SDLP amendment, No 28, relates to the Budget Committee.”
“I tell a lie: you did not abstain on every clause; you opposed some of them, along with Sinn Féin. I forgot about that. <BR /> <BR />We are glad that the Bill is receiving some sort of scrutiny today. We will see what arises from the ashes. <BR /> <BR />As far as the amendments and clauses are concerned, I will not comment on all of them. Sinn Féin has given notice of intention to oppose various clauses, which I understand to be 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24. We will not support the Sinn Féin attitude to those clauses. <BR /> <BR />I will look at the other amendments very briefly. Amendment No 1 relates to the qualifying parties for opposition. The amendment mentions 5%. There is talk of a qualification level of 8%. Earlier, somebody behind me said, "Fix". Well, it is a political compromise.”
“Frankly, you would need to have more confidence in 'A Fresh Start' than I have at this time. If it goes the way of other fresh start agreements that have been round this place since I came here in 2007, we will just have to wait and see. The jury is out on what is possible. Mr Campbell is smiling; he has heard me at this before. Really, time will tell. <BR /> <BR />I would have thought and I still hope that the better parts of the Bill, on which we could perhaps agree, will not be killed by Sinn Féin and that we may be able to produce something from the wreckage. Mr Campbell is indicating support. I hope that that is the case. I would say that the DUP abstained from the vote on just about every clause in the AERC.”
“There are so many contradictions around what is going on here that you really have to smile. <BR /> <BR />Mr Attwood highlighted the position of Sinn Féin on the naming of the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. He is absolutely right: senior members of Sinn Féin have supported that regularly, but now, because of their total opposition to the Bill, they have to oppose it. It is a difficult position to start from if you say that you will oppose every aspect of this by voting against every clause, even though there are bits of it that surely even Sinn Féin could support. It is a strange scenario that we find ourselves in. <BR /> <BR />The argument is, of course, that 'A Fresh Start' will take care of all this and we do not need the Bill.”
“To me, however, this has the look of a basket case, but we will see. <BR /> <BR />Sinn Féin indicated its intention to kill the Bill by opposing every clause at the AERC. The Acting Chair, Ms Bradley, said today that the Committee divided on this, and it did. The Committee divided on every clause, but only because I voted in favour of every clause. That is the AERC for you, frankly.”
“I will start with the point that Mr Kennedy finished with: we will wait and see what happens after the various political machinations, manoeuvres, petitions of concern and people taking dogmatic opposition to the entire Bill. We will look, at Further Consideration Stage, at what comes out of this wreckage, when we will have a clearer idea of what is being proposed. <BR /> <BR />The Bill represents an enormous amount of work by Mr McCallister and his team. It was a worthwhile attempt to upgrade, modernise and improve the structures and procedures of the Assembly. It is extremely disappointing that, after all that work, we find ourselves in the position that we now do. Mr McCallister must be almost in the position of somebody with an elderly relative who is very, very ill — still hoping that they will recover.”
“I thank the Minister for that answer. Frankly, she has more less answered any supplementary that I might have come up with. However, for the benefit of others who are present, does she agree with me that this would be an absolute disaster for Northern Ireland and that the British Government would have neither the will nor the ability to replace the payments like for like?”
“I thank the Minister for her answers so far. The economic case for reopening the Knockmore line, with the link from the Dublin line to the north of the country and the airport, is fairly obvious, although it would be expensive. Does she not agree with me that Ryanair coming to Belfast International Airport will obviously produce a major uplift in the number of passengers? Do we really need to wait until we have 10 million plus one passengers before we do something about it, or can we not anticipate what is liable to happen in the next few years?”
“I thank Mr Weir for giving way. He talked about us singing from the same hymn sheet but not quite singing the same notes. The Minister has indicated that he is prepared to take another look at amendment No 6. I am certainly prepared to have another look at amendment No 4. Before voting on those, we will have to vote on the Chair's amendment No 3. Would it be worthwhile if we all agreed to not move those amendments today and put our heads together to try to come up with something that combines them properly? They are all on the same wavelength; there is very little difference in them.”
“Interventions are not supposed to be two hours long, Mr Speaker, so I will not answer that question directly. I agree with Mr McCallister when he quotes the Minister's policy that integrated should be at the end of the continuum that starts with shared education. That is absolutely valid. One of the things that I hope might flow from this process eventually is that schools will see the sense of transformation or of coming together. It might break down the barriers that you are talking about. The reasons why integrated has not prospered are completely separate from the discussion around the Bill.”
“I thank Mr McCallister for giving way. He sort of invites integrated schools to share with other schools: that is already provided for by subsection (2A)(a) in his amendment. That does not preclude integrated schools from sharing. Integrated schools do share, and I am sure they are quite willing to share with schools from different sectors. To me, the argument is around the single relevant provider and whether shared education funding should go to a single school and provide funding for sharing within that school that is already going on anyway. As I said, I am not convinced about that, but I would not go to the stake on it.”
“I thank Mr Sheehan for giving way. I know that this is unusual. <BR /> <BR />He makes the point about small rural schools. The purpose of this amendment is not to insist that there must be others in a sharing arrangement. I certainly agree with him that, in areas of Northern Ireland, there are small rural schools that might well benefit from sharing together, which, nominally, do not contain any "others" because one school is a small maintained school and the other is a small controlled school and they, very largely, subscribe to being Protestant or Catholic. To me, their right to sharing would not be compromised by the wording of the amendment.”
“That is the argument, and I thought, for the record, that Mr Craig's comments were out of order.”
“I thank Mr Newton for giving way. I said at the start that, on the enthusiasm scale, I was perhaps at a different point from the DUP, but that does not mean that we are entirely against sharing. How could you be? Schools have been sharing for 40 years in this country; it is quite normal in educational terms. However, my attitude to the integrated movement differs from that of — dare I single him out? — your party colleague, who has now departed the Chamber and would not answer my question a wee while ago. I am absolutely certain that the school he was talking about, which, in his terms, is out to destroy all the other sectors in Lagan Valley, is Rowandale Integrated School in Moira, which has been given an uplift in enrolment by the Minister. The reason why it is successful is parental choice. People want to send their children there.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Would the Member be more clear and specific about the sector in his own constituency which is out to destroy all the other sectors? I imagine I know what he is talking about, but would he just put some meat on the bones for us?”
“If that said "shared and integrated", I will make the same argument as I did a few minutes ago that it would be quite worthwhile. That is all that I have to say on the topic at present. We will come back with an appropriate wording, which, no doubt, the Chair will accept in due course. I would like to hear the Minister speak about the participation period, duration and qualification, amongst other things. I will leave it at that and look forward to further contributions.”
“People are making reference to Lisanelly as being the example of how that would work. I must say that I am not sufficiently across the detail of the Lisanelly project in that respect to make a judgement on that, but I hope that the Minister will clarify it for us. I tend to agree with Mrs Overend, but I need a bit of convincing that it is absolutely necessary, but fair enough. <BR /> <BR />I have already spoken about amendment No 14. In the circumstances of the Bill, and given my small amount of scepticism about the whole thing, I think that it is a worthwhile amendment, and we will certainly support it. <BR /> <BR />Amendment No 15 relates to amendment No 9, which, in itself, would be OK if it mentions integrated education. It is the same wording. It says:”
“I thought that I had made that clear when I said that I would accept the Chair's offer to talk some more about it. That obviously indicates that we will not move amendment No 10 today, but we believe in the spirit of it. I am glad to see that others are open-minded about it. <BR /> <BR />I forget what I was going to say about amendment No 11, so I will come back to it. <BR /> <BR />Amendment No 12 is the insertion of "any sectoral body". I presume that that includes the controlled schools body, NICIE and Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta — I hope that that is right. I do not think that those bodies would have any objection to being included in that way, so we are perfectly happy to support amendment No 12. <BR /> <BR />Amendment No 13 relates to the power to form a company. I would like to hear the Minister on this one.”
“I think that I agree with the Member, and I think that he agrees with me. There is a need to put something in place here.”
“We have put it on the table, and we think there is a need for it. I think others have agreed that there is potential in it to try to quantify the minimum requirements for a shared education project. The Chair's analogy of a rugby match one week and a gaelic match the next is perhaps a good example of what may come forward, but it is not really good enough. I am not sure that I have the answer. I certainly do not want to see a prescriptive number of hours, but I think that there is wording available here, and I accept the Chair's invitation to talk about it some more.”
“I know that is not really the purpose of the Bill, but in the spirit of fairness, perhaps it should be there. It is far easier to envisage certain situations. Say there is a new development that requires a new school. How can you legislate for the fact that the Department has to consider a shared option in that situation? You are considering sharing before the school is even built. You could consider, however, an integrated model as the default option, subject to local agreement and all the rest of it. I just throw that out there. I do not think we like amendment No 9, and since it is an amendment to amendment No 8, we cannot possibly support it. <BR /> <BR />There has been a certain amount of discussion about amendment No 10. I tend to agree with the Chair. We have had a stab at producing an amendment.”
“<BR /> <BR />Amendment No 9 is actually an amendment to amendment No 8. Amendment No 9 should be a stand-alone clause and, instead of stating:”
“It is like saying that "smokers" includes people who do not smoke. It does not, on the face of it, look like something that we would support, but amendment Nos 3, 4 and 6 are closely aligned, so let us wait and see what he has to say. <BR /> <BR />I have no problem with amendment No 7. <BR /> <BR />We are with the Minister and Sinn Féin on the fact that we do not like amendment No 8. The Chair used the word "hierarchical" — I think that is how he pronounced it. There is a danger here that one form of sharing is going to overtake and supplement, not complement, the movement that has been there for over 40 years. We are concerned about that. On this business of duties as against powers, or as against "may consider" and all the rest of it, I think that the Bill is OK and that we do not need amendment No 8.”
“I think that the educational benefits will be reasonably easy to assess, although you will still have the problem of trying to compare achievement in a shared situation with achievement in a non-shared situation. But we will see. The interest will be in the societal benefits and in how sharing is leading to what we all want to see, which is a shared future and our children leading the way. So, we will support amendment No 5 and, obviously, amendment No 14. <BR /> <BR />I must say that I share the Chair's bewilderment about what amendment No 6 actually means. I really want to hear what the Minister has to say on including a line that states that "religious belief" includes something that is exactly the opposite of religious belief. I think that I have heard him address it before, but I want to hear him again, because it baffles me.”
“I really like amendment No 5, which was again brought forward by Mr McCallister, because it lays down the ground rules for amendment No 14 on the requirement to produce and lay a report on the progress of the shared education project. So, from that point of view, it is very useful. Others said that it is perhaps not particularly necessary, but it is still useful to have it in the Bill, and I do not think that anybody has spoken against it. We had the Legal Complaints and Regulation Bill recently, and I spoke against the notion of having a review after three years as a legal requirement. I am not going to speak against this one, because, in two years' time, I would like to see a detailed report and how whoever produces that report has managed to quantify the benefits of what we are talking about.”
“Ordinarily, I would agree that legislation needs to be clearly defined and that, if you are going to lay down rules, or whatever, a clear definition is helpful. My response to that is this: define the word "reasonable". That word is all over the Bill, and we are not attempting to put in the percentage number needed to be considered reasonable. As I said, the Bill is deliberately flexible and best left that way. I will develop this point later when I come to the amendment about the Department's duty.”
“The Bill, in its original form, was produced on a reasonably flexible basis to account for the fact that not all of these schools are the same and that not all of the projects are the same. Obviously, I still support amendment No 4.”
“<BR /> <BR />I hear the Chair's comments about the word "and" in amendment No 4, which is to include reasonable numbers of Protestant, Roman Catholic and other children. I struggle to come up with a different word, frankly. The buzzwords around this Bill, which everybody has used, are "flexibility" and "reasonable". I think that whoever has to decide on the funding for shared education projects should be able to work with that wording and not be hung up on the view that, just because no others are involved in a particular scheme, it does not qualify. There would be reasonable numbers of Protestant and Catholic children. I would take the same view if there were reasonable numbers of Protestant and "other" children, or "other" and Roman Catholic children. It is pretty clear what the intention is.”
“I have a terrible feeling that I was responsible for amendment No 3 in Committee. Others can search their memory banks, but I think they will find that it was probably me, so it is hard to oppose it. I just happen to think that amendment No 4 is a better attempt at providing the scenario we all want. It defines shared education as the educating together of reasonable numbers of Protestant, Roman Catholic and "other" children. Amendment No 3 deletes all reference to "other". We are all so concerned about the number of children and families in our population who are neither Protestant nor Catholic, or who have no religion or perhaps belong to some other religion, but amendment No 3 excludes them again. It puts them in, but does not follow through; so I think that our amendment No 4 does do that.”
“The amendment contains a new paragraph proposing that shared education may be provided by a single relevant provider. During Committee Stage, we had a lot of discussion about whether a school, referred to by the Chair as super-mixed, or an integrated school should qualify for internal shared education funding in its own right. I must say that, when we were discussing this, I would probably have run with the argument that those schools should be able to do that. Frankly, I am not so convinced now. I do not think that it is necessary. Integrated schools, or schools such as Methody or other super-mixed schools, do not need funding to share internally. It is already there. It is a day-to-day happening, which is the best sort of sharing. Regrettably, we cannot support amendment No 2. <BR /> <BR />I move to amendment Nos 3 and 4.”
“Having said that, I will return to the Bill. <BR /> <BR />Like others, I will go through the amendments in the order that they are printed. There is not much to say about amendment No 1; that is fine. Amendment No 2 was tabled by Mr McCallister. I cannot help thinking that, if we were at the point of just starting this exercise and the Department had come up with something along the lines of amendment No 2, we would probably have discussed it, amended it and run with it. It is good stuff. It is pretty good, honestly; but it has several flaws, not least the fact that we are hardly going to rewrite subsection (2) at this stage in the process. While we can perhaps learn from the amendment, I do not think that we are going to adopt it. As others have said, it does not mention reasonable numbers.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am glad of the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. I think that it is fair to say at the start that, on the scale of enthusiasm about the Bill, the Alliance Party is probably at a slightly different point from the rest of the parties, in their varying degrees, for various reasons, not least that the Bill and the whole surge towards shared education is at risk of diverting attention from real shared education, which, you would expect me to say, is the integrated movement. <BR /> <BR />We heard from Minister Storey just an hour ago about more money coming in from Europe to develop shared education under Peace IV. That is fair enough, but I wonder where real sharing in the integrated model — or something close to it — would be now if it had had that emphasis put on it in the last number of years.”
“Does he agree with me that it is about time that the DUP got off the fence and embraced the European ideal as the best way forward for Northern Ireland?”
“I thank the Minister for his answers so far. It is difficult to listen to the sort of figures that he has given today and on previous occasions and not conclude that our future interests are best served by remaining in the European Union.”