Jonathan Craig
Lagan Valley · Democratic Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“Unfortunately, I speak as one who has a little understanding of what that family is going through. The same knock came to my family's door, and it is horrendous. I feel for that family, and my thoughts and prayers are with the family circle at this time. What that family is going through is almost unbearable and unthinkable.”
“I welcome what the Minster has said so far about the scheme at the Temple crossroads, which is an extremely dangerous crossroads. My father witnessed a fatal accident at that junction. Will the Minister outline the approximate cost of the scheme? More importantly, what additional features will it have?”
“Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, I am almost tempted to call you Father Newton because, for the second time this month, I find myself confessing to not being in my seat. I apologise to you and the House.”
“I could show you glaring examples in my own constituency of where this should have been done but was not done, is not being done and is not going to be done until somebody somewhere points out that there is a need to do it.”
“I want to outline some of the rationale and reasons behind why we believe that that is fundamentally important to the Bill. <BR /> <BR />At this point, the Bill is all well and good.”
“Some obvious circumstances are staring schools in the face, and I have to say that there is huge resistance from some sectors to facing up to the challenges that they face. There are even challenges within sectors for shared facilities.”
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“I also support the motion. Indeed, it has been an ongoing debate. I declare an interest as a member of the Policing Board, and it has been an ongoing debate for the board itself. <BR /> <BR />At this point, it is appropriate that we sign up to the resources of the NCA. As some Members have already pointed out, policing in Northern Ireland is under huge budgetary and resource pressures. At present, we are supposed, allegedly, to have 7,000 police officers in Northern Ireland. The simple truth is that the current figure falls 300 short of that. Recruitment is under way to rectify that situation, if possible and if finances allow. There is a huge question mark over that.”
“Minister, there was a very unfortunate incident regarding the protest outside the prison in that a prison officer inadvertently drove into the middle of the protest. I have had a meeting with the Chief Constable and welcome the fact that he is reviewing his procedures. Do you feel it would be appropriate also for the prison itself to review its procedures as to how it notifies its staff of these protests and what routes they should take to the prison?”
“The Member has made his intervention, and I know why he has made it. However, this goes to the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. Whilst others have made play of the finances of this, it is the Good Friday Agreement that has allowed the Minister to go ahead. It is the Good Friday Agreement that is at the root of the problem here. <BR /> <BR />I could raise a lot of issues. I listened with interest as some Members talked about the criteria that all this was raised under. On a lighter point, I found it amazing to hear John Dallat talk about the fact that he could not name himself Seán when there is a Seán of a similar age sitting in front of him. I do not know where that form of discrimination came from. Maybe Seán could highlight how he got that name. <BR /> <BR />I commend our amendment to the House.”
“The timing of all of this is absolutely atrocious. Minister, when we hear in the middle of all of it — when schools are in turmoil and teachers are demoralised — that a school with an intake of 15 is being approved for a £1 million bid, even you must accept that the timing of this is not good in any way, shape or form. Criteria have been set by you and your Department around what should be there for proposals such as this to go ahead. None of that is in place. However, we know why — you have outlined why — this proposal can go ahead: it is because of that legislative imperative. As I said, whether you call it positive discrimination or no matter what way you dress this up, it is a form of discrimination that allows this proposal to move ahead, hence —”
“I sat in the Committee when his finance director came and announced to the world that at least 1,500 or 1,600 teachers would face redundancy this year because of those cuts. That is the brutal truth of what education faced and still faces, because no other figures have yet been brought forward by him and his Department.”
“However, the simple truth is that it was only a few weeks ago that the Minister put to schools the proposal for a 7% to 8% cut in their budget. I sat in a school that received those proposals. That is a devastating proposal for any school to receive.”
“I thank the Member for that intervention. He raises a very important point: cultural identity needs to be respected in all communities in Northern Ireland. That said, whether one calls it positive discrimination or a legal imperative — no matter what way you dress it up — discrimination is at the root of this proposal and at the root of the reason why the Minister can make this proposal. That is the first thing: we need to address the discrimination factor. <BR /> <BR />Secondly, we need to look at the appalling timing of this proposal. If we were sitting in an Assembly that was coming down with finances and there was enough money for everything in education, this debate might never have arrived on the Floor.”
“I support the DUP amendment and the motion on development proposal 264. There has been much talk about the economics of this and other aspects of the Irish-medium sector, but the one thing that we, as a party, have always advocated is a level playing field for all sectors in education. What we are seeing at the heart of today's debate is the truth: there is not a level playing field for all sectors. That is at the root of this.”
“That is an issue for the Treasury to decide. What we are debating here is how the Minister spends his budget, and we have outlined our rationale behind the motion and our support for the SDLP's amendment.”
“Different choices are being made. I will give you one chance, because I am out of time.”
“It is about how the money is spent. As my colleague quite rightly pointed out, we would look at the issue of how it is spent slightly differently from the party opposite. Maybe more than slightly differently. <BR /> <BR />My colleague Nelson also quite correctly pointed out that other choices are being made by the Minister. When you hand millions of pounds over to the City of Culture and £140,000 to the Irish language for different projects, no matter how justifiable those projects are, you are taking it away from front-line services.”
“Hansard will correct me if I am wrong, but I know what I heard. <BR /> <BR />Trevor Lunn made the very important point that it is all about how the money is spent. Not for the first time, my colleague got it right. The debate is about how it is actually spent.”
“Minister, ultimately, we are asking for a better balance of funding for front-line services. The Minister knows only too well that negotiations have taken place since the draft Budget was published. I would like to see not only the draft Budget but the final Budget. <BR /> <BR />I listened with interest to what Danny Kinahan had to say, and I am quite content that I do not share his views about the complete failure of education in Northern Ireland. That seems to be the Dr Doom approach —”
“I listened very carefully to what Pat Sheehan had to say about his party's approach, and he basically asked where and how we should make the cuts. The Minister has given us an outline of his thoughts on where we should make the cuts; that is what the draft Budget is. It is the Minister's choice. However, it is also right for us to question those choices and ask whether there is a better balance for them. That is why we tabled our motion and why we have said that we will support the SDLP's amendment.”
“I totally agree with the Member, and I thank him for coming to my next point in the speech, which is the level of finance that we hold at the centre. Efficiencies have to be found there before we look at front-line services. The balance between whatever level of cuts has to be made between those two needs to be rebalanced. As it stands, the draft Budget will have a major detrimental impact on front-line services, which will have a major impact on the quality of service that we deliver. <BR /> <BR />Cull the overheads and give the schools a chance. That is the message that we are trying to send out; that is the message from teachers, principals and the boards of governors to just about every Member. They want to be given a chance to deliver high-quality education. <BR /> <BR />I listened with interest to what Members had to say.”
“That is why I was careful to talk about front-line services. I regard those as front-line services.”
“That is why, when we looked at that as a party, we asked, "Will those cuts to front-line services happen too deep, too quickly?", which, I have to say, is the same complaint that we have about the Tory party. <BR /> <BR />When we look at the back-room services, we see that we have to put a question mark over them. The Minister knows only too well that we do not get to see all the finances of his back-room services, so we cannot make those judgements. That is a judgement for the Minister. Could larger cuts be made to those back-room services that are there to allegedly support education?”
“I can clearly recall several occasions when he made it very clear that he would do everything within his power to protect front-line services. I am sure that I am not the only person in Northern Ireland who heard those comments. That is why, when the draft budget for Education came out, it came as such a surprise to me to see the level and extent of the cuts coming to front-line services. When we see what is regarded as a 7% cut to secondary education and an 8% cut to primary education, it is quite clear that those will have a massive impact on front-line services. It is hard to see how we will deliver the same high-quality education in Northern Ireland with fewer teachers, larger classrooms and ultimately a workforce that is demoralised because of the lack of finance for it.”
“There seems to be only one party in the Chamber that agrees with the speed with which they are doing it, and that party seems to comprise our colleagues to the right. <BR /> <BR />Most Departments, including Education, are facing these cuts. There is no question about that. The Executive made some hard choices in the draft Budget. One of those hard choices was to ring-fence Health. I do not think that anyone in the Chamber is saying that we should not ring-fence Health, given the impact that it has on individuals' lives. That leads to the impossible situation where, if you start ring-fencing other Departments, you will very quickly run out of options for where your public-sector savings come from. <BR /> <BR />Prior to the creation of the draft Budget, I listened carefully to what the Minister said regarding his own budget.”
“As I listened in the Chamber today, it was quite clear that there is a huge challenge facing Members. That challenge is, of course, the cuts to public spending, which are coming from central government. I do not think that any of us can afford to adopt the emu approach that some people seem to think will work. There is £1·3 trillion of debt in the public sector in the United Kingdom. It is a matter of debate whether one agrees with the Tory-led coalition in Westminster and the speed with which they are cutting those budgets and the impact that it is having on the public sector. I know that many parties around the Chamber disagree with the level and speed of those cuts. There is huge debate, I think, in all political parties about what the correct level should be.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I owe you an apology because I did not realise that questions 1 and 6 on the list were grouped. It is entirely my fault for not reading the email. I therefore apologise to the House.”
“There is a need for all sectors to be represented on the body. I believe that what we have got today is a reasonable compromise on that issue. I am fairly hopeful that the new authority will be able to take on board the issues that all the sectors have. It is interesting because here, for the first time, there are not just transferors on the authority but people from the voluntary grammar sector and other sectors. That will be an interesting mix. It will be interesting to see how that all plays out. <BR /> <BR />I wish the authority all the best. The one thing that I realise is that it will face huge challenges, and the tragic news that we heard today is but a symptom, unfortunately, of some of the very serious issues that it will have to face up to. With that said, I will sit down.”
“As I said, we will welcome amendment No 18, even though the words "controlled sector" are not in there, as the honourable Member for Lagan Valley stated. We will still support that. <BR /> <BR />The Bill has been a long time in coming. In fact, it feels like my seven years on the Education Committee now. I remember my first day on it: ESA was still being debated. I remember making the very simple suggestion "Maybe we should just go for a single board. Would that not be the simplest way forward?", only to be shot down in flames by others. Here we are, all these years later, debating that same issue and principle. It is not a case of "I told you so"; it is a case of "I only wish they had discovered this six years ago".”
“Like others, I will start off by remembering today the family who have lost their young one. Our sympathies and prayers are with that family indeed. It reminds us all about the dangers that there are around the issue of transport to schools. <BR /> <BR />Like others here, I support amendment Nos 5 and 6. I will not waste anyone's time today by going into the technical nature of them, but we are relatively supportive of them. Amendment No 11 is the one which obviously there seems to be cross-party support for today, though some did not actually sign it. It is a level compromise to try to ensure that all the education sectors have a say on the new authority. With that in mind and as my colleagues have stated, we are minded to support amendment Nos 9 and 10 with regard to amendment No 11 being successful.”
“Minister, like others in this room, we are concerned about the cost of rolling out this strategy. Have you any idea of what the cost will be? <BR /> <BR />Is there any commitment from the Minister to put a working group together on different languages, such as Cobalt, Java and Linux etc, which are programming languages? I listened to representatives of concerned industries this morning talk about that issue, and there will be 22,000 job opportunities in that sector over the next three years, yet there is no strategy whatsoever in education to deal with that.”
“I thank the Minister for that answer. Obviously, 7% will not be paid on target. Does she have any idea of the timescales for when they will receive payments or even part payments, as she is trying to indicate?”
“Is the CASS support that is missing for schools at the minute going to be built up, strengthened and enhanced, or is that a matter that he will leave to the new authority? After six years of fighting, arguing, debating and disagreeing with others over the issue, I welcome the fact that here we stand today, discussing legislation that will finally move the situation forward.”
“That person will become the key individual in the authority in delivering the services on the ground. <BR /> <BR />While I am talking about the chief executive, who is to be appointed under the Bill, I question what will happen to the five existing chief executives. Will they disappear, or, as I deeply suspect, will they become another layer of the bureaucratic system in Northern Ireland? I would like to hear the Minister's views on that, because it has cost implications for all of us in the House. <BR /> <BR />I would also like the Minister to clarify what will happen to the support services in the existing five board areas when they come under this new single authority.”
“I watched with interest as others who already have educational bodies that have a say on the boards, as well as their own sectoral body speaking to the Department for them, spoke. That has always had a negative impact on the controlled sector, and it is good to see that that will be redressed in the Bill. <BR /> <BR />The chief executive's position interests me, because I see in the Bill that the first chief executive will be appointed by the Minister. I question the logic behind that. What is the board being set up to do? It has employment rights: it should be appointing the chief executive. I appeal to the Minister to think about that. Should it not be an interim appointment for a set period — say, six months — while the board is set up? They can then choose for themselves who becomes the chief executive.”
“For the past six to seven years, I have sat on the board of governors of those schools during that whole process and watched the level of support that boards give to schools go down and down and down every year. It becomes much more difficult for a board of governors to get assistance from those boards. I hope that that will be reversed, and not only do I hope that it will be reversed, I welcome the fact that we have promises here of a new controlled body sector. My only question is why that is not written into the Bill. I listened to the Chair speak on the issue, and I hope that amendments will be tabled on that, because that is one thing that I want to see developed for the controlled sector.”
“<BR /> <BR />Something that I will welcome in the Bill is the fact that, for the first time in a long time — I speak as someone who is under the authority of the South Eastern Board — we will have elected representatives on the authority. I welcome that because that is a massive step forward for someone who comes from the South Eastern Board area. We have been living with commissioners for well over six years, and that has been deeply regrettable. It has led to a democratic deficit in that board area. <BR /> <BR />I formally admit that I am a member of the board of governors of Laurelhill Community College and Killowen Primary School. I welcome the fact that the authority will be set up and will bring some form of proper support to the controlled sector.”
“There you are, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will take the blame on that one and happily accept it. <BR /> <BR />There is one thing that concerns me in all of this: in that intervening six-year period, approximately £17 million has been spent on the whole ESA process. I hope that the Minister will be able to elaborate on that. That involved civil servants and others in the background working on it. What I would like to know from the Minister is whether that work is transferable to the new authority or whether taxpayers' money has been completely and utterly wasted on that process. That concerns me, given where we are on the budget issue around a lot of this.”
“Where are a lot of the other issues out there? The simple truth is this: there never was full agreement on ESA. I recall the first ESA Bill coming to the House. I sat as a member of my party's team on it, and we tabled 40-plus amendments because of the level of disagreement. It went nowhere, and we have spent the past six years trying to cobble together something that the entire House could agree on. <BR /> <BR />I listened with bemusement to what some Ulster Unionist Members had to say on the issue. One Member asked what had happened to it, and the other Member said earlier that his party had killed it off. What is true? Did one kill it off? Was that correct, or is the other one correct to say that they do not know anything about it? Is it really, as I suspect, that they were both wrong in what they said?”
“I thank the honourable Member for his intervention. It was so long ago that even he was a member of the Ulster Unionist Party at that stage. Press releases — what does that actually mean? Let us be honest about it: where is the Maze and where is the ESA Bill?”
“How others came to the firm conclusion that it was us and others who agreed the way forward on the ESA Bill baffles me. I will give way.”
“I support the Bill to create a single authority. It has been a long, long time getting to this point. In fact, it is over six years. In fact, it is so long ago that, when we first started on this journey, I recall that the honourable Member Basil McCrea was not only a member of the Ulster Unionist Party but its education spokesman. That, obviously, was a lifetime ago. <BR /> <BR />Commenting on the Bill, and on the fact that this Bill is clearly not the ESA Bill, one has to wonder why some others raised that issue. As was pointed by the Minister and the Chair, if there had been universal agreement on the ESA Bill between not only the two main parties but others, this Bill would not be before us. Common sense dictates that.”
“I thank the Minister for that comprehensive answer and wish him all the best in his new job. I hope that he works every bit as hard as his predecessor. If he does, he will have very little time on his hands. <BR /> <BR />I note that you mentioned the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service. Are you convinced or content that enough work has been done to give the necessary medical information on a patient? Have they enough access to that information when they are called out? A certain level of care is needed for specific conditions that, sometimes, the Ambulance Service is not fully aware of.”
“Minister, thank you for that answer. You are not the only person who gets confused about policing budgets. Would you be prepared to sit down with the Chief Constable to discuss this? Have you any comments to make around the fact that he has also outlined that he is being asked to reduce his budget by one seventh next year? The consequences of that will be horrendous. We are talking about the parking of all historical inquiries and the end of police recruitment. The House needs to face up to the reality that he is also discussing laying off 1,000 civilian staff. That is a direct consequence of what we were discussing earlier around welfare reform.”
“Minister, I am keeping on the line of the new councils that are coming in, but I am concentrating on a local issue.”
“I would like a straight answer about the John Lewis application and the restrictions that have been put on it. Will that be the responsibility of the new council, or will it be pulled back in, either by the Minister or held as part of a regional decision-making policy by the Department?”
“I note with interest that the Minister has definitely been taking lessons on how to give a political answer on what is or is not of regional significance.”
“<BR /> <BR />When I look at the Knockmore link, I see an opportunity for government, if it is prepared to prime that link, to open up the entire development of the southern end of Lisburn, maybe reducing some of the traffic going down the M1 but certainly creating huge levels of employment in Lisburn, Lagan Valley and the southern end of what is now, in reality, greater Belfast while producing a better outcome for Northern Ireland as a whole. <BR /> <BR />I appeal to the Minister to look at the issue to see whether there is any way in which it can be looked at other than as a developer-led development.”
“<BR /> <BR />Like my colleague, I question why every single road development in Lagan Valley has to be developer-led: in other words, private developers must pay for it. I have no difficulty whatsoever with the concept of their making a contribution towards it, but if I move a few miles down the road to Belfast, what developer ever put money into improvements on the M1? What developer ever put money into developing the Westlink? Why can we pour millions upon millions of pounds of public money into developing the road infrastructure in Belfast, but we cannot develop the infrastructure elsewhere?”
“The outworkings of this are incredible because, as the Minister well knows — I met him over the summer with Halftown Road residents — major industrial traffic uses what can only be described as a small country road. When two lorries meet on that country road in Halftown, they mount the footpath and consequently destroy it, causing a major public health issue, on which I am still waiting for the Minister to come back. I have had the police out at that junction, and the evidence was clearly there. There were lorry tyre marks right up the middle of the footpath, so it was difficult to deny that it was happening. These are all the outworkings of what I originally described as the missing link: the Knockmore Road.”
“A large chunk of that traffic — buses and, unfortunately, cars, with parents leaving their children off — goes down there morning and afternoon, causing absolute mayhem. <BR /> <BR />What also causes great difficulty at that junction is the fact that it is very close to one of the largest industrial areas in Lisburn, where there is a lot of heavy traffic. We are proud to have the Coca-Cola plant for the whole of Ireland and further afield in our constituency. That all leads to major industrial traffic finding itself locked in a road infrastructure that is no longer fit for purpose and that was supposed to have been corrected by developer-led development. <BR /> <BR />Even as the climate for developers improves, there seems to be an issue about outstanding moneys owed and work not done on the Knockmore link and Prince William Road.”
“It is sad to say that, after almost a decade, we are still talking about the Knockmore link, or what I am starting to describe as the missing link. In science, we all thought that the missing link was something else. We are starting to see this as the missing link, particularly in Lagan Valley and Lisburn. <BR /> <BR />Where the Knockmore Road ends and the park-and-ride facility at Sprucefield is situated, there was supposed to be a developer-led junction or road to link those two. As the Minister well knows, that development has not happened. In itself, that is leading to major congestion in that whole southern end of Lisburn. We have heavy traffic, as described by my colleague, to all those major schools that were outlined; we had better not forget the two best schools in Northern Ireland — our two grammar schools, Friends' and Wallace.”
“To use the words of a permanent secretary from 'Yes Minister', this is a very, very brave decision that you have taken, Minister. That always strikes with a follow-up, and the follow-up is very simple. You admitted to the House today that this is a cross-cutting and contentious issue and that you did not get Executive approval for it. You also admitted that you chaired a subgroup, which studied this issue and made very clear recommendations to you, including the removal of bulky goods at Sprucefield. You ignored all that and went ahead on your own. Minister, you know full well that this will end up in a judicial review, so why did you do it?”
“That sounded like a statement from the Minister that the lights are going out all over Northern Ireland. That said, Minister, there are ongoing contracts that impact on the road infrastructure in Northern Ireland. They are carried out, mainly, by other parts of Departments. I am thinking of the Blaris Road, which has recently been dug up by other companies. Are you going to tighten up on how they resurface such roads? Recently, resurfacing roads destroyed by others has been picked up by your Department.”