Simon Hamilton
Strangford · Democratic Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I have emphasised to the Member and the House before, that, whilst I accept that those are not good enough — that is why we have been developing the plan — there are alternative technologies in place that can present opportunities for those who just cannot get acceptable speeds.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. There are some initiatives that I believe will help and act as a driver to improve broadband access. One such intervention is the broadband universal service obligation (USO), which is being taken forward by Her Majesty's Government.”
“I thank the Member for his question. However, he is conflating two issues. I wrote to his party leader, and indeed to all Assembly party leaders, before making the announcement that I did last week about wanting to publish the details of the businesses in receipt of the non-domestic RHI scheme. It was my intention to do that tomorrow.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Chancellor, in his autumn statement, made some more funding available for telecommunications, and my Department is studying that and seeking to avail itself of that to the fullest possible extent.”
“In addition, my Department is managing a contract for the delivery of the superfast rollout programme, which, by 31 December, will provide access to superfast broadband with speeds of at least 24 megabits per second to a further 38,000 premises, both business and residential, across Northern Ireland, including in the Newry and Armagh cons…”
“I signalled the intention to do this a few weeks ago. The Member and the House will know that inspections of all installations would have taken place over the 20-year lifetime of the RHI scheme.”
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“The evaluation of the teleworking initiative, which was initially run as a pilot, demonstrates that it has been a success. Benefits include an enhanced work/life balance, increased flexibility in working arrangements to meet business needs and a contribution towards some of the aims of the Government's green transport goals and objectives. My Department introduced a centralised video conferencing service at the beginning of 2012. That service continues to grow, and, although some stand-alone facilities still exist in Departments, a large number of units have been migrated into the central structure. In the last year alone, almost 4,000 meetings were hosted by the service.”
“There is also a hub at Castle Buildings and a small facility for laptop users at Academy House in Ballymena. We have supported flexible and agile working across a number of Departments, including school inspectors in the Department of Education who are home-based; planning staff in the Department of the Environment who use videoconferencing to manage teams in remote locations; and staff in a range of Departments, such as DARD, DOE, DRD and DFP, who use mobile technology to help with their day-to-day job, including surveys, assessments and enforcement. <BR /> <BR />In my Department, IT staff have adopted an element of teleworking, including NI Direct, which has daily team meetings between staff in Belfast and Londonderry, to allow them to work closer to home.”
“They include making it easier for staff to work from different locations by implementing Network NI across all Northern Ireland Civil Service sites; providing a BlackBerry service that provides secure access to the Northern Ireland Civil Service services, such as email from a smartphone or tablet device; and developing and supporting unified communications, which includes a range of tools to enable flexible and agile working. We have introduced business zones or hubs to enable staff to work remotely at a location that is more suitable for them while still meeting their business objectives. The business zone in Marlborough House, Craigavon, for example, is well utilised by a wide range of public sector staff. On average, it had around 200 visits each month in the first half of this financial year.”
“<BR /> <BR />In addition to the alternative working patterns on offer, my Department has been extremely proactive in exploiting new technology to support flexible working practices. I was therefore disappointed to note and must take issue with the report's assessment that the Northern Ireland public sector appears to lag behind other jurisdictions. On the contrary, the Northern Ireland Civil Service is very much a leader in this respect. Not only has it identified the opportunities presented by new technology, it has implemented several as proof of concepts or live running. They include satellite working, homeworking, videoconferencing, instant messaging, mobile devices and Wi-Fi. <BR /> <BR />In particular, my Department has supported the Civil Service in different ways to enable flexible working.”
“<BR /> <BR />In recognition of those benefits, the Civil Service has implemented alternative working patterns under the umbrella of flexible working, including flexible hours or flexitime; compressed hours and personalised hours; part-time working, including job-sharing and term-time working; and partial retirement. The majority of Civil Service employees can avail themselves of at least one of those schemes, and there is no doubt that they have a positive impact on the work/life balance of staff. For example, the results of last year's staff survey showed that over 60% of staff agreed that they achieve a good balance between their work life and their private life.”
“First, it is important to highlight the range of working practices that are currently available in the Northern Ireland Civil Service to support staff in the balance between their work commitments and life responsibilities. I was pleased to note that the Committee's report commends the Civil Service for being at the forefront of the introduction of flexible time working practices and acting as an exemplar organisation in that respect. The potential benefits of flexible working are wide-ranging, and my Department acknowledges those identified in the report. From a purely HR perspective, they include improved staff morale and commitment; reduced staff turnover and absenteeism; improved work/life balance; wider recruitment talent pools; and the promotion of gender equality in employment.”
“If the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the wider public sector can achieve additional benefits through the increased use of flexible working practices, I feel that it is important that we evaluate and implement the proposals where it is appropriate and cost effective to do so. <BR /> <BR />However, the report on flexible working highlights a wide range of issues and contains a number of associated recommendations. In order to fully respond to the debate, I would like to set out and address the key points separately.”
“Looking around the Chamber this afternoon, it appears that many of our colleagues are adopting a flexible working approach to the debate. In the spirit of flexible working, I had, at one stage, contemplated giving my contribution by teleconferencing while I remained at home today, or, alternatively, I could have read three fifths of my response and given Mr McIlveen the remaining two fifths. However, given that we are trying to work flexibly here in the time left before Question Time, I will proceed conventionally. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. As Members know, I am a firm believer in exploiting new ideas and technologies to ensure that we deliver the best possible service in the most efficient way.”
“The Member will know — she and I have spoken before — about the enterprise zone that is being developed in the Coleraine area and the potential that Project Kelvin creates for it and the wider north-west region.”
“I thank the Member for her question. I do not represent a Belfast constituency, but I think that we could all welcome the fact that Belfast is doing so well in attracting IT investment from around the world. Belfast is now home to firms like Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Concentrix and big global brands that, 10 years ago, we would never have thought were likely to invest in somewhere like Belfast or Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />There are, of course, investments in the north-west, particularly in the IT sector. In response to Mr Ramsey's doom-and-gloom prognosis for Londonderry earlier, I mentioned Fujitsu and Seagate's investment in that part of the world.”
“What the draft Budget does, in dealing with current resource pressures and future pressures, which could include corporation tax, is to set us up for reforming and restructuring the public sector in ways that could release savings in years to come that, whilst being applied against the reductions that we face as a result of austerity from London, could also allow us to pay the cost of corporation tax, which would help us to transform and rebalance our economy.”
“Even if we get a positive statement, it will be a number of years before we will have to implement a cut in corporation tax, which means that it will be a number of years before it will impact on public spending in Northern Ireland.”
“The draft Budget does not take into account the devolution of corporation tax, although we are obviously still hopeful of a positive decision by the Prime Minister, and that will be announced no later than when the autumn statement is made by the Chancellor, which is due to be on 3 December. We have made a very robust and good case for the devolution of corporation tax powers and expect a positive decision in that statement.”
“Looking at the draft Budget, I think that it is clear to everyone that, if we had to find a further £200 million of reductions, that would have equated to 4%, 5% or even 6% reductions for Departments above and beyond the cuts that they are facing next year. That is a price that this Executive and this country could not afford. The way that we have found through the issue of welfare reform, trying to bring it to a head and focus on a package of measures that will mitigate the worst effects of welfare reform, is the right way to proceed.”
“I think that parties can sensibly and maturely discuss the issue, particularly the suggestions that my party has submitted to the talks process, in order to try to find a way through welfare reform that ensures that we can implement it, keep welfare payments happening in Northern Ireland and avoid the worst effects of welfare reform as they have happened across the water. <BR /> <BR />The draft Budget does not account for any future penalties. The £114 million penalty for next year is not in it, nor is any cover for the development of an IT system for Northern Ireland. The cost of doing both those things would have been around £200 million.”
“My party and I believe that that fund can be used if members of the Executive or Members of the Assembly want to target specifically areas in which there will be considerable welfare reform impact as we learn from the lessons of the roll-out of welfare reform in Great Britain. <BR /> <BR />I hope that, now that agreeing a draft Budget has been taken off the agenda, time and space within the talks process has been freed up to address where the issue of welfare reform is and should be.”
“An allocation of some £70 million has been made in the draft Budget to fund a package of welfare reform measures. Those are the sorts of measures that the previous Social Development Minister, Nelson McCausland, negotiated successfully, unlike any other part of the United Kingdom, with the Department for Work and Pensions. In that package of measures were ways of ensuring that the bedroom tax would not hit existing customers in Northern Ireland. There were a series of flexibilities around payments, frequency of payments and direct payments to social landlords. As well as all those measures that we negotiated, there is a contingency fund of around £30 million within the package of £70 million.”
“That would not only allow us to get us out of the resource expenditure problems that we are facing next year and in future years but help us to fund a reduction in the rate of corporation tax, which has the capacity to transform and rebalance our economy between the public and private sectors.”
“That will allow those who want to go — no one will be forced — to leave and to do so with a package that will assist them in the short to medium term. We have had a reduction of around 4% in the size of our public sector, which is still large at 212,000 people. That still accounts for around 35% of our total workforce, which is far higher than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. If we were to have the same degree of reductions as in the rest of the United Kingdom, that would mean not 4% but an average of 10%. If we were to follow that trend, we could save hundreds of millions of pounds on a recurrent basis.”
“If you look at the projections that the Office for Budget Responsibility is talking about, you will see 13% reductions in real terms. To contextualise that, we face a 1·6% real terms reduction this year, so we are looking at almost seven times more in reductions over the next three financial years. We cannot have a situation like that and be sensible and plan for the long term if we think that we can keep the public sector at the size that it currently is. It stands to reason that, if you have less money, you spend less money on public services and therefore need fewer people to deliver those public services. <BR /> <BR />I think that this is an opportune moment to bring forward a voluntary exit scheme, which is what my Department will be looking at over the next number of weeks.”
“I thought that all in the House had subscribed to rebalancing our economy. I know that our party certainly has, and that is why we have been pursuing corporation tax powers. Whilst that will not in itself transform our economy and rebalance it from the public to the private sector, it is the single best tool available to us to assist us along that road. Although I think that we are all agreed on the need to rebalance our economy, I do not think that any Finance Minister or Administration would want to reduce the size of our public sector without there being a need to do so. <BR /> <BR />We are in a position in which we have less money to spend. Cuts of £213 million are being applied to Departments this year.”
“— and, of course, yes, as colleagues have reminded me, by a £7 billion non-repayable loan from her Majesty's Treasury. So, whilst I welcome that it is doing much better, I do not necessarily agree that it is standing on its own two feet as well.”
“However, I do not necessarily agree with his characterisation that that economy is standing on its own feet, because it is being bolstered considerably by the troika that includes the IMF and the European Union —”
“I am used to being misquoted over the last week, but I will not let the Member misquote my statement. I did not say that we will "never" be able to pay our own way; I said that we are not in a position to be able to pay our own way. That is a fiscal reality that makes rebalancing our economy incredibly challenging in Northern Ireland. It is one of the reasons why we are continuing to pursue the devolution of corporation tax powers as a tool that will allow us to further rebalance our economy beyond that which has taken place over the last number of years. <BR /> <BR />I welcome that our nearest neighbour's economy is doing much better than in recent times. That clearly benefits the people of Northern Ireland, particularly those in business who trade into that important near market.”
“So, we have increased the target to £150 million, which will mean a replenishment of at least half that capital receipt, which will go into our capital budget. That budget will, of course, rise next year, never mind the £1 billion investment fund that we will, hopefully, have up and running next year as well.”
“<BR /> <BR />Through some imaginative thinking on our capital receipts, we have already been able to bank £108 million that Departments identified through the sale of surplus land and properties and the repayment of loans, including financial transactions capital loans, that come back in to the Executive. We are seeking, and anticipate getting, permission from the Treasury to switch that £108 million from capital to resource so that there is no additional pressure on our resource budget, which is under the most pressure in the next financial year. There may be those who are concerned that that takes money away from capital, but we have increased the target. As I say, we have banked that £108 million to repay the £100 million, but that does not mean that there are not other assets that can be sold to bring in revenue.”
“The £100 million loan that the First Minister and I secured from the Chancellor a few weeks ago was derided by many in the House as a "payday loan". It is the only payday loan that I have ever seen that involves no interest. However, it clearly produced a pressure on our Budget for next year. Had that £100 million come out of our resource budget, it would have added another reduction of 1%, or maybe close to 2%, for some Departments' budgets. The fact is that we were able to take cuts down from 15% to closer to 10% for the worst-off Departments, but they would have gone back up again if we had to repay that amount of money.”
“That still leaves a considerable amount of money in the reserves of Translink, which the Minister could pursue if he wanted to, but I fear, based on past behaviour and his record, that the Minister does not have the political courage to pursue those reserves any more than he had to pursue the Port of Belfast for the £20 million that it had.”
“<BR /> <BR />In terms of the Translink reserves, the Minister wrote to me last week indicating, much like his inability or unwillingness to seek money from the Port of Belfast, that if he was to pursue Translink's sizeable reserves, which the Member talked about, it would almost empty it of any money and any reserves at all. My understanding is that the figure that the Member talked about was around £50-odd million. The Minister has pointed out that it has a £12 million loss this year and anticipates similar next year.”
“The Minister for Regional Development might want to characterise a 4% reduction — I accept that it is a reduction and will lead to difficult decisions having to be made by the Minister — in that way, but it is nowhere near as savage a reduction as many other Departments, indeed, the majority of Departments in the Executive, are facing in future years. I think the reason for the Member characterising that as savage was to set himself up for the vote that he made on Thursday. He had no intention of voting for the Budget and wanted to try to characterise it as a deeply difficult Budget for his Department when that was not the case.”
“He has also been allocated £9·5 million to cover concessionary fares, so that, instead of becoming a political football, as it has traditionally become — the Minister usually pointed the finger at me or my predecessor and said that we were going to take the money away from that scheme — it is now for the Department for Regional Development to ensure that the concessionary fares scheme for over-60s is there. <BR /> <BR />That £29·5 million allocation, plus a pro rata share of the £124·5 million, meant that, instead of being in the sort of position that my Department is in, for example, where we have to find 11% reductions for next year, the Department for Regional Development is facing reductions of 4%.”
“Yes, I was shocked as well, knowing the figures, which, obviously, we could not publicly reveal, although somebody in the Executive did see fit to take an early draft of the paper and pass it on to parts of the press. Even those early figures that were leaked to the press showed the reduction in the Department for Regional Development, because we allocated £20 million, which had not been there in its baseline because of the inability or unwillingness of the Minister to access £20 million from the Port of Belfast.”
“I am due to make a final decision on its shape and nature in the next couple of weeks, but I am glad that, whatever change in the shape or nature of the scheme that there may be, the Executive have agreed to set aside £20 million for our small businesses, particularly those in retail, that still suffer in many parts of Northern Ireland. That support will still be there, and we will be able to back our small businesses through a small business rate relief scheme.”
“I am glad that predecessors in my post have been able to introduce a range of measures to support small businesses through the worst of the economic downturn. The Member and the House will be aware of the small business rate relief scheme, which has been a great success in all parts of Northern Ireland in helping small businesses. In fact, half of small businesses get at least 20% off their rates bills as we stand. That support can continue because of an allocation of £20 million that has been made in this Budget for a continuation of the small business rate relief scheme. <BR /> <BR />The scheme is undergoing a review.”
“Whilst the Member might warmly welcome consultations or want to have them for 12 weeks, I am sure that, in the circumstances, he will understand that it is simply something that we cannot afford.”
“<BR /> <BR />If we had gone for a 12-week consultation, which would have taken us to the end of January, we would have had the real prospect of having no Budget in place and no Budget Act in place for the start of the next financial year. Obviously, we have some work to do between the end of the consultation and agreeing the final Budget, and then we have to go through the legislative process in the House. If we had waited until the end of January to do any negotiations around further allocations or reductions if required, we would not have had the time to implement the legislation, and we would have had the real possibility that there would be no Budget in place for the start of the financial year.”
“However, the delay in agreeing a draft Budget — I welcome the fact that, even with the delay, we have a draft Budget and that we have removed the uncertainly not just round this institution but ensured that a Budget was in place — meant that we could not afford a 12-week consultation period. Mr Wilson — the Finance Minister who introduced the 2011 Budget — did not get the draft Budget in until 15 December, and it had an eight-week consultation period, which ran over Christmas. Even though this has been characterised as a draft Budget that has been delayed, it is still in place much earlier than the 2011-15 Budget, and it will conclude before the end of the year, rather than going over into the new year.”
“If the Member wants to offer thanks to anybody in the House for the reductions in public expenditure in Northern Ireland that flow from the Budget, I thought that I made it pretty clear that all thanks should be directed to Mike Nesbitt and the Ulster Unionist Party. <BR /> <BR />There is an eight-week period of consultation, and that does not happen in every part of the United Kingdom. Our Members of Parliament at Westminster will be able to testify that the Chancellor introduces his Budget on one day, the next day the Finance Bill comes before them, and by the end of the next week it is law. Therefore, the fact that we go out for consultation at all in Northern Ireland means that we are in not a bad position. Eight weeks is less than the 12 weeks that is seen to be the normal period of consultation.”
“Whenever people come forward with suggestions for water charges or increasing rates bills — from the Alliance Party to the Green Party — just bear in mind the fact that real people in Northern Ireland have to pay those rates bills and those water charges, and there will be an impact on the economy as a result.”
“<BR /> <BR />Whilst I accept that economic recovery is starting to happen in Northern Ireland, and we welcome that, the last place where people are feeling confident of recovery is in their own household income. That would be another £500, £600, maybe £700, including rates, that they would have to find in their household income. I suggest that the impact on confidence in those households would be much more than £500, £600 or £700, and you would see spending on other items go down by much more than that. You would sap the confidence that is starting to come back into our economy, and you would impact negatively on economic recovery.”
“Maybe this is the equivalent of the Lib Dems' 1p on income tax. Whatever the motivation for it, when you hear various spokespeople talk about introducing water charges or significantly increasing our rates bill to solve our problems, let us bear in mind that for every 1% we increase our regional rate, we raise about £5 million. Therefore, to solve this problem, we would have to increase it by a considerable number of percentage points to get any sort of money that we could do anything with. Whenever I hear them talk about that, I think that they think that that money is not paid by real people. The people who would pay the water charges — on average, around £500 a year — or who would pay an increase in their rates bill are real people living and working in Northern Ireland today.”
“— and people are quite content to pay water charges or pay significant increases in their rates bills.”
“As Sir Humphrey said, it was probably the most "courageous" reason put forward for not voting for the draft Budget. I take a very straightforward view in respect of raising revenue through water charges or hiking our rates. I do not think that it is the right way to go about solving our short-term financial problems. Maybe the topic comes up at Green Party or Alliance Party wine and cheese evenings —”
“So, while you would always have liked a bit more time, I think that Departments have sufficient time, particularly over the next eight weeks of the consultation period to try to make sure that the worst impact of the cuts is not felt by citizens through diminishing services.”
“<BR /> <BR />In respect of Departments grappling with these matters, I accept that many of them will have to make significant savings, which will have an impact on public services. We have tried, in so far as we can, to limit the impact on key front line services, but there will be an impact on our public services and, therefore, the shape and nature of our public sector. While the £100 million loan facility focused our minds last week, and knowing full well that we would have significant savings to make in the next financial year, we needed to get a draft Budget out so that Departments had as much time as possible to try to implement those savings so that they would not hit front line services, and so that Departments could try to make the savings in other non-front line areas of their business.”
“So, the time that elapsed from that presentation six weeks ago to the Executive last week actually improved the position for Ministers. Indeed, last week, the position for some of the Ministers who abstained or voted against it improved again. So, DEL, DCAL and DOE got allocations between Monday of last week, when the first paper issued, and Thursday, when the Executive agreed it. <BR /> <BR />One conclusion you could draw from that is that, no matter how much money the Departments had, and no matter how much complaining they made about the impact on their Departments, they would never have voted for the paper come what may. There is a history and a pattern of behaviour. Some parties in the Executive are happy to be in the Executive and take ministerial positions in the Executive but have not voted for a Budget since 2007.”
“<BR /> <BR />I might understand the difficulties that people had about comprehending the document if they had just 72 hours to consider it, but officials from my Department made a presentation to the Executive six weeks or more ago about the likely implications for 2015-16 for their Departments. A pretty stark picture was painted by DFP officials. At that time, we had not hollowed out all the pressures and had not thought about any imaginative solutions, and it looked like we were going to have 15% reductions for every Department but Health. <BR /> <BR />The Member and the House will see that no Department is now facing a reduction of 15%. So, every Department is in a better position. I accept that some Departments are in tough positions, and some are still in double digits, but the majority are not and some are in a positive position.”
“I thank the Member for providing those quotes to me. It is much appreciated. It is a typical complaint from Ministers who do not want to vote for something or want to vote against it, for party political reasons, that they did not have enough time to study the document. I appreciate that it was a fairly comprehensive speech, but the Budget document was smaller than the speech I gave. Members of the Executive had 72 hours to read the document. If you cannot read, study and understand the implications of a document in 72 hours, I do not know whether you should be in the Executive.”
“That is why Minister O'Neill and Minister Foster have come to the Executive with their agreed paper in respect of the 'Going for Growth' document. That is an area that, resources permitting, I, and I am sure Executive colleagues, would be keen to support in the years ahead so that we can maximise the potential in that growing sector.”
“I can, in so far as I can offer continued support with a constrained financial position. Whilst the reduction of 5·2% that the Department of Agriculture is taking is still a reduction, and one that will require the Minister to make savings within her Department, it is one of the better settlements that the Departments face. In part, that is in recognition of the importance that we all place upon our agrifood industry. During my statement, I mentioned the significant growth in the agrifood sector, with a £4·5 billion of turnover in the past financial year. That is something that we all welcome. It is a sector that has bucked the trend over the past number of years, and one in which there is still plenty of room for growth.”