John McCallister
South Down · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“She did whatever needed to be done and nothing seemed to be too much trouble or too difficult for her to overcome. <BR /> <BR />It was very much to her credit that she was able to work and find a solution to an issue that, as we go forward, will allow us to look at different things.”
“Sometimes, one of the downsides of being in politics is that social media exposes all our lives to some really quite harsh and unkind things. I certainly am delighted that things have improved in that regard, not only with getting the Bill passed but with your father's health improving.”
“Like colleagues, I welcome the Final Stage of the Licensing Bill. Following on from Mr Ross, it is a shame that Mrs Cochrane is standing down because we could desperately do with her back here to continue the reform of our licensing laws, although that is looking like quite a big job for anybody to take on.”
“It would have been such a shame to have to have him removed on his last day. <BR /> <BR />Mr Speaker, I will begin by paying tribute to you and the respect agenda you have set in your time in the Speaker's office.”
“<BR /> <BR />In this term, I am particularly proud of the private Member's Bill to reform the way that the Assembly does its business, and I hope that the messages from all of the political parties seem to be that there is a will to have a much more collective and cohesive Executive on the other side of an election.”
“While there is partly a disappointment in some regards about what the Assembly and Executive have achieved, the one thing that they have achieved is to have got people talking from very different and difficult backgrounds. As Mr Hamilton said, it is much better having a robust debate in here than division on our streets.”
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Every one of 975 lines we hold for John McCallister, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 13 of 20.
“I declare an interest as a recipient of single farm payment, Mr Speaker. Will that not be hugely worrying to a sector and an industry that you are trying to promote through the agrifood strategy? Adding to very poor trading prices — particularly in the milk sector but also for beef and lamb — difficulties or uncertainty about whether single farm payments will be paid either on time or in full is a hugely detrimental place to be.”
“Can any of that be used to offset the £100 million loan and the £114 of welfare reductions?”
“If she did get that over the line, would it be enough to ease her financial problems? Where does it leave the £350 million of borrowing for other infrastructure problems? Where does it leave the asset sales? Have we commenced with any asset sales?”
“They are trapped in a monetary union with no fiscal transfer from the Germans to help them out. We are very fortunate that we are in a political, monetary and fiscal union in the United Kingdom and that we enjoy a £10 billion a year subvention that props this place up. <BR /> <BR />Meanwhile, we put off all the difficult decisions. We have delayed on public-sector reform. If we had implemented recruitment freezes four years ago, we would not have needed to borrow £700 million to deal with that. We could have borrowed £700 million and made the case for infrastructure. There are many things in the Stormont House Agreement, and, when the Minister responds to the debate, she might want to comment on who all she thinks still supports the Stormont House Agreement. Where does this leave the £700 million for the voluntary exit scheme?”
“The one message we got, in all of those places, was about stability, and yet we are expecting Invest NI to go out and sell Northern Ireland on stability and corporation tax, neither of which this Minister, nor the economy Minister can guarantee. None of that can be made to happen. There is a disconnect from the realities of finance and welfare here, all bogged down in the idea of a Dáil election and what would happen with that. <BR /> <BR />As I pointed out before, if this place were a sovereign government, the IMF would be running it, not anyone else. We are in the fortunate position that we get a huge fiscal transfer from Westminster. The Greeks were held up by Sinn Féin as a model, as comrades and as an example, but now they are finding it increasingly difficult.”
“The parties that are in the Government should step up and act like they are in the Government. Those of us who are in opposition are free to make those choices, because we do not bear the responsibility of government, and do not get extra speaking rights, ministerial cars and the perks of being members of the Executive. <BR /> <BR />The real tragedy is the impact that all of this is having on Northern Ireland. We look like we are lurching from crisis to crisis: and we are. During recent weeks, I attended an Invest NI event in South Down — at the very successful Irish Open — and I was away with the Assembly and Business Trust at Mr Ó Muilleoir's conference, New York-New Belfast.”
“Would it bring back the same people with the same problems, with no alternative and no viable opposition in place as an alternative Government? <BR /> <BR />I agree with colleagues who point out that it is incumbent upon all members of the Executive to vote for this, because they are bound into the Executive. In some of the previous Budget debates I quoted from John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I am going to quote, now, from another Kennedy, but this one is from Bessbrook. I want to quote Minister Danny Kennedy from last week:”
“I listened to Mr Rogers talk about early years and I agree entirely. During one of the welfare debates, I spoke at length, saying that the idea that we are spending £564 million over the next six years, and cutting early years intervention to pay for it, is absolute madness. Yet that is exactly what we are doing by not dealing with welfare. We are neither fish nor fowl, effectively: we are not doing welfare and we have no budget. So, how are we going to pay for any of this? A key part of any Government is delivering Supply and a Budget. In normal parliamentary democracies, if a Government cannot do that, that Government fall and you have an election. Our difficulty is that we do not know what an election would solve.”
“<BR /> <BR />We seem to have completely closed down the debate and the realities on welfare. We have moved so far away from the broad principle that work should pay that many families who have people in work are worse off than those on benefits, and that situation should not be sustainable.”
“<BR /> <BR />However, we are in the process of driving the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive into crisis. As was pointed out by Dr Farry and Mr Wilson, the Scots and the Welsh are talking about taking on the majority Conservative Government, but they are not plunging their institutions into crisis. No one is talking about taking powers away from Cardiff Bay or Holyrood; they are talking about increasing the powers of those institutions. We have Sinn Féin talking about getting more powers over tax and saying, "If only we had control of this, we could change it". In broad terms, I am a supporter of more tax-raising powers being devolved to this Assembly and Executive but only in the context of a reformed Assembly that has a functioning Executive arm, which could make some of this work.”
“— and so on and so forth. It is quite clear that Labour policy would have been no different, or would have differed very little, from that of the Tories. During the election campaign, the First Minister estimated that the difference between the future plans of a Conservative Government and a Labour one was as little as £1 million. <BR /> <BR />Look across the water to our colleagues in Scotland and listen to them on welfare. They are held up as a great example of fighting the Tories. Alex Neil, the SNP Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, talked about three things he would change about welfare: the bedroom tax, fortnightly payments and housing benefit to be paid directly to landlords. Does any of that sound familiar? It would suggest that we have done or were about to do exactly what our Scottish friends would like to do.”
“He goes on to ask why there should be in Northern Ireland:”
“Those who thought that, under Labour, it would all have been so different should perhaps read the interview given by the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 'The Irish Times'. I will quote a couple of highlights. He makes it emphatically clear that neither Sinn Féin nor the SDLP would have had an ally in the battle to compel the British Government to row back on welfare reform in Northern Ireland. He makes that quite clear:”
“I could join colleagues by getting up and completely ignoring the countless elephants in the room. I wonder about the sheer credibility gap, as it used to be known in American politics, between the politics of what we are discussing and the realities of where we actually are. <BR /> <BR />I look at and listen to colleagues with great respect. I must say that, for many months, those sitting on the SDLP and Sinn Féin Benches clung to the great hope that Labour was going to win the election. I must say to them that I have some upsetting news: last time I looked, the Tories won. If you do not like it, that is too bad; the Tories won, and they are the elected Government of the United Kingdom.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. On that point, if some benefits will not be paid, would the Minister care to elaborate on how exactly the ongoing fight on welfare and the Budget, if it gets to the situation that he outlined, will help the vulnerable?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his replies. Minister, Transforming Your Care began three and a half years ago, and it is now three Ministers later. It was originally meant to move £83 million in the idea of a shift left from acute to community. How much money has actually moved from acute to community at this stage? Does he not need to give a very strong signal to the community that Transforming Your Care is still alive? I find that most people I meet in the health sector think that it has gone.”
“Can the Minister confirm that, had she put a recruitment freeze on the Civil Service four years ago, we would not have needed a voluntary exit scheme and the £700 million of borrowing could have been used in other, more useful areas? Would she care to say which parties in this Chamber she thinks still support the Stormont House Agreement in full?”
“— a real dent in our confidence in the Executive. What is worse is that the people out there have long since switched off and no longer worry about what this place does. It is not even a crisis. In Mr Nesbitt's words, it is barely a proper crisis.”
“We could be in a situation by late July or August where the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance and Personnel is running our finances. Yet, we are wondering here about Minister Kennedy getting the grass verges cut while our entire finances go down the plughole. Is there any sense of reality? <BR /> <BR />On this occasion, because of Sinn Féin's stance on welfare reform, we are haemorrhaging £2 million per week. With no real way of passing a meaningful Budget, the Finance Department will have to step in and take emergency measures. That is putting —”
“Virtually every week in the Chamber the case is made for reforming the Assembly and the Executive. A number of weeks ago, in the water motion, we had the then junior Minister Bell calling on Minister Kennedy to follow Executive policy. That was really an attack on the Alliance Party, which is still in the Executive as well. All the Executive parties gang up on one another. Today's motion — I have to give it to the Committee — is exceptional when you consider where Northern Ireland is heading. Let's all gang up on the Minister for Regional Development — meanwhile, the entire Executive of Northern Ireland are hurtling down the tracks towards practical bankruptcy. We have a fantasy Budget on its way that will, of course, given the title "fantasy", bear no relevance to reality.”
“I am sure that the Minister is touched by the number of Executive colleagues who have come out to support him today in the effort to reinforce collective Cabinet government. He is probably thinking to himself, "With friends like these, who needs colleagues?". Mr Allister was spot on about the Committee Chair and Member for South Antrim; it is much more to do with an election result in South Antrim. Only a number of weeks ago, DUP colleagues were calling on people in Newry and Armagh to vote for Mr Kennedy; now they want his head on a platter. At least Mr Dallat does not.”
“We need to get back to the idea of a Government acting collectively in the interests of the people, and particularly vulnerable people in isolated rural communities.”
“I am a huge supporter of collective Cabinet Government. The Executive and our Government desperately need to see that. With every debate that we have in here, it is one party attacking the SDLP Environment Minister for cuts to Mourne Heritage Trust, or suddenly the DUP is lined up for a full week of attacks on the Regional Development Minister, starting today and with a motion of no confidence tomorrow. That is not how and why collective government should work. Who votes for the Budget? You have some parties that vote against the Budget. Some parties claim that they are all right because their Ministers voted against the Budget.”
“I appreciate that, Principal Deputy Speaker. I agree entirely with the Member. We are faced at this point with a public body like Translink that has massive reserves, and yet there does not seem to be the same pressure on it to use those. Why would we expect a community-based transport organisation to use what little reserves it may have, when we have no evidence as to what level of reserves it even has? I think it would be detrimental to it. It is something that the Department and its partners, predominantly in Disability Action, should be delivering. That is what I want to see. I worry about the health impact that it is going to have. <BR /> <BR />On the wider politics, Mr Swann talked about a collective Executive approach. I would dearly love to see a collective Executive approach on anything, let alone this. It would be great to see.”
“I would appreciate it if the Minister could say why that has not been done or will undertake to do that, because I think it is important that the Minister, the Department and officials making those decisions know of the impact that they will have, especially on vulnerable people and especially in isolated rural communities.”
“I have to say that, if that service and the other services provided are not front line, I am not sure what is, or how the House would describe front line. <BR /> <BR />I also asked the Minister a written question about an equality impact assessment, to find out that, yes, there was one carried out on the regional transportation strategy and the accessible transport strategy when they were adopted, and one was carried out on the overall draft Budget, but those are now some time out of date, and it appears that there has been no impact assessment carried out on the current proposals.”
“In an area that straddles the Minister's and my constituency, namely the old Newry and Mourne District Council area, Newry and Mourne Community Transport were trying to develop services, including a service manned by volunteer drivers to take patients to and from appointments for cancer treatment, all of which might be put in jeopardy by these cuts. Has the Minister had any contact with the Department of Health about the impact not only on that service but on health and well-being overall? Let us face it: transport to get people out of their homes without it being, as Mr Allister said, a very difficult chore for them, is good for their mental health and well-being. We should be embracing that.”
“I want to focus on several things, starting with the impact that there will be on my constituency. South Down is a large rural constituency, and many vulnerable people are very dependent on this type of service. In response to a question for written answer, it was revealed that there would be a huge cut in funding for Disability Action from £2·9 million to £2·3 million, or 21%. The question for the Minister is this: does any other part of his Department, or any area of the Civil Service part of his Department, face that level of cut, and, if so, how he would deliver it? <BR /> <BR />Colleagues throughout the House, from all sides, have spoken about the impact that these cuts will have on the services.”
“The momentum gained in January and February, by passing the Budget and moving on this issue, has all been lost, and we are going nowhere, to the point where we are about to hit the buffers. <BR /> <BR />I will leave it at that. I will vote with the Minister tonight.”
“We would like VAT on tourism cut to 9%. We want all those things, but we have no concept of how we are going to pay for them. At least £500 million will be spent on welfare reform and possibly another £200 million on top of that, since we worked out that the £500 million will not be enough. Such is the economic illiteracy that at least two of the parties in the Assembly are stuck on. That is a very unfortunate place. It would not be as bad a thing if you were not in government and did not have the ability to sign a petition of concern. <BR /> <BR />That is why I will vote with the Minister on this Bill. It is hugely regrettable that the renewal and rebooting of the First Minister and deputy First Minister's relationship after the Stormont House Agreement has all been lost.”
“We can drift along with welfare reform." We are fortunate that we are not a sovereign government because we would be in the care of the IMF if we were. We could not and cannot continue with that. <BR /> <BR />There is no doubt in my mind that this is all to do with next year's Dáil election. Clearly, the message to voters in the Republic of Ireland is that they should be very wary of who they elect into government. Will they face up to the responsibilities that parties in government need to face up to and deal with them in a serious manner? <BR /> <BR />Right across the board, we have failures to make decisions. Too much focus has been on all the good things that people want announced but none of the difficult decisions. Nobody wants to talk about water charging or tuition fees, but we want cuts in corporation tax and air passenger duty.”
“The only things that saved us in the last Parliament were that Health was protected, Education got a level of protection and we got the Barnett consequential of that. This is no way to run a joined-up government. <BR /> <BR />It is easier, I suppose, for some of the smaller parties in government to vote against the Budget as long as the bigger two agree. Today we heard from probably half a dozen government Ministers, so at least half the Executive have spoken in the debate, including Martin McGuinness, the joint head of the Administration. The joint head of the Administration is now torpedoing his own Administration's policy on welfare reform, and we somehow think that it is all right to do that. We somehow think that we should carry on. There is an attitude of, "Well, we can buy another few weeks.”
“<BR /> <BR />The main Executive economic strategy of cutting corporation tax is all about attracting inward investment, but one of the key things in attracting that inward investment is good governance. We are not going to be portraying good governance when you see that we are actually crushing our institutions, that we will run out of money and that we have one party that will not do welfare reform and another lead party in government that refuses to bring a Budget with what probably would be completely eye-watering cuts. Cuts of £600 million will mean that Minister Hamilton will be taking somewhere around £280 million out of Health. That is going to be a big help to the vulnerable and the sick. It is going to really hurt them. Minister O'Dowd's Department will take the next biggest hit.”
“We have to ask ourselves this: if the Assembly had any levels of responsibility, what would it do if one of our councils, for example, pursued an agenda of reckless spending? We know what happened when the South Eastern Education and Library Board got into difficulties. Commissioners were appointed. What would we do? What would Minister Durkan, who was here a short while ago, be recommending if a council got into such a reckless rate of spending and could not balance its books? Would someone have to step in? Would the Assembly or the Minister step in? I ask that because, at the minute, we are almost waiting for somebody to ride in to the rescue to sort this out, whether that is the permanent secretary at DFP or the Secretary of State with more money. That is an appalling place for us to be.”
“It has had four or five different MPs since 1966. It is a disgrace that there are still such levels of deprivation and poverty in that constituency. You are supporting is a welfare system that you think is not fit for purpose, but it is the one you want to keep. Somehow you are going to go over and fight a Tory Government. I have some upsetting news — I know you have heard this before — but the Tories actually won the general election a few weeks ago. They are in with a majority for a five-year term. Sadly, we are stuck with the parties here: one that does not even turn up at Westminster and another that firmly nailed itself to the "EdStone". I am not quite sure what has happened to the "EdStone", but it does not look like it is coming back.”
“That is not going to trickle down to them. <BR /> <BR />I have to say to Sinn Féin and the SDLP: you have been in charge of West Belfast from 1966.”
“<BR /> <BR />Look at all the things on welfare that I warned about before. I said that two parties that are so opposed to welfare reform now are up for corporation tax. How very bizarre that they are still up for that. If you want to know why I said to them at the debate that corporation tax will have a long way to trickle down to the people in West Belfast, I will give you one example. An answer from the Minister of Education on the number of people doing ICT for A level by constituency indicated that West Belfast has an average of 17. Just to give you a comparison, South Down has the third highest number with 106, and the constituency with the highest number is Upper Bann at 148. That is the difference. West Belfast is at 17. Young people in West Belfast will not feel the effects of corporation tax cuts.”
“<BR /> <BR />The outworkings of today, such as the cuts in early intervention, might not be felt for many years, but a Budget crisis will be very much a crisis made in Belfast. It will not be made in Westminster or anywhere else. We have walked ourselves into this by putting off welfare reform with the only suggestions being more negotiations — why would anyone believe you if you agreed to anything? — or the formation of a Committee. That has always worked well for us. From when this Bill was introduced in October 2012, we have had a Committee to look at the human rights aspect of it, which was set up in late 2012 or early 2013. We had delay and then talks and agreement, all of which was going very nicely up to the ard-fheis, when suddenly there was a change. That has to change.”
“It would be bad enough if you were doing that from a position of being in opposition. It would be bad enough if you just let it go to a straight Assembly vote, but to do it with a petition of concern, whereby you know that the Bill is dead even though a majority of members, I suspect, will vote for it, is disgraceful. The most bizarre part of it is that, even if welfare reform started off as coalition policy and you had nothing to do with it, you had "Northern Irelandised" it by the time that you added £564 million to it. We have two parties in this Executive torpedoing their own Executive Government policy, and we somehow turn round and think that this is what passes as normal politics.”
“I am grateful to the Minister. Perhaps, then, he will come down with me to Kilkeel and explain to the parents and the children in Kilkeel why their nursery, their early intervention and their early years provision is being cut. That is the reality. That is the difference that it will make to young lives, and that is where I think that we are so fundamentally wrong. <BR /> <BR />On the scope of this Bill, I do not particularly like the Bill or some of the mitigation measures. As I spoke about in the last debate, I do not think that breaching things like the welfare cap is a good use of public money. Only about two Members — me and Mr Allister maybe — mentioned that in the last debate. However, your petition of concern has forced me, like Ms Sugden, to vote with the Minister. Bringing down this Bill is sheer irresponsibility.”
“In a second. <BR /> <BR />Who will be hardest hit by the cuts? The first five are children and young people, local communities, education, health and social care and disability and mental health. I heard Mr Nesbitt speaking about mental health.”
“When you go to the like of neighbourhood renewal events in Downpatrick and look at some of the figures, they were able, for very modest amounts of money, to lift the reading ages of children by up to two years. That is what the Assembly and the Executive should be focused on. Instead, we were about to get an agreement from Sinn Féin that said that it had saved everybody from the evil Tories and that that was just great; it saved them with £564 million of Northern Ireland public money going into it. Meanwhile, we are gutting all the early intervention stuff. So you have groups like NICVA. Who is going to —”
“We were to have committed £564 million over the next six years to mitigate welfare while we cut £2 million from the community and voluntary sector in early years education. That is wrong. That is the wrong priority in the wrong place. All Members will have been to events in here and listened to groups in their constituencies talking about early intervention. <BR /> <BR />During the last debate, Mr Attwood challenged me to come to west Belfast and speak to people. I could not get Mr Attwood tied down to a date, but I went to the Colin area of west Belfast, which has a similarly sized population to cities like Newry and towns like Coleraine. The impact of early intervention in literacy and numeracy is remarkable. In schools in my constituency, they talk about the difference in early intervention.”
“I am more than happy to do so, Mr Speaker. <BR /> <BR />When I spoke in the last debate on welfare, I explained why I dislike not only the Bill but a lot of the mitigation measures; they do not get to where you need to be to help people. All the evidence points to early intervention in dealing with welfare and economic inactivity. Minister Farry has launched an Enabling Success strategy with no money. In all the welfare issues that we have to deal with, early intervention is the key. We have to deal with mental health, economic inactivity and educational underachievement, but we are not doing so. We will not help educational underachievement. Mr O'Dowd is back in the Chamber.”
“— that Ms Sugden and Mr Allister would make some room for them.”
“I was here for Mr Kennedy's contribution. He painted a fairly gloomy picture of the state of things in DRD, with lights going out and roads not being repaired. I was also here for Mr Nesbitt's contribution. I hope that I detected some signs that they were thinking of leaving the Executive and moving into a position of opposition.”
“If an election would sort it out — I hear Mr Kennedy saying from a sedentary position that he wants one — I would welcome it. The problem is that, because there is no alternative Administration here, we would change a few faces, perhaps, but that is all that would happen. We would come back to face the same set of problems. That is why an election would not solve anything.”
“For Sinn Féin and the DUP, there is no great risk in this place collapsing or there being an election, because there is no credible, alternative Government sitting in waiting. The only opposition at the moment is provided by the six Members on these Benches. I am proud of that and of the opposition that that provides, but you need to get to a different point. In a normal process and in normal government in London or Dublin a Government who could not get their business through, such as this Welfare Reform Bill and a Budget, would collapse. That is what would happen.”
“<BR /> <BR />Given the warnings from the Finance Minister, I should probably have declared an interest at the start of the debate that I am the recipient of a single farm payment, in case I do not get that. We should probably all declare an interest in case we are all on welfare by Friday. I also receive child benefit, if that counts. <BR /> <BR />We have to face up to our responsibilities and the way that we conduct our government. Everyone in the House will know that I am a believer in having a proper opposition here. I would like the Government and the opposition to be two distinct bodies and not all in one place. That is the problem with us at the moment. The Government and the opposition — the five parties — are all in the one place.”
“We have been negotiating for over 20 years: is it not time that we realised that the peace process is over and we should get on with the role of government? <BR /> <BR />I am one of the few unionists left in the Building who openly admits that he voted yes to the 1998 agreement. I am one of the few who acknowledges that, 17 years on, we have not delivered on the promise of that agreement. We need to change fundamentally how we do our business here. We have had endless negotiations. Over the last two Christmases, we had the Haass talks, which ran for a number of months, and then, last Christmas, we had 11 or 12 weeks of negotiations ending with the Stormont House Agreement. One of the big successes of that seemed to be that, down at the castle, the Executive had all agreed and gone to negotiate with the Secretary of State.”