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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“<BR /> <BR />At Consideration Stage, the Minister reiterated in his reply that we want work to pay. Mr Allister made the point about 6,500 families being on in excess of the £26,000 cap and some on an average of £30,000-plus. That is more than a Sinn Féin MLA takes home in their pay packet; it is more than many families get. To give some idea of that amount of money, to get to £30,000, you would need to be on a £40,000 salary. That is a significant income. We can look at some of the people who might get trapped on welfare alongside some average private-sector wages. An average hairdresser in the UK earns £11,000, a waiter or a member of bar staff earns £8,000, a window cleaner earns £13,000 and a chef earns £18,000.”
“I will probably follow on from some of Mr Allister's points, and I will speak mainly to amendment No 22. A couple of issues arise, and I want to come to both of them and take up Mr Attwood's intervention at some point as well. <BR /> <BR />If we look at this in the mix, we see that £565 million is going to it over a six-year period. Are we just protecting the welfare that we have had? Are we not doing any welfare reform? In that case, we come to the point that Mr Attwood made in an intervention on Mr Allister. If he wants to read into the record some of the stats for west Belfast, I am happy to give way and let him do that. If west Belfast is as bad as that under the current welfare system, surely you would want to reform it. That would be the essence of it.”
“I am grateful to the Member for giving way. If Mr Weir was convinced by his arguments, he would not need the petition of concern because he would probably think that he would get enough support. I agree with the point about the abuse of the petition of concern. I constantly warned during debates about local government reform that we would almost devolve our dysfunctionality to local government. The big issue that he needs to address is this: anyone in the Chamber who has ever signed a petition of concern should look at the reason why they signed it. Quite frankly, it looks as though everybody is as bad as each other, although I put my hands up and happily admit that I have never signed one.”
“That is how and why the Executive need to be reformed. They need to get a common purpose and vision, because these two bits of their economic policy are not adding up. We are firing £70 million a year into welfare, yet we are continuing to talk about how we need more money from Westminster and on the block grant and about cutting corporation tax. None of those measures, taken by this Executive, add up to a common identity and purpose. That is why I will support the Alliance amendment.”
“You could not do it, as I have repeatedly warned, without this Assembly and Executive being reformed, because no one could devolve anything extra to here if we continued to work the way that we do. You would only do that and look at it. Others have given this warning: what if the block grant gets cut? There are no Barnett consequentials for water charging, for example. That is taken entirely out of the block grant. We may well decide, as an Executive and an Assembly, that we want to continue not having domestic water charges, but we are not even having that debate. <BR /> <BR />I listened to colleagues talk about what I thought was Minister Jim Wells's very responsible statement last week on prescriptions and how we might raise some money with them. You should listen to some of the kickback on that.”
“It has meant that this Finance Minister or his predecessors have not had to grapple with or match huge cuts in public spending and public services. Rather than talking about the cost and the price of the Union, the Executive should be asking this: how do we maximise the benefits of being in the Union? There are huge benefits to us as an economic region that will never match the economic power of London and the south-east of England. <BR /> <BR />Yes, we need to do much more to lift our productivity. We need to have real debates in here. One of the reasons why I support things like looking at revenue-raising measures or at transferring tax-raising powers is because it brings that level of responsibility in here.”
“Mr Nesbitt gave some of the figures on the levels of UK debt, and when people talk about being against austerity, it is worth reminding Sinn Féin that Ireland has reduced its public spending by a sum that is equivalent to 18% of its GDP. That is the equivalent of €30 billion. If you set that in a UK-wide context, you would find that it would be the equivalent of having taken out some £500 billion in spending between 2008 and 2014. The Government have, effectively, taken about £20 billion per year out of this Parliament. So, that is the context in which you compare the two when you set aside the block grant and talk about austerity. They are two different levels of austerity. <BR /> <BR />The price of being in the Union is that there is a huge benefit to it.”
“The Greeks would love to be in an economic union that physically transferred money from one part of that union to the less well off part. Rather than standing shoulder to shoulder, Sinn Féin should be thankful that it is here and is having to manage a £10 billion subvention.”
“At the outset, a lot of the context behind Sinn Féin moving a motion like this is in its great rhetoric about standing shoulder to shoulder with its Greek friends. I suspect that the Greeks would be happy to be in the position that Northern Ireland is in, with a fiscal union — a political union — that does a huge physical transfer every year to poorer and less-well-off parts of that union, Northern Ireland being one of them. <BR /> <BR />So, when we talk about the block grant, we have to set the context for that. We spend £2,000 more per head of population than England does. We have been largely shielded from some of the effects of the austerity measures of the coalition Government because health and education have been ring-fenced by them, and we have the Barnett consequentials.”
“Does the Minister agree that that damaging cynicism among the public, hospital managers and doctors is doing enormous harm to the credibility of the health service, with people maybe wanting to leave through the voluntary exit scheme?”
“I have listened to the Minister's earlier answers. In his report, Sir Liam Donaldson said:”
“I am glad to see the Minister back and wish his wife continued progress in her recovery. I was a little nervous, Mr Speaker, when, as soon as the subject of raising money came up, the Finance Minister rushed down to the Minister's side. I would like an assurance from the Health Minister that health will keep any money raised. <BR /> <BR />Will the Minister come back with more detailed proposals on how much he thinks that he needs to raise and what an acceptable level of charge is? In many aspects, Mr Givan is right: the public are ahead of the politicians on the need for some level of charging. Will he also look at things like using money from the charge to extend the HPV vaccine programme to young boys?”
“The challenge that I put to the Minister on that day was to show me where his purpose and direction and that of his Executive colleagues was. I am not seeing that purpose and direction. I would like to be able to see a coherent Executive that is joined up with purpose and direction and an ability to lead, govern and serve in the best interests of us all. Quite frankly, I do not see that in the Budget and that is very much to my regret.”
“We have looked at this too many times. There is no revenue raising, no way of changing it and no drive or ability to deliver, and we keep on doing it. <BR /> <BR />During one of the previous debates, when the Minister was in great quoting form, I quoted JFK to him:”
“<BR /> <BR />We come back to the simple point that the Executive or the Assembly must reform the process or it will fail. Mr Allister quite rightly made the point that the Budget buys the Executive and the Assembly time through to May 2016. It has bought the full five-year term. However, the challenge after this Budget is that whoever is elected here in 2016 cannot come back to this unreformed Assembly and unreformed Executive and try to deliver a Programme for Government. It cannot be a Government with no real ideas other than what is being driven by a Westminster Government, whatever colour that happens to be, with no real incentive or motivation to do anything and with nothing more than the mutual veto hanging over it. We cannot continue to do business in that way as our people switch off from politics and the Assembly.”
“Where is the joined-up economic policy in that? <BR /> <BR />The private and public sectors are mentioned. Even in my constituency, the centre in Tollymore is a great asset, but it is funded and continues to be funded by the public sector, offsetting private sector activity. That needs to be looked at when we consider how things should continue. <BR /> <BR />We look at various policies, such as what is in the Budget for delivering anything on the Maze site. Will it be a hub for agri-excellence? Would it not be better to think about relocating DARD headquarters there? Is the new community safety college too big and too difficult for us to deliver? Does some other venue need to be looked at? Meanwhile, we are spending millions looking at these ventures with no collective government policy.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Minister knows my concerns on that about getting a policy, and he knows that we could end up with a brain drain. He also knows that we could end up doing something similar to the Patten reforms of the Police Service, when you could end up having to bring people back in who know how things work. We end up at Mr Allister's point about economic inactivity. This is where these parts of our economy and economic vision, with Sinn Féin's idea on welfare reform and the Minister's idea and drive on public-sector reform, do not add up to a coherent policy with associated costs. That is where we get into trouble, and we always end up defending the Budget line rather than looking at outcomes. We end up saving St Mary's and Stranmillis colleges, continuing to train too many teachers while not having enough IT graduates.”
“Why would we want to strip, I do not know, £800 million with no clue about the Executive's ability to deal with it, get on top of the issues, spend the money properly and invest wisely in Northern Ireland's future? At the minute, all we see is an ability to borrow. You might argue that we should be able to borrow if we are going to cut corporation tax, and you probably need to be able to borrow to match the volatility of that tax. You would also need to be able to save in better years. However, what are we borrowing mainly to do? We are not borrowing mainly to build roads and infrastructure, to extend our rail network, to build schools and health centres or to do whatever is needed for the Executive's strategic plan. We are borrowing to make people redundant.”
“However, it needs to have it in the context of a reformed Assembly, which should be an Assembly that has a coherent Executive policy on welfare, the economy and on where it is going. People should know what it is doing. In that context, you might make those decisions. <BR /> <BR />Talking about revenue raising brings me to the Port of Belfast and the debate on that. We can look at that as one of the best examples of growth in our economy, which even John Simpson described as an "artery" for our economy. Minister Hamilton and Minister Kennedy were interviewed for 'The View' last Thursday night, and instead of having an Executive policy and strategy, they had diverging views of where the port is going.”
“The Minister knows that I have been critical of the DUP line that says that we are a low-tax Assembly. We are virtually a no-tax Assembly. Five per cent to 6% of what the Minister will spend comes from his regional rate. So we are imposing no charge; everything else goes into a central pot and comes back to us in the form of the block grant and other separate payments. <BR /> <BR />The idea that this is a low-tax Assembly does not stand up to scrutiny. The idea that anyone would somehow want to pay more into such a dysfunctional body is also a worry. To the Alliance Party's credit, it talks about having the debate on revenue raising, putting tuition fees on the table, water charges and prescription charges. It is a debate that the Assembly needs to have.”
“At a time when the Minister has been warning us that we are in for a difficult period in this coming Budget and in the years to 2020, how do those two things add up? <BR /> <BR />This at a time when we are cutting our skills budget, topping up welfare payments and possibly trapping people in welfare and more. This at a time when we cannot make any decisions due to an inability to make decisions. When we listen to the likes of Mr Flanagan talk about the blank canvas for our economy, we find that he means a blank cheque, not a blank canvas. He wants a blank cheque that we can write and spend, which means that we never have to face the realities of what is out there in the real world. The realities are that, if you want to spend money at that level, you will have to raise it at some point.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is just incoherent nonsense to think that we join this all-Ireland republic and it will somehow be blissful and easy. Our friends and colleagues in the Republic of Ireland have had to take some real pain in the last seven to eight years — real pain that we have largely been shielded from. If you look at even public-sector reform and job losses between 2010-13, the UK average was a cut of 10%. Northern Ireland was 3·5%, so where do they think any of that would come from? I am not quite sure. <BR /> <BR />Add up some of the figures. Take £70 million per year on welfare reform. At some point, this Minister is going to move, and his colleague beside him will cut corporation tax at a cost of £325 million. That starts to rise to £400 million per year.”
“Let us look at this notion that Sinn Féin have been pushing about the Union being the price of austerity. I am sure that the Minister will give as accurate a figure as he can of what the subvention currently rests at. If it is in the region of £9·5 billion to £10 billion, that comes very close to the entire income tax take of the Republic of Ireland, so where do Sinn Féin think in the real world that that money would come from? If we were not part of the UK and getting a generous handout from the UK Exchequer, how do they think we would prop up our National Health Service, our schools or our roads infrastructure? Where do they think in la-la land that we would get that money? Where do they think the Finance Minister would get that money?”
“Can the Minister stand up when he replies here and claim that it has been a great achievement? He will claim that it has been a great achievement getting Executive agreement on this and that the public should be grateful to him for that. The only reason why he and his colleagues are getting away with this is because there is no credible alternative in this Assembly. There is no opposition, and that is why this Assembly so desperately needs an opposition and alternative view. Quite frankly, the people out there have long-since switched off from this debate and what this Assembly does. <BR /> <BR />Even Sinn Féin have taken their hollow rhetoric to breathtaking new levels. Northern Ireland and your constituencies, as well as my constituency, have been bankrolled by a very generous UK Exchequer and taxpayer.”
“Our fiscal policy, to borrow and pledge spending with no indication of where the cuts are going to come, is completely incoherent.”
“We hear much about strategic vision. Mr Allister made the point that OFMDFM did not quite see the irony in having an equality and strategy unit. That is because there is no sense of strategic direction. Take even one Minister making a funding decision about Stranmillis and St Mary's, and then all the Executive closing down. What is worse, that Minister is still in post. He is still there, clinging on to office, and that builds into the First Minister's line about the dysfunctionality of this place and this Executive. We cannot continue in that vein. <BR /> <BR />The problem is that key parts of this Executive's policies do not add up. The economic policy of the Executive is incoherent. The public-sector reform policy is incoherent. The social policy is incoherent. Our health policy is incoherent.”
“All the studies that we have looked at on corporation tax suggest that to get the gain from it we have to invest in skills and training, yet DEL is facing a 6·4% cut next year. Where is the joined-up approach of the Government? Where are we going to create these jobs? <BR /> <BR />During the welfare reform debate last week, I asked whether Sinn Féin had now forgotten about social mobility for some of its constituents. I also asked whether it had moved into the area of trickle-down economics because a cut in corporation tax has a long way to trickle down to some of its constituents. That is the problem that this Budget is delivering and this Minister faces.”
“The Minister must know that this is not a zero-sum equation. <BR /> <BR />The danger for him is that this money will have to come from education, health, social investment and employment and learning. We may find that with an incoherent Executive policy on welfare and the economy we are robbing the very services that might help people to get out of the trap of welfare and move into the world of work; those training and employment opportunities that this Executive will have to cut. In attempting to address health inequalities we will struggle to meet the demand. That is where this Executive, in this Budget, fail so dramatically because there is no joined-up purpose to this Administration. <BR /> <BR />Remarkably, corporation tax is the one policy on which there is a 5:0 agreement around the Executive table.”
“<BR /> <BR />Let us look at where we are on other strategic parts of public-sector reform, such as TYC, local government reform, education, DARD headquarters and reducing the number of Departments. As the Minister is aware, I have asked him to publish a strategy on the voluntary exit scheme linked with a strategic plan for public-sector reform. I have yet to receive an answer but I am sure he will reply in his winding-up speech. <BR /> <BR />We have proceeded with welfare reform only because of pressure from Westminster. The resultant cost of that is £565 million over six years. How is that going to be paid for? Again, we have set the bar at defending budgets rather than looking at outcomes. We have not been told how this is going to be paid for or where the money is coming from.”
“That has always been the difficulty that this Minister has faced, because he does not have a united Executive. <BR /> <BR />Let us look at some of the policies, such as the voluntary exit scheme. It was agreed at Stormont Castle or Stormont House — or maybe even both — and then some people suddenly realised that this was not where they wanted to go. My biggest concern over the scheme, and welfare reform, is the broad acknowledgment that this Executive are only doing these reforms under pressure from Westminster. Where is the vision and strategic direction of this Executive? Where are they going and where are they leading Northern Ireland to? The broad parts of the policies do not add up to make a complete and coherent Executive with a direction. The key aspects of economic policy and welfare reform do not add up.”
“Thankfully, the two are the two bigger parties, and they have the numbers over the three smaller parties who are against it. There is a 4:1 split over Minister Farry's issue on St Mary's and Stranmillis. I am not quite sure about Belfast port, but clearly the Finance Minister is at odds with the Minister with responsibility for the ports. We had a broad 3:2 split on welfare reform, with the two being mainly the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists. <BR /> <BR />When it comes to Transforming Your Care and the Donaldson report, I am not quite sure where we are on any of that, whether we are going to deliver full steam ahead on Transforming Your Care or whether some parties are now opposed to that. There is probably broadly a 3:2 split on the voluntary exit scheme; I am not quite sure where some of the parties are on that.”
“I am reminded at the outset of the old adage about a Government that is in office, but not in power. I think that best sums up this Budget and probably this process. That, to be fair, is not all the Minister's fault, because he is struggling to get Executive colleagues together. <BR /> <BR />I will make some points about the Budget and the policy direction. We are in a budgetary period without a Programme for Government and any resulting targets or objectives. Looking at the last Programme for Government and how meaningful some of it appeared to be, you might say that it is not a disaster or a bad thing because everybody ignored the last one anyway, but you also have to look at the effect on a Northern Ireland Executive that is at odds with itself. There is a 3:2 split on this Budget.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. He knows — indeed, he indicated in his reply — the importance of managing access to finance for SMEs, and I include our farming sector, which is going through a difficult time. Does he have an opinion on whether Northern Ireland needs more competition in its banking sector, more access to finance and more flexibility in the financial products that are on offer? Does he agree that there needs to be a rebuilding of personal relationships between customers and their banks and a move away from the mentality of "Computer says no"? I would be grateful for the Minister's views on that.”
“Mr Speaker, I am grateful for your guidance on that. I am sure that there is an amendment that I could try to link it to. <BR /> <BR />The issue of these amendments and their functionality does not reflect well on tabling amendments from various sides of government. My views on how we make this place better are very well known. In fact, the Member could come out and support my Bill on reforming the Assembly and Executive. That would make a huge difference to it. <BR /> <BR />One last point: at least when I was in something as dysfunctional as NI21, I knew to resign.”
“I will. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think that Mr Givan wanted to bring me straight back to the amendments, if he still wants in.”
“I welcome the right to champion that right to scrutinise, but you should be doing that from a position outside the Executive. That is what all three smaller parties should be doing: opposing, scrutinising and tabling amendments from outside the Executive. <BR /> <BR />Of course, I was not at the Stormont House Agreement discussions —”
“We cannot have an Executive who function like this. They agree a Budget, then three parties vote against it. They agree welfare reform, then two parties vote against it. You need either to agree —”
“She may be getting to her feet now. That is the reason why we need to reform the way in which we do our business here.”
“If you are going to do that, at least leave the Executive. I know that, if Mrs Kelly had her way, the SDLP may well have been out of the Executive by this stage, but that is —”
“I am grateful to Mr McCann as well. On his initial point about supporting welfare reform, I think that most people support the broad principles that we cannot or should not trap people. I want to see people from his constituency of West Belfast, which is one of the most deprived constituencies in the United Kingdom, being socially mobile and being able to get a good education and a good, well-paid job. The point is about linking it with an economic strategy. Some people in his constituency will be a long way off benefiting from a cut in corporation tax. That is where the trickle-down economics comes in. It is a long way for it to trickle down to get to the very poorest in his constituency. <BR /> <BR />I have to say that I agree entirely with his point about agreeing to something before Christmas and then walking away from it.”
“I will in a second. We want people who have some of the most difficult starts in life not to be trapped in welfare and worklessness for generations, with the cyclical effect that that brings.”
“I am grateful to Mr McGlone. The links between reforming welfare and economic policy are well established. The work that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government have done is about making work pay and driving a private sector that can create jobs to take people off welfare and get them into work. I entirely accept Mr McGlone's point that there are people who will never be able to work; there will be people with disabilities so profound that they will not be able to work. The liberating fact of getting people into a job and getting paid and off dependency is something that we as an Assembly and an Executive should encourage. Those are the more positive points about welfare reform. We do not want to trap people. We want social mobility —”
“Corporation tax has a long way to trickle down to reach the very poorest and those most distant from the labour market. That is the basis of what welfare reform is and should be about. It is about protecting the vulnerable, but I do not think that, from the point of view of Sinn Féin and the SDLP, the two policies sit together.”
“If anything, the basics of welfare reform are about not trapping people in poverty, worklessness or social housing. It is about social mobility, and I just think that some colleagues, mainly to the right of me, have lost their way on social mobility. <BR /> <BR />I have to say to colleagues in Sinn Féin that, if you look at some of the areas that they have represented for many years now, you can see that they are probably some of the least socially mobile constituencies in the UK. That is something that we need to change. I find it bizarre, when you set it in the context of supporting corporation tax devolution and then welfare reform, because you come to the point at which that is effectively supporting trickle-down economics, and it is a long way to trickle down.”
“I also have questions, not only around the bedroom tax issue but even around the lifetime tenure of people in social housing. If we are doing anything about the principles of welfare reform, it is about making sure that people are not trapped either in welfare or in social housing and even that our housing stock is not being inappropriately used. That is something that Mr Wilson touched on in his contribution, and it is something that we ought to look at. <BR /> <BR />My other comments on the amendments are about the rhetoric, mainly of the SDLP and Sinn Féin. The SDLP was largely founded on the principles of social democracy, social mobility and helping people to better themselves. I do not always see that in some of the opposition or some of the changes that you want to make to the Welfare Reform Bill.”
“<BR /> <BR />There are many amendments that we could have accepted the principles of and worked around. It would have been fair to debate and look at why we would want to develop those ideas and that thinking. The Chamber, at its best, would debate, listen to and work through amendments and vote accordingly when the arguments were won. Again, you come to the point of why so many are subject to petitions of concern. It does not seem a sensible move forward. Amendment No 19, an SDLP amendment, seems quite sensible. There are many amendments that it seems sensible and worthwhile to have a genuine debate about without, effectively, the axe of a petition of concern hanging over us. <BR /> <BR />Mr Wilson talked about the bedroom tax. I know that Minister Storey will be aware of this.”
“I will turn to some of the amendments. While I will not speak to them all — it is probably slightly pointless, given the number of petitions of concern — I think that amendment No 1, standing in Roy Beggs's name, seems relatively sensible. Amendment No 2 from Mrs Kelly and Mr Attwood seems similar to the UUP amendment. Amendment No 8 seems sensible enough, although it gives rise to the question of what the administrative costs associated with it would be. I understood that the Executive had won some provision about fortnightly payments anyway when Mr McCausland was Minister. I wonder whether Mr Agnew's amendment No 10 would place an unnecessary burden on the health service by making sure that that person has to be from the Department of Health.”
“To continue down the road of fines, penalties or whatever you want to call them would just be madness. You cannot continue to do that. <BR /> <BR />The figures used were that, if we put welfare reform through, we would have one third of people better off, one third of people the same and one third marginally worse off. Those are very rough figures, and I suppose it depends where everybody falls and where you are fighting through.”
“The Executive aim to get control of corporation tax and to move to cut it to maybe 12·5%, which is the same as the rate in the Republic of Ireland, or, indeed, maybe below that, as in the DUP manifesto. The cost to the Executive could be some £325 million a year. Where does the £325 million for corporation tax and the £565 million for welfare reform fit in with an ever-tightening budgetary position? That will cause real strain on the Executive and how they manage that. We have been told about the costs of not doing welfare reform. We have looked at the fines and penalties that could have been imposed by the Treasury, and, quite rightly, we are doing welfare reform because the reality of us not moving to do it is a nonsense.”
“We are now taking this on with some debate on how it will be paid for, where it is coming from, where it is going to be targeted and how it will be used. Will it mean less money for health services, for education, for employment and learning and all the Departments that were working tirelessly to provide the services to try to get people off welfare and into work? Are we diverging away from the GB model? Can we afford to do this? Where will this end after five or six years, and where will that leave people? Will it leave people more trapped in our benefits system than in other parts of the UK? <BR /> <BR />We also have to look at this. The amendments to this Bill tie in to what is an agreed Executive policy on corporation tax.”