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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“Thank you, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker. Congratulations to you. This is possibly the first time that you have been in the Chair. <BR /> <BR />Congratulations to Mr Agnew on bringing the Bill to this stage. As the debate is about the broad principles of the Bill, I think that, listening to the debate, there is broad consensus that anything that we can do as an Assembly to help improve the outcomes for children and young people is to be welcomed. <BR /> <BR />When you look at the Executive's record in addressing some of the issues, I do not think there is a particularly happy outcome, and when you look at the record of cooperation between Departments, it is not always particularly noticeable where and when they cooperate and to what purpose.”
“When it comes to local hospitals, such as Daisy Hill and the Downe, I hope that many, many thousands of people turn out on 14 February. I, for one, hope to be there. I hope that many people turn up to show their support and their solidarity with the staff and, more importantly, support for the services that the Downe provides. They are vital to our local community. I look forward to the Minister's response in setting out that vision.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Minister is tied to the Transforming Your Care policy, and yet we have no idea in the Downe, Daisy Hill or, indeed, in other hospitals whether it will be delivered. Has it stalled? Has it only slowed down? Is it over? We were told by the Finance Minister yesterday that the OECD is also looking at health. Where is the strategic vision of the Northern Ireland Executive and the Minister on health? I have some sympathy for the Minister, who probably does not get the support from Executive colleagues that he should, so that it is not always about health responding.”
“The stroke unit would be a huge loss. It goes to the core of why the public — the citizens whom we serve — get so concerned. We seem to remove services without explaining the rationale or what the changes are going to mean. The trusts are sometimes not good at communication. When they do public consultations, the vast majority assume that the decision has been made and that they are only meeting some sort of legal requirement to do a public consultation, so trust in the whole process goes out the window. That is one of the big challenges for the Minister as he tries to reform health. He also faces the challenge that so much that has to be done ends up as firefighting and counter to his long-term aims and strategies.”
“Am I getting four minutes, Mr Speaker? Usually small humble Back-Benchers are hard done by on these occasions. <BR /> <BR />We are probably fortunate that our Health Minister is a Member for South Down, and I hope that we are not placing too much trust and hope in him, but that is something we are depending on. I know that, in his time not only as Minister but as Chair and Deputy Chair of the Health Committee, he has been to the Downe and Daisy Hill on many occasions. <BR /> <BR />I will start with Daisy Hill and associate myself with Mr Kennedy's remarks in paying tribute to Mairead McAlinden as she moves on to new challenges. Certainly, she has led the Southern Trust in an exemplary manner. Colleagues spoke about the stroke unit at Daisy Hill. My late father suffered a stroke and received excellent care there.”
“I welcome the statement. The Minister will be aware, from various questions for written answer that I have submitted, of the disparity in spend in our existing council areas such as, for example, the huge difference between Banbridge and Fermanagh district councils. She will also be aware of areas like Kilkeel having difficulty supporting a hotel. I will go back to the point about partnership. Government sometimes does not have a happy track record of delivering good collaborative partnerships. How will she ensure that councils get their share of the spend? Will there be special strategic targets set for them to deliver on some of that and to get the numbers of tourists and the amount of spend per tourist up significantly in each area, where we lag dramatically behind the rest of the UK?”
“In his earlier reply, the Minister talked about the difficulties between maximising any benefits from corporation tax and, of course, funding it. How will he secure the future of colleges, such as the South Eastern Regional College and campuses like Downpatrick, while implementing that and implementing cuts and not raising money from any other point? Is it not time for him to join us in opposition before his Department is abolished?”
“Does the Minister agree that delaying on public-sector reform for so many years will cost us even more? Mr Allister made the point about debt. Does he also accept that one of the biggest obstacles that he faces as Minister is, in the words of the First Minister, the "dysfunctionality" of the Executive? Does he accept that those parties in the Executive that cannot bring themselves to vote for the Budget ought to think about whether they should remain in position?”
“That goes back to an unreformed Assembly and Executive. You do not have a proper Programme for Government and a proper ministerial, collective-cabinet Government.”
“That is something that would be hugely regrettable and almost regressive in the tackling of our education system, dealing with its shortcomings and how we improve that choice. <BR /> <BR />All of that, Mr Deputy Speaker, comes back to the fact that, for almost eight years of the Assembly and Executive being in place, we have fundamentally failed to address public sector reform. We have not got to grips with it, despite the First Minister's efforts, when he was Finance Minister, with PEDU and the PEDU report, which Mrs Overend spoke about. There has been no buy-in —”
“He has to make sure that that is not just about bussing children around the countryside but is meaningful and that it extends choice. <BR /> <BR />Some of the ideas that the Minister is looking at around consultation on transport could well have a huge impact on our children and on parental choice of what school their children will go to, because we are a long way from making every school a good school, as has been promised for many years by the party that is holding the education brief. That is one of our difficulties. If every school is not a good school, it is very hard to deny parental choice, because a poor school is not where parents and children opt to go to school.”
“I would point out that a huge chunk of that pot of gold has to be repaid after a certain time. What effect will that have on our classrooms and schools? That, I think, is the crux of this issue. What options will the Minister have? What options will the Minister have to look at? We will have to wait and see how the Minister does it, how he manages his budget, what extra he gets from the Stormont House Agreement and how he decides to use that. There are going to be proposals that are going to involve difficult decisions, but I want to make sure that the Minister hears from the Assembly that he needs to prioritise the classroom and the front-line services in his Department. That is what we need to do. As we move forward, and he looks at various things, we see that he is getting more money for shared and integrated education.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and apologies for not being here for all of the debate. <BR /> <BR />Several things strike me about the debate. It is a DUP motion, with an amendment tabled by the SDLP, mainly getting at a Sinn Féin Minister. Everybody is in the Government together, so this is a Government debate attacking a different part of the Government. No doubt, over the next few weeks, we will have a Sinn Féin motion against the DUP Health Minister or an SDLP motion against an Ulster Unionist Minister and so on. It is as though none of this is the responsibility of any of your party colleagues — it is as though the Stormont House Agreement and looking at the finances had never happened. <BR /> <BR />Mr Bradley talked about the pot of gold promised in the Stormont House Agreement.”
“Mr Allister and Mr Agnew's points about corporation tax and cutting the life out of skills showed that that is the wrong way to go about it. The two are too closely linked.”
“Ministers — right back to the time when the First Minister was Finance Minister and up to this Minister — have always talked about that, but the Executive have never been able to deliver it, and we now look set to borrow huge sums of money to do it. Other colleagues are now putting distance between themselves and the Stormont House Agreement. I have no idea what went on at Stormont House in the lead-up. I have no idea if the Secretary of State was serving far too much eggnog or why people agreed to it and then suddenly do not think that they can agree to it or want more detail. That is not the way to deliver good governance for Northern Ireland; we will reap a whirlwind for that. If they are in the Executive, they should not be if they to be against what they agreed before Christmas. That needs to change.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, and congratulations to you. I will point out to the House that that means that 17 or 18 minutes of the time has been allocated to what might be described as "opposition parties". I will make few points in the brief chance that I have. <BR /> <BR />We have replaced our reinvestment and reform initiative (RRI) with RRI II, but this time, it will be the redundancy and retirement initiative. That is what we look as if we are going to do, and we are going to borrow huge sums of money with which to do it. <BR /> <BR />Right through the Stormont House Agreement, the theme of public-sector reform looms large.”
“I agree with colleagues who said that they would have no great difficulty in voting for any of the three candidates on offer today, as I voted for them on the last occasion that we did this. <BR /> <BR />I feel that Mitchel McLaughlin, as Principal Deputy Speaker, has shown many of the characteristics that I want to see in a Speaker, including being impartial in carrying out his duties, and I hope that he will continue to do that if elected today. I just hope that, at the end of today, we end up with a Speaker. It is important that if Mr McLaughlin is elected, it signals the full buy-in of Sinn Féin into this institution and into this Assembly. It is an important point to acknowledge and to hope for. On that note, I support Mitchel McLaughlin's nomination for Speaker.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is also important, and it is how I would like to change it, that they leave their constituency and all the issues that they would have to deal with, as that lifts a Speaker truly out of everyday party and constituency politics, such as writing about planning. That is why changing the way and recognising that separation and the role of the Speaker is hugely important. <BR /> <BR />The Speaker should be the champion for the Back Benches and for the work that this Assembly does in making sure that Ministers and the Executive branch of Government are held to account. That is why the role is so important, and it is why I hope that this is the last occasion on which we elect a Speaker in such a way.”
“The role of Speaker of this House and, indeed, in any parliamentary system, is hugely important. I hope that this is the last occasion on which we elect our Speaker in this way. As many in this Chamber will know, I would like to see it change. I would like it to be a gift of this House and this Assembly rather than the result of a deal done nearly eight years ago. I would like to see that separation. I think that the First Minister's point about Speaker Hay leaving his party affiliation is important, and it is important that it happens with whoever is elected Speaker today.”
“The mark of this legislation's being successful is that we end up with more prosecutions, more people before the courts and more deterrence. That is something that I want to see and I am sure Lord Morrow does as well. <BR /> <BR />Thanks and congratulations to Lord Morrow, the Minister and the Committee for persevering and getting this piece of legislation. There is a reasonable chance you are going to get it passed here today, Lord Morrow. A sincere "'Well done."”
“<BR /> <BR />It is vital that we have the National Crime Agency (NCA) to work on implementing Lord Morrow's Bill and the Modern Slavery Bill to try to fight to eliminate the absolute scourge of human trafficking and the misery that goes with that. We are going to be in a difficult time to implement and get the best use of this legislation at a time of diminishing budgets for our Police Service without tapping into the expertise and availability of the National Crime Agency. I appeal to colleagues to rethink our commitment to getting the NCA in and working in Northern Ireland to make the very best use of this legislation and the tools that we are giving to our Police Service. <BR /> <BR />I agree with Mr Agnew's point about the review.”
“I remind colleagues, particularly to the right of me, although not always to the right of me on many issues but on this issue, of the work of Lord Morrow, which stands tall in the Assembly in scrutinising that legislation and trying to shape it through Committees and debates in here, and the work of the Minister in helping to make it workable for the Department of Justice and the Police Service, and, indeed, the work that the Minister was involved in with the Modern Slavery Bill. I remind colleagues in the SDLP that one of the MPs who has made the biggest contribution to the Modern Slavery Bill that is going through the House of Commons is Mark Durkan, Member of Parliament for Foyle.”
“The fact that we have more people in slavery today than at any point in our history should shame our entire world. <BR /> <BR />I am fairly certain that the Minister was asked about the National Crime Agency during Question Time. Unfortunately, I did not hear the answer. I am sure that it was a particularly brilliant answer, Minister.”
“Nevertheless, I congratulate him on sticking with the Bill and getting it to this stage. <BR /> <BR />Yesterday, we had the legislative consent motion on the Modern Slavery Bill that is going through Parliament. The main things that I look for in these Bills — and they were also Lord Morrow's initial objectives in setting out with this Bill, and there is commonality and agreement on them throughout the Assembly — are the addressing of the scourge of modern slavery, sexual exploitation and human trafficking and the misery and ruined lives that those things bring. There is no debate over whether we, as a society and a nation, need to do all we can to play our role, regionally in Northern Ireland, nationally in a UK context and internationally, to limit this absolutely abhorrent behaviour and crime that happens to too many people.”
“I know from my own experience, albeit in the last Assembly mandate, of the work that goes into getting a private Member's Bill to this stage. In dealing with it, you do not have a legislative team and a Department behind you. You generally have yourself, one assistant and other groups, and you are trying to bring people together. It is a mammoth task to bring forward a Bill of this size and significance. Congratulations to Lord Morrow on his tenacity, hard work and endurance in getting to this stage. <BR /> <BR />No doubt, he is aware that I did not agree with every element of the Bill. I had two main concerns. At the start, I had a concern that some of it was effectively repeating some of the laws that we already have. I also had concerns around clause 6, which is now clause 15.”
“Others have been kind enough to reflect on those of us who have brought forward a private Member's Bill. I am hoping to rejoin that group at some point with my Assembly and Executive reform bill. <BR /> <BR />I give Mr Wells some credit. Not only is he the Minister of Health, but he has already made it into the history books by outing a police officer he caught smoking at a protest at Hillsborough Castle 30 years ago. It gives you a sense of how old Mr Wells must be when you can read about him in the history books. I can tell my children, "I knew Jim Wells." His place in history is secure, from all his activities and antics in the 1980s. <BR /> <BR />I want to say sincere and genuine congratulations to Lord Morrow.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his replies. He and I are both very familiar with this section of road. I am encouraged that he will at least consider moving in different stages, possibly with the closure of central reservations quickly. Bearing in mind that this road is part of our main economic corridor, if all this work were to be completed, would he consider removing the speed restrictions at Banbridge and Dromore — the only two permanent reduced speed limits between Belfast and Dublin?”
“We have to remember that bad things are happening to all of our community. While I support the motion, the Assembly is in need of fundamental reform. Otherwise, it will fail.”
“<BR /> <BR />When bad things happen, we have to, as Mr Agnew pointed out, get it into our head that they are happening to all of us instead of saying, "That doesn't apply to me, because it happening to the other side."”
“If I have time at the end, I will take an intervention. <BR /> <BR />Look at the language that many people around the Chamber use. We talk about a unionist forum, and I have warned about unionist unity being a dangerous concept in that it forces us into tribal division. Talk of a graduated response and a culture war and offensive and unnecessary attacks like "curry my yoghurt" damage the drive to end us-and-them politics, which is what the First Minister talked about. Such talk drives us into blaming the other side. When we talk about the naming of play parks in Newry, that is why we fail to deliver on shared space. These are difficult issues that cause offence, and we have not cracked the nut when it comes to how we deal with them.”
“<BR /> <BR />That is why we are failing on shared housing and shared space on every measure. That is why the Alliance Party had to walk out of the original cohesion, sharing and integration talks. That is why we have never moved this agenda forward. That is why, nearly five years since the Alliance Party became part of the Executive, there is no progress on a shared future, despite much talk about it at that time.”
“I am aware of the bailout and the money that the British Government made available there. That was done to help, because these two islands and all the constituent parts either sink or swim economically together. Rather than blaming each other, let us take our responsibilities in the Assembly and get on with what the Assembly and the Executive were elected to do. We either reform this place, or it is going to fail. I agree with the First Minister that it is not fit for purpose. It either has to be reformed, or it will fail and collapse because of its own incompetence and because we cannot be trusted to deal with anything. We cannot deal with a shared future. We cannot deal with corporation tax or other tax-varying powers because we do not have a mandated Government that agrees on a common Programme for Government to move its ideas forward.”
“The UK national debt is at £1·5 trillion, and we have not even seen the scale of cuts that the Republic of Ireland had to endure. Yet somehow, doing away with partition would magically fix the economic and Budget crisis. That is the politics and economics of la-la land. It will not work.”
“<BR /> <BR />I have to say, even to colleagues in the Alliance Party who tabled the motion, for which I am grateful: look at what you are doing from inside the Executive, having to increase the number of peace walls and build a fence through a church car park in east Belfast. In 1998, is that where we imagined we would be? Is that where you guys in the Alliance Party imagined you would be, even when you entered the Executive in April 2010? I suspect not, because it is effectively going backwards. <BR /> <BR />I listened to Ms McGahan from Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin's main focus is to blame the Brits for everything and blame the Tory Government for the cuts. May I remind Sinn Féin Members that the United Kingdom Government are still going to borrow in the region of £98 billion in this Budget year?”
“The motion is like motherhood and apple pie: how could you disagree with any of it? Quite frankly, none of us has disagreed. Everybody has set about trying either to say nice things or to blame someone else. <BR /> <BR />At the risk of completely wrecking Mr Eastwood's career, I agree with a sizeable chunk of what he said. He talked about rights and responsibilities and how those applied. He went on to talk about how we have missed the promise of 1998. I was reminded of that today, as I had a work experience student with me who was born just a few days before the Good Friday Agreement. As an Assembly and an Executive, we have completely missed that promise. We have not delivered anywhere near its shared future or shared space agenda. What have we been doing on that? We have actually entrenched more division.”
“I am grateful to the deputy First Minister. The deputy First Minister rightly points out that there is tripartite agreement on getting corporation tax devolved, but there is probably no agreement as to what to do with it. In light of the First Minister's comments about the functionality of the Assembly and Bro McFerran's comments about whether Northern Ireland is ready for it, does the deputy First Minister feel that the Assembly needs to be reformed to make it ready and functional for corporation tax?”
“In the Minister's substantive answer, one of the funds that I did not notice being mentioned was the joint European resources for micro to medium enterprises. I am sure that the Minister will be aware of the considerable difficulties faced by business in accessing finance. The Welsh drew down £75 million of the fund, and the north of England drew down over £300 million. Why has Northern Ireland not drawn down any in the first tranche? Are there any plans for the Minister to draw down in the second tranche, which runs to 2020?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise to you, the House and the Minister for missing my topical question.”
“I will be brief, and I suspect that the Member knows what I am going to ask him: would the logical outworking of the Member's view not be that his party would leave the Executive?”
“It may interest Members to know that, in purely unionist-signed petitions of concern, we upped the numbers by about 20% in one day during one stage of the Bill. We went from 40 petitions of concern since 1998 to over 50 in one afternoon at Consideration Stage. I think that that is an extraordinary abuse of the system, which is why I am not a supporter of petitions of concern. To have 22 amendments and 10 petitions of concern is wrong. <BR /> <BR />That said, it took a great deal of hard work and effort in a short space of time to get the Education Bill to where it is today. I congratulate the Minister on eventually guiding it through the House. I also congratulate the Committee Chairperson and other relevant parties for bringing forward and ensuring a worthwhile debate, which gave the Bill as much scrutiny as the Assembly could afford.”
“It would have been desirable to have kept that in, but there was a recognition that there had to be important negotiations and compromise by every party in the House on that, and I commend all the parties involved in that, particularly the Committee Chairperson for the work and leadership that she gave, even when it was not always a particularly easy sell to some of her party colleagues. I also commend the work of Mr Kinahan and Mr Lunn. Just so that Mr Lunn gets that in Hansard and he does not feel that it is all bad news: I was paying tribute to the Alliance Party there. <BR /> <BR />One of my biggest criticisms, just to share some of the blame, is that I have always taken issue with the number of petitions of concern.”
“Of course I expect robust debate and the Bill to be thoroughly scrutinised in Committee. However, that will all be to the good in making those changes. All of that very much depends on accepting that, in sharing, you will have different models in our education sectors and different sectors to share with. That is why I am a little at odds with Mr Kinahan's point about there somehow being a single shared education system. I am not entirely sure what is meant by that. We must share across the sectors, which is something to be encouraged and worked at through the amendments that I secured to the Bill. I want to keep that going. <BR /> <BR />Community representatives have been mentioned.”
“We want to give people choice and experience. Most of all, we want good schools. It always has to be about the education outcomes for our children and what is going to deliver those outcomes. That is where we want to get to. <BR /> <BR />Sharing our education system is about extending choice and widening the curriculum offered to pupils. That is what I want to see. I want the focus to be on education outcomes. If we get good societal benefits from sharing, so much the better. However, the primary focus has to be on education outcomes. That is where we have to go with this. <BR /> <BR />I hope that the Minister moves as quickly as possible in getting a Bill to define shared education. The very fact that the House supported the amendments means that there is willingness and eagerness to move in that direction.”
“And Mr Agnew; I hear him shouting to one side of me. <BR /> <BR />I am grateful to Miss McIlveen for referring to the amendments that I pushed for around shared education and the community use of schools. I am grateful not only to Miss McIlveen but to other parties and colleagues for supporting the amendments. With the emphasis on shared education, I think that there is a real opportunity for the Minister to act quickly and bring forward his proposed legislation on it and define it so that it can be a game changer for how the Assembly and Executive view shared education. <BR /> <BR />Having listened to some of the debate on integrated education versus shared education, I think that it almost misses the point of what sharing is about. We want parental choice in our education system. We want a faith ethos in parts of our education system.”
“Thanks to the Committee Chair for that clarity. I remind everyone that I voted against it at that point, as did Mr Kinahan and Mrs Overend.”
“That sort of makes the point. Maybe the next time you are asked to agree accelerated passage, you will join Mr Kinahan in his very wise view.”
“I respectfully suggest to my Alliance colleagues that, even though they felt that they did not get much, they should never have accepted accelerated passage. They have, hopefully, learned a valuable lesson from that. They should have wanted the legislation to be scrutinised by the Committee.”
“I hosted an event here last week, and a school principal asked me whether Members truly appreciate what goes on in our schools. My answer was that I believe that there is genuine support among Members for the good work that goes on in our education system. It may not always feel or look like that, given that we have laboured so long over this stage of reform. I congratulate the Minister for getting a Bill that looks as if it might, barring a disaster, be passed in a short time. I will let the Minister decide, to borrow Churchill's words, whether this is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. <BR /> <BR />I want to make some observations on the Bill. It was no surprise that I was very critical of accelerated passage.”
“It was not easy for some parties to come to this compromise. In previous debates and at Consideration Stage, Mr Agnew and I were happy to make the case that integrated, voluntary grammar and Irish-medium schools should be represented. I know that that was not easy for every party, particularly in the circumstances. However, I think that the Chair of the Committee has shown leadership, both as the Committee Chair and within her party, in achieving that. I, for one, was more than happy to sign my name to the amendment and to be associated with it. I think that it is a good, workable compromise and one that seems to be attracting support from across the House. I also support the ministerial amendment No 18, so I am pleased to say that I support all amendments in this group.”
“Good work has been done with colleagues, and I also pay tribute to Seán Rogers and wish him a speedy recovery. I hope that it is not too long before we see him back in the House.”