Danny Kinahan
South Antrim · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I support the draft Energy Order. I recognise that, today, it is really about putting in place an end date so that we can plan. It is great to hear that the Minister has put in a grace period and has been talking to the providers. I think that most of us have been lobbied at times by the various companies in the industry.”
“When I joined the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee not that long ago, one of the key briefings that I had was with the Northern Ireland manufacturers' association. One of the three main items that they wanted to raise with me is the cost of energy.”
“My original question was to ask the Minister whether he felt that the current transition process was fit for purpose and delivered to the same standard. He seems to have massive changes coming in, which is excellent.”
“Absolutely. Will the Minister guarantee that the flight routes being considered are planned to fit the respective airports and that we will keep in mind all the time that we need to try to make sure that our airports are competing with Dublin and that there is no bias involved, even in respect of our two local ones?”
“We still have ongoing insurance problems. We should keep that in mind when we look at the petition and the plan. <BR /> <BR />The present plan is to develop 400 houses beside the river, with a 10-metre buffer — that is all — with no recognition of the needs of the wildlife, including the otters, the dippers, the dollaghan and many others.…”
“<BR /> <BR />The valley and the river are just on the outskirts of Antrim, and a wonderful council-planned mill race trail runs along the riverbanks and is incredibly popular with locals as an area of natural beauty, for angling, for countryside walks and for nature. It really should be protected and preserved.”
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“However, the mere fact that that criticism was made means that the onus really is on the transferors, the trustees and all the others on the board to ensure that all sectors, particularly the secondary, are there and are represented. We need to move on to a point where the sectors are not just looking after their own; they also need to look for a long-term vision and plan. <BR /> <BR />I look forward to hearing more about the Minister's plans on shared education. As you know, we in the Ulster Unionist Party see a single shared education system as the way forward, encouraging everybody to share not just through the sectarian divide but through the academic divide and to find a way for all of us to work together so that we get the integration of education all the way through the system.”
“If we are going to have sectoral bodies, it should not just be controlled; it should be the voluntary and all sectors — the integrated, the Irish. Everyone should be on the board on an even keel. I, too, am sad that there are no community places, and I think that was wrong. Therefore, the onus now falls on the board and all those working there to ensure that they consult continually and talk to the community and all the different groups all the way through. <BR /> <BR />When we were at the previous stage, I was shocked to be rung up and told that there was no one on the board to represent the secondary sector. I thought that that was completely wrong and that they were there through the trustees or through the transferors.”
“It is an interim measure. I am keen that we get the interim chief executive appointed and in place and then move to what we, as a party, put in the Bill, which was that the new chair would be selected on the basis of merit through a fair and open public competition. We also look forward to seeing that everyone who goes on the board is chosen so that they really represent the area that they are meant to represent. <BR /> <BR />We need to find a way forward. When this started, I was concerned that we were looking at a board that still left CCMS with a sectoral body and no one else. I am pleased that we know that the controlled sector will get a sectoral body, although we wait to see exactly what type it will be. We have a choice: either you have no sectoral bodies or everyone should have them.”
“We opposed the acceleration of this, and the Assembly needs to find some way that allows for the fast movement of a Bill but, at the same time, allows for some form of consultation. It is wrong that we all ended up getting there and rushing and not always having the chance to talk to some of the key people outside. <BR /> <BR />There were 10 petitions of concern at Second Stage, and it is excellent to see that no petitions of concern have happened since. A petition of concern is really just a sign of failure — a failure of the Assembly — when we should be sitting down and working together and finding consensus. Like the Chair of the Committee and others, I congratulate everyone for having got us to where we are. <BR /> <BR />We need a long-term vision for education, and I hope that the Bill is, just as we have been told, only a beginning.”
“I welcome the Bill, particularly having got it to this stage, and I congratulate everybody. Like others, I really look forward to seeing the new board supporting all the schools and all the principals, supporting their training and ensuring that there are enough resources. Again, I ask the Minister to concentrate on making sure that resources get to the five library boards in the meantime so that they can carry on with their job as well as they can. <BR /> <BR />As many of you know, we wanted ESA, but we wanted it in a simpler form. We were disappointed with the first ESA and, again, with the second ESA. Most importantly, something that has to be raised today is the lack of consultation.”
“We need to try to get it so that it is the same but, equally, does not have preference. We have the same with the voluntary sector. We need to find a way forward so that it has its own sectoral bodies and it too has the same strengths as CCMS has. We must not forget that CCMS is in the strongest position of all. It already has a very good body and runs very good schools, but it is better placed than everyone else. We need to make the whole system much more equal. <BR /> <BR />It is not a perfect result, but I am glad that we have got there. There was a lot of hard work from everyone. I look forward to seeing the Bill go forward.”
“<BR /> <BR />We will support amendment Nos 9 and 10 on the understanding that amendment No 11 will be supported in return, but I mark very clearly to the House that I have discomfort. I want to see everyone on that board in the future trying to lead us towards the vision of shared education. That includes keeping the integrated sector on board. We must all work together. <BR /> <BR />The final amendment — amendment No 18 — is about giving grants to sectoral bodies. A lot of the agreement today hangs on the controlled sector getting its body, and I am very pleased that, at long last, it looks as if it will get it. I also feel that we must keep looking at giving the other sectors their bodies and try to get some equality into the system. We have an integrated system that has a different arrangement and does not have the same power.”
“<BR /> <BR />I have some unease about the fact that we are giving the trustees another place. It may seem fair when you relate it to 1986, but, after all we have seen going through the papers about their lack of interest in integrated education and, at times, almost opposition to shared education, I have some difficulty with the fact that we are giving them another place on the board. However, that is what we are willing to sign up to so that we get everyone on board, and I hope that everyone will carry on in that way into the future. I am pleased that we have the integrated, voluntary and, indeed, Irish sectors on the board. There were many who did not feel that we should have the Irish sector, but we have come up with a compromise, and we should all be extremely pleased that we got there.”
“I particularly wanted to see all sectors on the board. Like Chris Hazzard, I did not want to see us losing the community or the other four places. I would like to have seen another four places on the board, but that is something that we have ended up having to give, because one of the sectors did not want to lose the strength that it has. I sometimes wonder whether we need to move away from the 1986 agreements and try to have some vision of where we are going. I hope that the shared education that we are all looking at, even if we all have slightly different ideas on it, is where we are going. I therefore hope that all the members of the board in the future will not just act for their sectors but will try to look at a way forward for our children and their future.”
“Although what we have coming up is not perfect, we have all had to give way and have found a way forward. On that, I congratulate everyone for working together. I too pay tribute to Seán Rogers for all the hard work that he put in, as well as all the other parties. Everyone got involved, and that is something that it is unusual to see in the Chamber. It was a case of everyone working together to find some agreement that we could all live with.”
“I welcome this stage of the Bill, particularly the chance to take it forward. As the Chair said, we need to keep in mind the interests of children and bettering the education system, which is where the Bill is meant to take us. <BR /> <BR />Amendments Nos 5 and 6 are technical. I will not go into them in detail but will happily support them, and I understand why the Minister is putting them in. <BR /> <BR />When we talk about the membership of the board, amendment No 9 is really the nub of the whole Bill. I remind Members that, last time, I detected in the Chamber that we were all virtually on the same page, but, due to petitions of concern, we were all going in the wrong direction. It became essential that we all spoke to one another and tried to find a way forward.”
“I like the fact that we are looking at sharing more. Sitting at the back of my mind is a concern about whether we are tightening up standing boards in the authority to having exactly the same members as those who are on the main board. If things continue the way they are going today, we will have left out the community, youth and the unions, so there are a whole lot of people who are not involved; I want to make sure that everyone is involved when the board wants them to be and that we are not limiting it. <BR /> <BR />In summary, we support amendment Nos 1, 7 and 8. We are waiting to hear about amendment Nos 13, 14, 15 and 16 and we oppose amendment Nos 2 and 3.”
“We will not support amendment Nos 2 and 3. <BR /> <BR />On amendment No 7, I was waiting for the Minister to provide clarification. However, having spoken to him, I understand that the next two amendments are linked to getting the shared Bill in place. I did not want the education and library boards struggling for longer than necessary on their current resources, so I asked the Minister to ensure that they will be properly resourced until the Bill is in place. I hope that what we do today does not delay anything on the definition of shared education or hold the Bill back, so I wait for the Minister's guidance. <BR /> <BR />On John McCallister's amendments — amendment Nos 13, 14, 15 and 16 — I will wait to hear a little bit more about them. The second two in each pairing are likely to be the ones that he proposes.”
“<BR /> <BR />I, too, struggle with amendment Nos 2 and 3 on promoting integrated education within the shared and the community-use-of-buildings concepts. I would love to support integrated all the way through, but I see it still, as I said last time, as a subset of shared education. We have shared education in the Bill, we have a shared Bill coming and, as others have said, integrated already has a preferential position. Many schools have contacted me since the Treacy judgement on Drumragh and others to voice their concern that the integrated sector could be in too strong a position. There are certain controlled schools that are concerned about the future. They are as good as integrated — with a small "i" — they have a great mix and yet they stand or look as if they stand second fiddle to integrated schools. We need to find a balance.”
“I am also sad that a review clause has not been put in because one will be necessary if we are going to look at a vision for the future of education. If the Bill is in place for a long time, it should have a mechanism in it to fit with how things change. We have not got there with that. <BR /> <BR />I am pleased that we have got to a day when we have no petitions of concern, we have all had a chance to talk to each other and we have got somewhere. We could have done things better if there had been a little less speed. <BR /> <BR />We are happy to support amendment Nos 1 and 4, which just tidy things up. I ask the Minister to please keep pushing on shared education. I look forward to seeing the Bill and seeing the way forward because shared education is the way forward for our education system.”
“I welcome the Bill back to the Chamber. I am glad that we are going to get somewhere today quite quickly. I still find it sad that we have had accelerated passage, as numerous conversations still needed to be had to get things right and improve the Bill, but so be it. I hope that this will be an interim Bill and not one that is here for a long, long time. <BR /> <BR />As you will have seen, we dropped my wish to have two practising teachers on the board; that does not mean that my wish has gone away. It is important that we include practising teachers, particularly those who are young and are in the system, if it is possible. However, I realised after the last debate that it would be difficult to find a way to do that.”
“Following on in the same way, has the Minister looked at and discussed with Westminster ways of gearing more money out of the income that we get, either from the Treasury or from others, so that we could make more use of the money that we get to lever more money from other sources?”
“One of the Minister's colleagues on the Committee for Enterprise, Trade and Investment mentioned that we go for the big hit with a trickle-down effect. When looking either at the displacement or how it affects competitors, is she looking at a strategy lower down for smaller or less big businesses to make sure that they can all pick up from the trickle-down that comes?”
“I thank the Minister for her answers so far. Could you give us an update on where you are bringing pressures on the interstate connector and whether more can be done on that?”
“In his answer, the deputy First Minister mentioned corporation tax. Many feel that it is not the silver bullet by itself: there is a mass of other things that have to happen. Does he have a hit list of all the other things that should happen, not just in each of our Departments, but in Wales, England, Scotland and indeed Ireland? We need to place ourselves in the best position so that we can really thrive on it in the future.”
“There will, of course, be queries about definitions and jargon as we all learn our way through the Bill. I am particularly pleased to see the right of appeal to the Lord Chief Justice coming on board. <BR /> <BR />In one further and last comment, when we look at allowing individuals, other than qualified insolvency practitioners, to act as nominees and supervisors in voluntary arrangements, I note that the Minister said that the Department and the Secretary of State would authorise them. I wonder whether we should be looking at allowing some other independent body that might be better placed to do that so that it is not part of the Department or loaded on to the Secretary of State. We support the Bill as it is.”
“When we look at the use of electronic means and all the other means, it is eminently sensible, but will the Bill be written in such a way that, as new technologies that we may not have even thought about come on board, instead of legislation, we will be able to do it with other means so that we can open up? <BR /> <BR />I am impressed that we are looking at having remote and virtual meetings, but I am equally impressed that we are protecting those who do not have IT. Many of us here may not be as good as we might be, but it is very important that everybody is protected and feels part of the system. <BR /> <BR />I think that the point that you cannot survive without a bank account is vital, and that seems eminently sensible as well. The Bill seems to have been well consulted on, and I congratulate everyone on that so far.”
“I welcome the chance to speak. I am, of course, new to the Committee since all this started, but I will make one or two points and observations. As we have already heard, it is very important that the whole system works slickly and well, particularly for those who are suffering under the threat of insolvency. <BR /> <BR />I note that one of the briefs mentions that there are only two practitioners here. I wonder whether we should look at whether there should be more, not because I would encourage more people, but just to make sure that it is a cheaper process for people to go through.”
“Is the Department involved in studies of the number of pupils in Antrim moving to higher skills and apprenticeship training and having to travel from their schools to Newtownabbey and Belfast? Is the Department looking at how we can do it better in Antrim so that all the schools work with the technical colleges, and, maybe one day, we can get everything back into Antrim?”
“When looking at those transport costs, is the study looking at children who travel maybe 15 or 20 miles so that they can do A levels somewhere else? I know that many in Antrim have to travel a long distance because there is not post-16 provision.”
“Minister, I thank you for the report. Like many, I was embarrassed by what happened on 'The Nolan Show' this morning, but I also found the comments referring to bigotry and racism unhelpful. We need to find a way to stop politicising the Irish language. <BR /> <BR />I note the report, but what really comes to mind is the question about the cost of the strategy. The strategy is very comprehensive, but there are no actions. How does he see the cost coming in? When you look at that cost, where does it fit in to preparing pupils for jobs when we need more money for STEM and getting pupils to their jobs, or on learning Mandarin and other languages? How does he see that fitting in with the priorities? What is the cost of the strategy?”
“It is good to hear that the Minister supports anglers so much. When it comes to councils, has she had discussions with that Minister and that Department about the future use of reservoirs that have been made redundant and been sold, given that they, too, affect anglers?”
“I thank the Minister for her answer. In her original answer, she mentioned fuel poverty. Given that the Department for Social Development is a relative failure there, what is her Department specifically doing to help those in rural areas in fuel poverty?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. The third paragraph refers to shared education. Given that we seem to have slightly different definitions of shared education, what are we looking at here in shared education? Is it talking about controlled, maintained or integrated with a capital "I" or with a small "i"? Is it Irish-medium? What are we looking at for shared education and what is it all about? Obviously, I am keen to see it there and see it funded.”
“However, that is not what I am concentrating on now: we need to put something in place that looks at the proportions of pupils in types of schools so that if, in 10 years, the integrated sector's proportion has doubled, we should consider doubling its representation on the committee. We need to find a formula and find a way forward. That would be the right thing to do. <BR /> <BR />I was very pleased to hear the Chair of the Committee praising the whole of the education sector and all its hard work. It is absolutely right that we all praise the sector: we put them through a hard time. We all have our strong beliefs. <BR /> <BR />We support what is happening today, and we wait to see what the amendments bring next week.”
“<BR /> <BR />According to the student numbers that I was given for 2013-14, you have 118,000 in controlled, 117,000 in maintained, 21,000 in integrated and 47,000 in voluntary. That indicates that we need to give all the sectors their share. <BR /> <BR />We in the Ulster Unionist Party intend to bring forward amendments, although it would be wise to talk to the other parties, as we all have different ways of taking this forward. <BR /> <BR />Lastly, I want to raise the need for a review clause. If the Bill remains in place for a long time, we need to put a review clause in place with regard to the membership of the committee. It might be, depending on what happens at the end of the week or in meetings in future, that we need to change the number of political appointees.”
“Given that we will have a sectoral body for the controlled sector and that we still have the CCMS, will the board be deemed to be unfair if it does not have members from the Governing Bodies Association and the other sectors? It would seem so. We want to work for the future and make sure that we have a board that represents everybody. We need to have voluntary sector representation. I did speak to the voluntary sector, for those who were querying whether I did or not, last night; I also spoke to them as soon as we knew that the Bill was coming up to find out their views. It is the job of all of us to talk to various people, and I expect everyone else to do the same. They would like positions on the board, and maybe, as others have said, the Minister should talk to them rather than wait for them to come to him.”
“<BR /> <BR />If we consider this piece of legislation not to be an interim measure and accept that there will be an impasse and lack of action into the future, we need to think through what will happen to it in the long term. We seem to agree on the future being shared education, even though we all seem to have completely different ideas on it and very different intentions of how to put it in place. The Ulster Unionist Party wants to see it happen, and the present sharing out of the 11 posts gives CCMS and the controlled sector most of the say: it does not include the integrated, voluntary or Irish sectors. In the Committee briefing the Minister indicated that a controlled sector body would be set up. Will the Minister promise that that will be the case? Will it definitely be funded and set up? If so, by when?”
“Thank you very much. You will hear me address that further on in my speech, but the answer is yes. <BR /> <BR />Given that we have one board, if the Bill goes all the way, there will be no comparisons between boards; that makes it even more important that the Department does not appoint the chair. You already have the other controls, so let the board appoint its own chair. <BR /> <BR />Moving on to the make-up of the board, we accept the political appointments but feel that we should not prevent practising educationalists from being appointed to it. In the previous Bill that was the case, so maybe the Minister will look at varying the guidelines so that we can get people who are working in the system onto the board.”
“We talk about the 12; if the Minister is not going to appoint the chair, then the number of places on the committee is 12, not 11. Will the Minister clarify whether he would make that the case if we agree?”
“<BR /> <BR />As far as the selection of the chair goes, I understand that the Bill says that the chair will be appointed by the Department, but will that competition be open to everyone? Will it follow proper Government guidelines and be an open and transparent process? Other Members have raised that matter today. What qualifications does the Minister want that chair, or the chief executive, to have? In his brief to the Committee, the Minister indicated that the chair will initially be appointed as an interim measure and, as the Chair of the Committee said, we want to make sure that that interim is not five or 10 years. Will the Minister clarify how long he sees that provision being in place? <BR /> <BR />Let us move on.”
“<BR /> <BR />I suggested the three-board model because various people suggested the three-board model to me, and I think we should have been discussing it. Again, that is what we are here for. We should accept compromises, and I was glad to hear that the Minister will accept them. Some suggestions for amendments are coming through, and it is absolutely right that we raise them today and next week, and find a joint way forward. <BR /> <BR />I am appalled by the rather disgraceful personal comments from the Chair of the Committee. I will not stoop so low. The proof is in the pudding, if you read the writing throughout the last few years. I will leave it at that. <BR /> <BR />The three issues that I want to deal with today are the selection of the chair, the make-up the board and the need for a review clause.”
“I am slightly shocked by some of the comments that were made this morning by Members in attacking each other. I am very pleased with the responses that we got at the end of that debate from the Minister, and I appreciate his promise to work with the Committee on the Bill. It was also good to hear who he had engaged with in the last two years. That is the whole point of the Assembly: to ask questions and find out. <BR /> <BR />Our Minister, and I have it from the horse's mouth, opposed accelerated passage. It may not be in the minutes, but either you were not listening or — sorry, we are not allowed to use "you". People were not listening, but I have had it from two or three sources, so I say that just to make it absolutely clear.”
“I welcome the Bill. As I said in the debate this morning, we welcome the streamlining of the Bill. Everyone will be glad to know that we are not opposing the Bill at this stage. <BR /> <BR />I hope that the Committee takes on board the points that I made this morning. We need to get some consultation in, or have some way of finding out what the stakeholders think, over the next few weeks. We need to know the detail on the structures and the organisations, and we need to make sure that there is a proper equality impact assessment of the Bill at the right moment. <BR /> <BR />I was shocked how ready everyone was this morning to accept accelerated passage without challenging it. It is our duty in this Chamber to challenge and debate matters.”
“I wonder whether the Member would clarify how, if there is so little detail in it — and I have read it from top to bottom — he can feel happy with accelerated passage when we do not actually know what is coming with it?”
“The Committee needs to know much more about the detail of the Bill and has a duty to the public to scrutinise it. No other options are being shown or considered — we are certainly not even looking at the option of more than one board. There is little detail on the structures and organisations that will work on the ground and we have not looked at the actual effects on the community itself. The Ulster Unionist Party opposes accelerated passage.”
“It is claimed that the same Bill has had equality impact screening but if you look at how little is in the Bill and how little we know about it, you see that it really does affect everyone in the community. I feel that it needs proper equality impact screening as it goes along. <BR /> <BR />My colleague raised the fact of negative resolution on one of the clauses in the Bill. The Minister responded that he could not bring forward primary legislation. That is the very reason that we need the Committee Stage and longer to look at this. We need to know exactly what it can and cannot affect. Certainly, we need to change the fact that it has negative resolution. <BR /> <BR />I put it to everyone here that we should not accept accelerated passage because there has been no consultation.”
“Will the Minister clarify whether money will go to the boards in the meantime and in the future so that that is not the case? <BR /> <BR />There is very little detail in the Bill, which concerns me even further. How will the educational services actually be provided on the ground? When speaking to the Committee, the Minister said that he wanted a body that is accessible to the schools and communities that it serves. If that is the case, will he outline today how that new body will work on the ground so that it is accessible to schools and communities? We do not know the structure and we will not be able to discuss it in the Committee in the detail that we should. <BR /> <BR />The previous ESA Bill wasted £18 million-plus. We do not know how much this new Bill will cost. Indeed, has it had a good economic viability check?”
“We were told that the education and library boards were going to be rebooted. That was back at the beginning of the year. We know that the curriculum advisory and support service (CASS) has been reduced and is struggling. We know that teachers in every school are not receiving the support that they should be and that, consequently, the children in those schools are also not receiving the education. That, of course, works into the future. It now seems that, even when accelerated passage is put in place, that same help is going to be delayed further, until April 2015.”
“Some I spoke to in the education system said that we should really have three boards, which would be more preferable than one board. It would give us some form of comparability and some form of local accountability, yet, because we have had no consultation, no chance for consultation and no Committee Stage, we will not be able to explore that. If you had three boards, you could have one for Belfast and two others to fit the more rural communities. You could work on it through a proper Bill in time to get it into a more efficient system. Comparison, like competition, is an extremely efficient way of ensuring that a government system works properly. <BR /> <BR />It looks like we are going to get one single board, and that will become another silo — another monolith that is not answerable to anyone except the Department.”
“Did they look at a different system of SL1s and other forms of Committee work and legislation to actually get it in place and get it working so that we do not have this interim or sticking-plaster Bill? <BR /> <BR />I believe that the Minister does want to improve our education system and works at it. I just disagree about the fact that he never talks to the other parties as to how it is to be done. I sometimes suspect, especially after what happened with the inspection report, that he is being run by Connolly House and we are not actually being treated to the democracy that we all deserve. <BR /> <BR />With that all in mind, we have to ask ourselves whether we are being forced to accept this relatively simple Education Bill with accelerated passage because it suits them and not the rest of us.”
“If it had not been for the Ulster Unionist Party raising the concerns, we would have had that ESA Bill in place. Here we go again. <BR /> <BR />We were told in the briefing on the Bill that there are no other options and that, for legal reasons, we must accept that the Bill is the only solution, because councils need to have representation on the library boards and, because they have changed, that legal basis no longer exists. Is that really the right reason, or is it just an excuse to get a quick Bill through that still gives the strength to the Department to do what it wants? Did the Department consider reorganising the elections, or, rather, those from councils on the education committees, in a different way so that we did not have to have this one Bill?”
“In fact, I wrote to every single principal and chair of governors in every school, and 88% said that they had not been properly consulted, yet here we are. It is a disgrace. Here we are, rushing again and accelerating a Bill through that is phenomenally important. <BR /> <BR />I would like to hear from the Minister whom he has spoken to in the schools, the boards and everywhere else, because we would like to know on what basis the Bill has been put together. Sadly, I could not make the Committee meeting when the Minister was there to answer questions, but I have the transcript. In it, he claims that the previous ESA Bill was agreed. It may have only been agreed by the two main parties, but the reason why it fell was because it was not consulted on or taken through the processes with all the other parties beforehand.”
“It is as if they are frightened of consultation and of actually talking to people. There has been no effort to work with all parties for a consensus, and I think there is no intention to do so. I wonder whether the DUP has been bought again by the promise of a controlled sector body. We do all want to see a controlled sector body, but we want to see a Bill that works for everyone, and that is why it needed proper consultation. I think that is a very good reason for us to oppose accelerated passage today. <BR /> <BR />I was not involved with the first ESA Bill, but I was very involved with the second ESA Bill. The second ESA Bill was very different from the first. It did not go through a proper consultation process.”
“I welcome the Bill. All along, the Ulster Unionist Party has wanted to see a suitable ESA Bill that delivers a better education system in a leaner and more economic manner, so we welcome that sort of streamlining. The spin that was being put out about the Executive all agreeing to this is just not right. The public were misled on that matter, and they should receive an apology. Our Minister opposed the accelerated passage of the Bill, and it is our intention today to oppose accelerated passage. It is sad that we seem to have an interim sticking plaster of a Bill. It makes me think that, once again, we have the two main parties doing a deal. <BR /> <BR />I know that, in the summer, there were all sorts of discussions, compromises and groups going through, but none of that has ever gone to the Committee or to the other parties.”