Paul Frew
North Antrim · Democratic Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I thank the Minister for that intervention. Nevertheless, there are concerns that I want to address. The Minister and the departmental officials will know that, even from the range of questions that I have asked. We need to make sure that we get the balance correct.”
“In the written and oral evidence received then, the Committee was advised of potential amendments that the Minister may table at Consideration Stage, including an amendment to remove the commissioner that is being considered in liaison with OLC.”
“That in itself causes some victims and witnesses bother, because they are in a system that they are not part of, which means that they do not get the support that they require. That can sometimes leave them feeling retraumatised, as though they have been put through the wringer again.”
“The Bill makes provision to offer those protections and provide clarity to victims that they do not have to face their perpetrator in court. <BR /> <BR />Members asked questions about a range of matters, including the independence of the office, the ability to review the performance of any future commissioner, the costs of establishing th…”
“I thank the Minister for her intervention. She was absolutely right to take that action, as it means that victims' voices are right at the heart of the matters under discussion. It is now obvious to us that that should have been done years ago, but it is good that it is being done now.”
“Officials explained that the Bill would legislate on the disclosure regime not to prevent an application for disclosure but to set out a process whereby the defence would have to show the relevance of the information that it was requesting. That is an important protection.”
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“<BR /> <BR />Our party is clear: we do not support any more fiscal powers for the reasons that my colleague Diane Forsythe outlined. We do not have the capacity or the capability, and that is not only in the political class but in the Civil Service class. Why do I say that? Some people might say that that is unfair. Look at our track record. Sinn Féin laments the fact that the Republic of Ireland can do this and that so much better than Northern Ireland, yet Sinn Féin has been in government for the duration of the Assembly. How much blame does Sinn Féin put on itself?”
“<BR /> <BR />The Opposition have tabled the motion. I am also interested to hear from Sinn Féin, because it holds the Ministry. What fiscal powers do you want? Do you want to raise income tax? Do you want to raise VAT? Rises to both of those fiscal levers would cause massive damage to our economy, our people and our growth. So what is it? What do the Opposition want? Why have they not put that down? Do the Opposition want to raise £0·5 billion from income tax or from VAT? We do not even have the Finance Minister here to tell us what his plan would be. I agree with the Opposition that that is shameful: the fact that the Finance Minister is not here to address the debate is contemptible. It is not only contemptible to the Opposition; it is contemptible to the House. It is absolutely contemptible. We need detail.”
“If we get more fiscal powers, can the British Government — our Government — not say, "You have fiscal powers now, so stop complaining about the package that we give you and raise your own revenue"? There absolutely is a danger in that. The focus of the Executive and the Assembly should be on making sure that we are funded properly and appropriately, according to relative need. We are not there yet, so our focus should be on making sure that the funding package for this devolved region is sufficient to cater for the needs of our people. <BR /> <BR />We talk about fiscal powers as though they are something that we will use progressively, which was one of the words used, while "fairly" was another. Really? Corporation tax has been devolved: why have we not used it? We have not used it because there is pressure to put it down.”
“I do not think that anyone here would disagree with that; in fact, our party, the DUP, has campaigned for a long time for the relative need formula. We were the first party to voice concerns about relative need, and we have been the consistent party all along in pushing for that formula. Even when it came to the restoration of the Assembly, we pushed for it, and we warned that we had not got the right financial package. Setting the baseline at the level of the spending review of 2022 would have injected £0·5 billion a year extra into our coffers to spend on our people. <BR /> <BR />If we get more fiscal powers, is that £0·5 billion a year in the range of what the Opposition want to raise? There is a danger with that.”
“The Opposition are definitely right to say that the motion is concise, but there is no detail in it. It states:”
“Incitement to murder people or a particular person is incredibly worrying and needs to be condemned by all right-thinking people, including everyone in the House.”
“I remind the House that, in my lifetime, six MPs have been murdered — four by republican terrorists and, in the last 10 years, two others. They include Conservative Party, Labour Party and Ulster Unionist MPs: Sir David Amess, Jo Cox, Ian Gow, Sir Anthony Berry, our own Robert Bradford and Airey Neave. There are, of course, more throughout history, not least, Sir Henry Wilson, whose portrait adorns these corridors. <BR /> <BR />This place has also felt loss throughout its history. Our walls are engraved with the names of people who have lost their lives, so, it is incredibly important that, when a line is crossed, when something is totally unacceptable and could be unlawful, thorough investigation should be conducted.”
“I raise a serious matter that was aired in public discourse and in the media last weekend and over the last number of hours: the alleged commentary that has come to light from the rap group, Kneecap. The serious allegation that, at one of their concerts, members of the band shouted, "Kill your local MP" and "The only good Tory is a dead Tory" is absolutely mind-blowing and shameful. I welcome the news that it is being investigated by the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit. <BR /> <BR />There is absolutely nothing wrong with popular music artists or groups fighting for campaigns through lyrics or being anti-establishment. What is not acceptable is when they incite violence on anyone and, by extension, break the law.”
“How have we come to this place? How have we been practising this madness? <BR /> <BR />I am glad of the Supreme Court ruling, because it has clarified things, but I did not need that ruling to know the truth and to know what is a woman. I hope that the parties opposite that have grappled with and fumbled their way through the issue now have a clear definition of what a woman is and will practise that in their politics for everyone's safety, including for trans, but more so for women.”
“<BR /> <BR />When you want to help people, you tell them the truth; when you want to help yourself, you tell people what they want to hear. That has been the maxim of many parties in the House, namely the Alliance Party, the SDLP and Sinn Féin. Their populist stance has put women in danger. Their populist stance has put women and girls, who already feel so vulnerable in this day and age, at risk. <BR /> <BR />There was absolutely no doubt, given that women fought so hard for so many decades to maintain and achieve rights, that, when we talked about the trans movement, it was very clear that the diminishing of women's rights was taking place. Of course, there should be a place for trans people to have privacy and safety, but that should not be at the expense of women's safety and privacy or their private spaces, toilets and changing areas.”
“I thank my colleague Jonny Buckley for bringing this Matter of the Day to the House. It is very timely, and it is important that the House has the measure of what the Supreme Court ruling was about. It was about the Equality Act 2010 and how the terms "women" and "sex" refer strictly to biological sex. <BR /> <BR />The issue at hand, though, is about a number of things: the truth; women's rights in a number of areas, including single-sex spaces and their privacy and safety; and women competing in sports with a fair chance, an equal playing field and in safety. It is also about how some parties and politicians have fumbled their way through the matter, trying to be somewhat populist, denying truth and creating dangers for women and girls everywhere.”
“There is a breakdown in scrutiny. What type of breakdown is it? It is a 50% of our Budget breakdown in scrutiny — 50% — and then we wonder why we have problems. We wonder why we are not effective or efficient. How can we be effective and efficient? How can we measure the effectiveness of government if we cannot even get the information that we require to scrutinise the Departments appropriately?”
“That would be madness. Not only that, but look at our Health Department. Some 50% of our Budget is spent on Health, and we have hospitals that cannot even be opened years after they have been built. They are lying empty. How did we get to that place? We have thousands of people languishing on waiting lists in pain. We have the built form of a state-of-the-art hospital that cannot even be opened. <BR /> <BR />Even more, however, and this is part of the problem with the process, is how we should scrutinise that. How do we effectively scrutinise that? We have a report here from the Finance Committee that says more about what is missing than what is in it. Through no fault of its own, the Health Committee did not submit to that report because the Department could not get its act together to give adequate information to the Committee.”
“I absolutely agree with the Member. That is the type of strategic thought process that we should be encountering, not because we are in a tight and constrained fiscal place but because we should have been doing it years ago. We should have been making more of our efficiencies and effectiveness way back when we had more money, so to speak. <BR /> <BR />I will not pick on the Member for his intervention, but look at agriculture. Look at the money that we spend every year on bovine TB. However, we do not address bovine TB; we test for it. All that we ever do in this place is test for bovine TB. We do not eradicate it, and the measures that we have in place do nothing to eradicate it. We measure it. We measure the scale of bovine TB. That is all that we do. We keep doing it year in, year out. Do we expect another outcome? Of course we do not.”
“The options that are left are to make sure that we are as effective and efficient a government as possible. I can say quite clearly, given the evidence that I have gathered and from what I have seen in my experiences here, that we are not efficient and not effective. We are definitely not efficient and effective enough. There is much more that we can do to make sure that we are efficient and effective. We are wasteful. If the private sector is wasteful, it goes bust. If the public sector is wasteful, it bids for more money.”
“It is fair and true to say that the Northern Ireland Assembly will get more money than it has ever got, both in cash terms and real terms. It is also fair to say that we are living in a tighter and more constrained environment with our finances. There are a number of reasons for that. I do not know how many Budget cycles I have lived through now, but we always seem to talk about the same issue. We say that we do not get enough money and that we have too many bids for the money that we have, so we cannot meet demand. We are a devolved region. Some people might want fiscal powers, but I certainly do not, because I do not think that the parties in this place would use those powers appropriately for our people. I am quite content with the Assembly's not having fiscal powers. <BR /> <BR />What options are left for us?”
“So far, this has been a very useful debate. For someone who sits on the Finance Committee, it has been useful to hear from all the other realms of governance in this place and to hear Chairs of all the other Committees speak on their purview and responsibilities in their departmental scrutiny roles.”
“There have been times when English companies have availed themselves of rates relief that, in Northern Ireland, we have not been able to offer. Now is the time when the Finance Department and Minister and the wider Executive should be thinking about how they can get relief to hard-working people, businesses and the people who employ people and who create wealth. We need to find relief for those people now.”
“If you ask any small-business owner who employs between seven and 30 people, they will say that that hurts most. Especially in our high streets, voluntary sectors and low-cost businesses, the threshold move has caused the damage, because no one escapes that. <BR /> <BR />It is right to say and good to applaud the fact that the national minimum wage and national living wage have increased. However, it is not much good to have a national living wage increase when you have just lost your job on Friday. <BR /> <BR />The Government must get real. To be fair to the Northern Ireland Executive, they could have done little to prevent the Labour Government from announcing and enforcing the measures. However, they cannot shirk the responsibility of doing what they can to help our people.”
“The politicians who make the decisions think that they have a hard job, but they should try running a business and employing 100 people to feel the pressure. Yet we have Departments and Ministers who make horrendous decisions because we have been governed badly over the last five years and because they have to fill the black holes that they create and support. Who picks up the pieces? Our businesses and our employees. It cannot stand. <BR /> <BR />When I heard the autumn statement, I thought that Labour would never go through with it. How could they? Think of the pain that it is causing. Surely they will see sense and do a U-turn. Yet, 1 April came and went. <BR /> <BR />It is not just the increase in employer National Insurance contributions from 13·8% to 15%; it is the lowering of the threshold from the current £9,100 to £5,000.”
“Thank you. Yes, absolutely, and it is no wonder that people lose trust in politics. A party says one thing out of power and does another thing when in power. It would not be so harmful, if it did not impact on us so greatly, but it does. It impacts on us mightily. <BR /> <BR />One of the things that strike me — Members will know that I repeatedly raise this in the Chamber — is that we have not been governed well over the past five years. The measures that have been brought in have hurt our people, businesses and society. Who pays the price for that bad governance? Our people pay, not the Government, politicians or Ministers. Our families and hard-working people and those who run businesses pay. It is so difficult to run a business.”
“Is it not ironic that the Labour Party has turned so far away from its roots and from the people that it professes to protect? This Government are anti-labour. They are anti-jobs, anti-workers and anti-economy. They do not leave it there; they attack our pensioners. They attack our farmers, and not only that, they attack our farmers' children. That is how dangerous this Government are. Instead of upholding security and keeping us safe, they want to fleece us for every hard-earned pound. That is some Labour Government.”
“We have had several debates like this in the past number of months, because we recognise the danger and the deep concern of our working people and business owners — rightly so — about the impact of the autumn statement on their businesses, lives and livelihoods. It is therefore important that we grapple with the issues and debate them when we can. <BR /> <BR />We need to realise a number of things. What is the purpose of government? Government's first responsibility is to keep us safe through security, upholding the law, protecting rights and liberties and providing good public services so that we can strive and thrive. This Government do not do any of those things well; in fact, they do them poorly. When you look at the record of the new Labour Government, you can see that they are anti-labour.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He raises a valid point. Before the law was changed on abortion here, an abortion could be got if the mother's life was in danger. There will still be scenarios in which abortion has to be performed, so it is right and proper that those families will be able to avail themselves of a baby loss certificate in that situation.”
“<BR /> <BR />I look forward to scrutinising the Bill and working on it. As most Members know, I love legislation. I love getting into the nitty-gritty of it. I love scrutinising it, turning it upside down and inside out and finding whether there are any loopholes. If there is something that we can do better, we should use the Bill as a vehicle to do that good for our people. <BR /> <BR />I commend the Bill to the House. I thank the Minister for bringing it forward and the officials for working all these months on it. Again, I look forward to scrutinising it in Committee.”
“For some, that makes a big difference. It is not only about the cost of the certificate; it is about the fact that we are charging a fee for a loss that, we recognise, a family has gone through. I really worry about that mention in the Bill of charging a fee for certificates. Also, it states who may apply for a certificate. Whilst people who lose a child before 24 weeks will have the chance to have a certificate to mark that loss, there absolutely should be means for retrospective application. There may well be a cost to that, and how do you ever measure that at this stage? I worry that a fee will be applied that forces everyone to pay for the acknowledgement of the loss that they have suffered. How will that look, particularly when GB does not charge? The Minister should keep that in mind as we go forward.”
“Whilst it is a good provision and whilst we thank the Department, the Minister and the officials who worked on the Bill for putting in the clause to enable certificates of baby loss to be provided, I must say that it is not ambitious enough and that more should be done in the Bill to bring in certificates for baby loss. That is something that my party will explore in the weeks ahead. <BR /> <BR />I reinforce Mark Durkan's comments about charging for the certificates. When you look at the GB website, you see that the second sentence reads:”
“The Minister talked about having the certificate in place by the end of this year, but I wonder how that is even a possibility, because it may take months yet for the Bill to pass its Final Stage, and it may then take months for the Department to consult, which it should have already done, and introduce the secondary legislation. With the issues around the Bill Office with regard to the Office of the Legislative Counsel (OLC) and the Departmental Solicitor's Office (DSO), I do not know how the Minister thinks that they can produce secondary legislation so fast after the Bill has been passed by the Assembly. Let us face it: the enabling clause will not come into force until the Bill has passed, so, if the Bill does not pass until autumn this year, how will the Finance Minister produce certificates this year? It is an impossibility.”
“We had wise counsel from the Member opposite when she said that we need to protect and look after ourselves in this regard, and I fully acknowledge that. My family has suffered too with regard to miscarriage, so I get that. When we first talked about the issue and when the Committee and the DUP first pushed for the certificates of baby loss, my understanding was that, in order to ensure that there was no delay to the Bill to do away with the coronavirus extensions, we could put in an enabling clause for the certificates of baby loss. Since that decision was made in September, it has struck me that the Department could have been consulting already. The Department could have commenced a consultation in September that would have been completed by now.”
“That leads me to the certificates of baby loss. I have no doubt that everything that I have talked about will be eclipsed by the fact that the Bill will enable the Department of Finance to make, by regulation, certificates of baby loss. That will be the substance of the material that the media use when describing the Bill. Of course, the electronic registration of deaths and stillbirths has been ongoing for a couple of years. It has now been normalised, and so it should be. The Bill is really an exercise in tidying up and making what is a temporary provision permanent in law. That part of the Bill, which is still important, will probably be missed by most of the media, who will centre on the emotive issue of baby loss certificates, and that is probably right, to be fair. <BR /> <BR />We will have to be mindful of how we proceed.”
“There may be different scenarios for which way a same-sex couple has a child. I just worry that, if we substitute the word "father" with "other parent", it will create an anomaly and a blind spot in equality and rights. I ask the Minister to consider that, maybe not today but certainly as we move on in this journey.”
“I have not solidified my thoughts on this — I have not got a good enough understanding of it yet — but I wish to pursue whether we are removing a wrong and righting it in one regard but creating another wrong by leaving out the biological father.”
“I can understand why it is written like that, but that leads me to ask whether we are creating a grievance for and an inequality to a biological father. I worry about that. Whilst it is right that the other parent — the female — gets the rights and the acknowledgement that she needs and deserves for being a parent, why are we substituting what could be a biological father? In trying to right a wrong, are we creating another wrong by leaving out the biological father who may well, and should, have rights in this regard, even with the registration of births, deaths and stillbirths? I ask the Minister to take that away.”
“I do not know why we have that clause. I do not know why we are amending legislation by schedule and why it is not in the Bill per se. Maybe the Minister can answer that question, if not today, when we get to Committee Stage. It seems to me that we are able to amend the two pieces of legislation — the 1976 Order and the 2012 regulations — but, when it comes to same-sex couples, we have gone to a schedule. I do not understand why we have used that vehicle. <BR /> <BR />While I am on that point, I will talk to the schedule. I understand why we are bringing this in. I agree with it, and it is needed. However, it troubles me that, at this stage, we are substituting "father" in the 2012 regulations with "other parent".”
“I do not understand why that is being removed. When you read on through the clause, you see that the wording is in the Bill. Maybe that is me answering my own question, but I do not know why we have had to move regulation 12(4) from regulation 16 of the 2012 regulations. Those are some points that I picked up in the early scrutiny of the Bill. <BR /> <BR />That leads me to clause 8, which is headed:”
“have already been omitted, so, in the grand scheme of things, it will not necessarily change the effect of the clause. However, if we do not get the text right and do not substitute something that should be substituted, we may have to come back and look at it at a later stage. We want to avoid that, even at this early stage. That is something that I picked up when reading the 1976 Order. I could be wrong, but I ask the Department and the Minister to take that away and look at it in case there is something that needs to be added by amendment at this stage. <BR /> <BR />Clause 6(2)(a) of the Bill removes "12(4)" from the 2012 regulations, and I do not understand why. I know that, for form 1 and 1B:”
“That is what the 1976 Order states. Maybe I am reading the 1976 Order wrongly. Maybe the words:”
“It is right, when we think about it, that this be done through primary legislation, because it is right and proper that it sits in statute. <BR /> <BR />We welcome all seven pages of the Bill's text. As a Committee, we will take time — not too much time — to scrutinise the Bill. There are aspects, at this Second Stage, that I want to raise with the Minister. Clause 3(6)(a) of the Bill asks:”
“There was then a delay with the opportunity to close the loophole on the registering of births and stillbirth deaths for same-sex couples, and we also support that. It has been quite a journey from when the Bill was in its infancy to get to where we are now. <BR /> <BR />This started off as making a piece of law — the temporary measures in the Coronavirus Act on the registration of deaths and stillbirths — permanent. I would struggle to find another aspect of the Coronavirus Act that has made a positive contribution to life. This aspect is common sense. Had there not been a pandemic, the Department should have been striving to do this anyway, so it is right and proper that this is put on a permanent footing.”
“I support the passing of Second Stage of the Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Bill. My colleague Diane Forsythe, who spoke on behalf of the Committee, outlined very succinctly and adequately the frustrations that have been felt by the Finance Committee in the time that it has taken for the Bill to come to this point. It has been quite an eye-opening journey. We asked whether we could do this through secondary legislation. We were told that we could not, then that we could and, finally, that we could not. We then went to primary legislation. At the tail end of last summer, in September, it was decided that the Department would move on the baby loss certificate. We are thankful for that, but, of course, that led to further delay.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I also thank her for outlining her experiences in this regard and for her contributions to the House on topics such as this. She talks about a timeline for the introduction of baby loss certificates, and the Minister has stated, along with the Health Minister, that he hopes to have baby loss certificates enacted by the end of this year. Does the Member not think that that is really ambitious, given that we are only at the Bill's Second Stage and that the Bill only enables the Department to bring forward secondary legislation?”
“What does the Finance Minister have to say about that extraordinary language? What does that commentary do to public confidence? Who is gambling with the future of our elderly and vulnerable people? Who is performing sleight of hand here?”
“The Budget is in danger of being called the "yes, but" Budget. The Health Minister has said:”
“She saved and nurtured those children, and she brought them up as if they were her own because, for Beth, they were her own. <BR /> <BR />It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing of Beth, but we remember the legacy that she has left: in my party, the DUP; in Ballymena; in Mid and East Antrim Borough Council; and not only in those places but across the Province. Beth represented the council on a lot of the regional councillor associations, and she was much travelled and much experienced. We will miss you, Beth, in Ballymena and in the DUP.”
“Where did she find the strength and courage to represent so many people? It was in living a life of service and dedication, but she also struggled in life. At the age of 17, she was diagnosed with cancer. She had to leave the townland of Carnalbanagh — the hill country — to go to London, to Fulham Hospital, to take part in one of the first trials of chemotherapy. Beth beat cancer at that young age, and she dedicated her life to service. <BR /> <BR />Beth was not only a great politician and elected representative but a great mother. She brought up not only her own children, of which there were many, but children whom she fostered. She touched the hearts of tens of children: if it had not been for Beth, who knows where they would be today?”
“Today, I pay tribute to Alderman Beth Adger MBE, Mayor of Mid and East Antrim, who sadly passed away on Wednesday of last week. We all knew her as Beth, and she was an absolute champion for her community. She was first elected to Ballymena Borough Council in 2005, serving the people of Ballymena South. After the review of public administration (RPA), she represented the Braid area. That gave her immense pride, as she was a Carnalbanagh woman and she was able to represent that townland when it came over to Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and the Braid area. She represented her people with great strength and courage.”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. He is right that the cost and burden is not static and will move over time. When I tabled the question for written answer, £115·5 million of debt was outstanding, and nearly 44 properties were in arrears. The Minister has talked about the burden and about paying a fair share, but it is clear that some people are not paying their fair share. What more can he do to decrease the debt and get the money into the Government's coffers?”
“The Minister is lobbying the Government for support, but what specific support can he give businesses come April?”
“It is a step that has taken over a year. What we have today is scant detail in words on pages relating nothing but pilot schemes, examination and assessment boards. Funding, we find, is being allocated to the administration and operation of the public-sector transformation board itself, including the provision of expert advice. That begs this question, Minister: who made the decisions to exclude bids? Where is the expert advice on a board that is not even working with an agreed terms of reference, and how much assessment has the Minister put into the bids that were excluded?”
“I thank the Minister for her answer. Figures are bandied about for the cost of actually building the interconnector and for the benefits that would then be derived from it, but those figures are now massively out of date. Can the Minister provide accurate figures for the cost to build and the benefit that will then be derived from the project?”