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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“That is critical, especially if we get to the point where we have multi-year Budgets. <BR /> <BR />Here is the thing, however. If we get to multi-year budgets and have monitoring rounds in-year, they become very important, because, with the best will in the world, you can have the best financial advisers in your Department, but they do not have a crystal ball. It is therefore very hard to predict what will happen in three years' time, so that flexibility must come with a three-year Budget, but scrutiny must also be enhanced. <BR /> <BR />The Chairperson of the Finance Committee talked about the fiscal council and the memorandum of understanding. When the Finance Minister was on the Finance Committee, he identified not having the memorandum of understanding as being a problem and pushed for it, and I thank him for that work.”
“It is not good enough to usurp the power and will of the House, or to bypass it. Whilst I understand the reasons why the Finance Committee gives accelerated passage to a Budget Bill, to hasten the process, we should not compromise on scrutiny in return for that acceleration. <BR /> <BR />What do I mean by that? I do not know that the Finance Committee's role should really be about what pound goes where and that sort of thing. The minutiae of that would bog it down. However, the monitoring rounds are an important cycle in the Budget sequence. We have seen their importance clearly, through this Budget Bill and this process. I see the Budget process as two-yearly. There is the year in which you produce a Budget, which then comes into force in April, but then you have the in-year work, where you move around that money in monitoring rounds.”
“It makes a mockery of the Budget Bill and process. More fiscal powers? Are we having a laugh? Go and ask a business, any business, that has been forced to close down whether the Executive should have more fiscal powers. The answer, every time, will be, "No way, no chance." <BR /> <BR />One thing I have learnt about the process is this scary thing. Look at the decisions that have been taken by the Executive over the past eight months; yesterday was a typical scenario. The Assembly, which should really be the seat of power, was asked to approve regulations that are coming to an end and have had their impact. They have destroyed businesses and lives. People will die because of the decisions the Executive took. Should we have more fiscal powers? No. Should we have more democratic accountability on a finance process? Absolutely yes.”
“<BR /> <BR />Here we have a Finance Minister who wants more fiscal powers. Really? Do you think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I would stand here as an MLA and want to support and vote more fiscal powers for this Executive and this Finance Minister? Is that where we are at? No, I will not support more fiscal powers coming down to the Executive, when they cannot even spend the Barnett consequential moneys that we have received from our sovereign Parliament. We are going to find it tough to spend that money. It is perverse that I am speaking about money sitting at the centre, and yet, out there in the real world, businesses cannot employ their people, provide a living, open their shop floor, cut somebody's hair, provide a meal or sell a coffee, despite all the investment that they have put in. They are an absolute farce of an Executive.”
“Do I order all that food? Do I fill my freezer?". <BR /> <BR />This is unbelievable. This is a tremendously harsh time for businesses, yet this Executive are doing an act of vandalism to those businesses. It is an act of vandalism to be unable to tell a business, on a Tuesday, that it can open up for sure on the Friday, fill its fridges and freezers, bring in its stock or pay its supply line. All these businesses have no idea. That is no way to run a business, and it is no way to run the Executive. It is an absolute disgrace — an absolute farce — that we are letting down so many people who earn a decent living, provide employment to our people and are being let down by the hour this week, without any knowledge of what they are going to do next week. It is an absolute disgrace.”
“A tremendous job it did. I echo the sentiments of my colleague Pat. He is absolutely right. The effort, the tremendous work and the coordination and communication with MLAs was immense. It was perfect. It was brilliant. It was really good. You could have gone from the top to the bottom of the organisation and you would have got the same, concise, clear answer in a speedy manner. It did tremendous work. However, it is now three weeks since businesses were forced to close just like that, abruptly, without any warning, so why are they still crying out for that support, little as it is? Let us face it. They have not received one bean; not one penny. They have employees asking them, "What shift will I do on Friday? What hours do I have to work on Saturday?". We have business owners asking, "Do I bring my supply chain in?”
“It is not just on the Department for the Economy or the Minister for the Economy; it is Land and Property Services (LPS) that administers the scheme. <BR /> <BR />LPS was tremendous the first time round. It put money out to businesses on a system that was designed to bring money in, not to push money out. Of course, mistakes were always going to be made, and I will never be hard on LPS for those mistakes, simply because the speed with which it got that money down the first time round was immense. It was tremendous.”
“That is what I hear when I meet the businesses. <BR /> <BR />It is beyond anger, as I said. It is just pure frustration, and, in many cases, it is just hopelessness now. Yet here we have an Executive that cannot even agree on the exit strategy and the opening of those businesses that were promised that they would be opened this week. That is an absolutely shameful position to be in. <BR /> <BR />A number of weeks ago, when we were discussing the Bill, I rhymed off to the Minister all those sectors that needed support, and the Finance Minister gave me the commitment that the support is in the Bill. It is here. It is what we were passing. Where is that money now? Where is that funding? Where is that support that was promised?”
“Of course we need to address those issues and make it safe for those people and those businesses to operate, but closing them down was never the answer. Closing them down so that they cannot operate is never the answer. Not allowing people to earn a living to provide for their families was never the answer. <BR /> <BR />When you look at the evidence for the decisions that were taken and at some of the sectors that were closed down, you will see that there was absolutely no justification for the Executive to make the decisions that they did. Those business owners are still scratching their head asking, "Why has my business been closed down? The Executive forced me to invest hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds on safety measures to keep me, my staff and my customers safe. Why did the Executive close us down?".”
“I thank the Member for his intervention again. I know that he made an intervention last night during my colleague Jonny Buckley's speech on the very same issue. My answer is the same as Jonny Buckley's. Of course this is a very dangerous disease. Of course we are in the midst of a great pandemic.”
“I am very disappointed, too, that a party in the House can hold on to money that it did not need and which was not even meant for it. The party held on to that much-needed finance for months without alerting the authorities, bringing it to the attention of the Finance Committee or even declaring an interest to the various Committees. That is shameful. When businesses are crying out for anything — anything — that is absolutely shameful.”
“It is all in this Bill." It must be still in the Bill, because there are people and businesses in my constituency who have not seen a pin from it. They have had no support from the Executive or the Finance Minister since the day and hour that they were closed down. They were closed down abruptly without any indication of when, how or why they should do so. Since then, we have seen the evidence that led to their closure, and, boy, that is so flimsy. I met those businesses the week after, and even this week, and they just cannot understand it. It is beyond anger now.”
“This is the last legislative stage of the financial process that is the Budget Bill. With a Budget (No. 3) Bill, we are in strangely unique times. I have not seen one before in my time. In what has been a very traumatic year for the financial process, I have certain sympathies for the Department and the officials. However, in light of the evidence that we have gleaned and the experiences that we have lived through over this last traumatic year, it is absolutely clear that things need to change. <BR /> <BR />At Second Stage, I asked the Finance Minister where in the Bill was the support for hairdressers, the self-employed, entrepreneurs and people on their own who were trying to scrape a living to provide for their families after the Executive closed them down. He said, "It is all here.”
“Following on from some of the questions that have been asked already about people just managing and people with poor incomes, there are certainly specific deprived areas within affluent areas that have not been able to avail themselves of any of this money. Is the Minister sure that the super output areas, or the geographical spread and definition of these areas, are the correct ones going forward?”
“Given the much-needed help that this will add to businesses in the next month — it is something that we have all been pushing for — what signal does it send when the Minister's party has support money resting in its accounts? Will the Finance Minister make a statement to the House on that issue to bring much-needed transparency to the population of Northern Ireland?”
“What part will the Minister of Finance play in any evaluation? He has just walked in; his timing is impeccable. Will the evaluation cover the scandalous actions and, indeed, inaction of Sinn Féin in the Minister's constituency of Upper Bann and in West Tyrone? Does the Minister believe that that is what Sinn Féin meant when it said, "Let us rip up the rule book"?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way again. I am grateful for his time. On the job retention scheme, which he says is quite rigid, there are a number of scenarios in which a large retail unit has a restaurant within it and it is the restaurant that has been forced to close but not the retail unit. Will they still be able to apply for the job retention scheme to pay the wages?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. I hear what he is saying. I do not pretend for a moment to think that his job is not highly difficult. However, can the Minister explain to the House how you can make such an impactful decision on a Tuesday night yet have Ministers running about on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday not knowing the implications of Tuesday night's decision?”
“The Member says that the Minister has delivered: the Minister delivers a planning application that either meets the criteria or does not. How does the Minister for Infrastructure deliver those projects?”
“The Member makes a valid point, which I omitted to mention in my speech, about the Programme for Government. The beauty of the Programme for Government, with its outcomes-based design, is that it wedded Departments together to complete outcomes. Without an outcomes-based Programme for Government, those Departments drift apart.”
“How will we consult the public so that they can inject their thoughts into the Budget process? It is simply not good enough to allow the drift to carry on at the heart of government in Northern Ireland. The Executive and the Finance Minister must do much better.”
“Allowing businesses, entrepreneurs, business owners and employers to fall by the wayside like that is not correct, it is not right, and it is no way to do government. <BR /> <BR />The Budget (No. 3) Bill will be passed. There may be some shouts from the corner, but it will be passed. We have yet to see a draft Budget for the next financial year. That will have to include measures because COVID-19 will not be done by then; it will not be finished. We will still have a crisis in housing and in welfare, and we will still have all the other crises, such as those in NI Water or Translink and all that. We have not yet seen a Budget for that year, and we need to see it soon. If we do not, how will Committees, the Finance Committee included, do their work?”
“Thank you for your guidance. I get waylaid by the Members around me. It is terrible. <BR /> <BR />I conclude by saying this: we must do much more and do far better. The Member across the way made an intervention that I did not get a chance to respond to. This has to be a strategic thought process that works in quick time, aligned with the emergencies that we face. There is no way that we can justify closing down branches of the economy that affect all of the economy without having in place a strategic plan to fund and support those businesses. Even if we had a programme that had not been launched, it would not be so bad, but the fact that we do not have a programme is criminal.”
“I am not sure what point the Member makes. I will let him make another intervention if he needs to. We have been told clearly, even by the First Minister, that it was a decision of the Executive, a decision by the Executive to bring in the measures last Tuesday.”
“Yes, I acknowledge that. That is why I go back to my point about a strategic thought and process. This is not the way to do government in a crisis. The Finance Minister took a collective decision, with the Executive, to close businesses without having information about the impact of that decision to hand. Ministers scurried about for days afterwards seeking clarification of the impact on businesses. That is no way to make a decision. Making that decision without the financial support and mechanisms in place to back it up —.”
“It is entrepreneurial, but it provides a dedicated service for disabled children and their parents and much-needed respite. All the equipment is in the room, and the kids have great fun with their parents out of the house, where all the pressure comes. For that business owner and those disabled children and their parents, where is the support in the Budget (No. 3) Bill? <BR /> <BR />I could go on. Soft-play areas thought that they would close. They have not, but can they really open safely when all the businesses around them are closing? It may be only a matter of days until they have to close too. If they close and do not get support, will the Budget (No. 3) Bill support them? Will the Finance Minister or the Executive put in place a package to support them? I have seen nothing yet. All I have seen is confusion.”
“Yet they have been told to shut down, even though they have implemented all the safety gear and safety apparatus and with all of the measures that they have put in place. There is nothing in the Budget (No. 3) Bill for them. It is not even about what a hairdresser does — hairdressers do many things — but they might be the only point of contact for a vulnerable elderly person who gets their hair done once a week, once a day or every other day. That is the only contact that that vulnerable elderly person, who is isolated in their home, gets. Where is the support in the Budget (No. 3) Bill for the vulnerable people living at home and sometimes shielding? It is non-existent. <BR /> <BR />There is a lady who provides a service and space for disabled kids and their parents, a sensory room. It is a good, cutting-edge business.”
“Personal trainers are reduced to one person at a time and do not have a commercial base: how does the Budget support them? Do you know the way that we used to talk about entrepreneurs and how we would encourage them, how we would help them on and how this country would be built on entrepreneurs? One girl who I was talking to today had turned her garage into a studio for skincare: she has no capacity or funding left. She is left high and dry and has been told to close nearly immediately. She gets no support, and there is no sign of any support. <BR /> <BR />Look at the money that hairdressers have spent on their premises. It probably does not range into the thousands, but it is certainly in the hundreds. The problem is that they have no more savings or capacity left because of the first lockdown.”
“That does not take into account the loss of food and beverage sales, conference income or the moneys generated from weddings. How will they survive a second lockdown without any financial support? There are businesses that have contacted me over the last few days, and not one of them is in good shape. There is nothing in the Budget (No. 3) Bill that will give them any comfort: none whatever. <BR /> <BR />Coffee shops and restaurants within wider retails units or golf clubs have had to close: where do they stand? They cannot avail themselves of the rates-based scheme, for the little amount that it is worth. We had a junior Minister who said that driving instructors could carry on: two days later, they were told to close. That cannot keep going on.”
“The Member makes a valid point. It goes back to my ecosystem point about the economy: if you close down one part of the economy, you affect it all, and you affect more of it to varying degrees. The Member is right. Applying a strategy of "Lockdown, release and repeat" is no strategy at all. It will lead to ill health, ruined lives, destroyed businesses and wrecked livelihoods. Doing it without just and timely financial support is unforgivable, and we should have seen that financial support in the Budget Bill. <BR /> <BR />In 2020, hotels will sell one million fewer rooms than they sold in 2019, and each day of closure will see a further 7,000 bedrooms slip away, with a loss of around £50,000 per night to the local economy.”
“The only package of support that has been put in place by the Finance Minister just will not cut it. It is just not enough, and it is based on the rate base. There are so many other businesses that will not be able to avail themselves of it, and it is simply not enough.”
“This Budget really took hold last April, and yet here we are, in October, and we still have no evidence on paper of how we are dealing with the emergency properly. <BR /> <BR />Are we at the stage where our only strategy is lockdown? The first time we locked down, we had financial might. We had Barnett consequential money, and we were able to fund the business support schemes and the various aspects of that. We were able to give the rates holiday, which was very important and was a game changer, and we were able to use and avail ourselves of the furlough scheme, which was important. Those measures are now not in play. The rates holiday is a good thing for the full year, but those businesses have no more reserves or capacity left, and you are asking them to immediately shut down without putting any package of support in place.”
“In the Budget Bill, we should have a strategy to counter this emergency. It is the Budget (No. 3) Bill.”
“If you are hanging on to the power and in danger of being electrocuted, it turns off the power. If you have a damaged piece of equipment, a circuit breaker turns it off so that it does not cause a fire. A circuit breaker is very important. This is not a circuit breaker; this is a lockdown. It is a lockdown because our economy is an ecosystem. If you close down one part of our economy, it affects it all. When it comes to the economy, there is no such thing as a partial lockdown. What we cannot do is to have lockdown after lockdown after lockdown. It is simply unsustainable.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. Of course, it is not like the Member to point the finger at other Ministers. He has made a very good and valuable intervention, and I welcome it. I welcome getting as much information out there as possible. I will take considerable time to go over it in great detail to see whether I can somehow link the information that is now displayed with the decisions that the Executive made last week. I want to see how they came about. I want to see the linkage to that information. I look forward to looking at that in great detail. <BR /> <BR />Make no mistake about it: our people are experiencing a lockdown. People have talked about it as a circuit breaker. I am a spark by trade, and I know what a circuit breaker is. A circuit breaker is a useful thing. It is there to save people's lives.”
“Just today. That sort of proves my point about the Budget Bill that we are debating today.”
“I thank the Member for his timely intervention. I would love to know from the Member — I will give way to him again if he can tell us — what date that was published.”
“It shows that the transmission of the virus has taken place in households, retail, sporting venues, pubs, bars and restaurants, and it displays that information in the form of a long chart.”
“Yes. The Member makes a valid and correct point. How can we ever think strategically if we do not have the information at hand to make these tough decisions? We do not have it. The data presented to me by the Chief Medical Officer does not tell me where the disease was transmitted or in which venues. We cannot proceed like this. We cannot keep throwing a dart at a dartboard while blindfolded. That is just not the way to do government. It is just not the way to proceed. The Budget Bill refers to none of that. <BR /> <BR />I will give credit where credit is due. Today, a chart from the Republic of Ireland has been circulating, and it shows the very information that we are talking about.”
“I do not see that it has much of any of that.”
“How can anyone operate a business with an Executive that change their mind day in, day out and that, even before they have drafted the regulations, have changed their minds twice or thrice? It cannot continue. <BR /> <BR />Earlier, a Member opposite asked my colleague Mr Buckley for solutions. Of course, we do not have all the information that the Executive have, but we have met the Chief Medical Officer. Even after meeting him, I have yet to see the evidence for picking on some sectors as we have. As for solutions, I point Members in the direction of the three-point plan that 23 business organisations launched today with regard to information, messaging, confidence and support. It should say all of that in this Budget. It should be transparent, and it should have information. It should have people's confidence and support.”
“In this Budget Bill, there is money going to Translink. There is a further request for more money to go to Translink. Is that money being spent well? Is it being spent efficiently? Is there not a better way to operate Translink through this crisis than by throwing money at it like that? <BR /> <BR />We have swathes of people and businesses that, it seems, we cannot support in this Budget, yet we are able to shut them down within hours and turn off their supply chain and their custom. It is simply not good enough. We had a junior Minister saying on the radio, last week, that driving instructors could continue to work. Two days later, they were told that they could not and would have to stop.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. <BR /> <BR />In this Budget, the Department for Communities is being funded to support vulnerable people who need oral hearings and tribunals for the employment and support allowance (ESA) and personal independent payment (PIP). Some of those people have been refused tribunal hearings, which has knocked their benefits off. Some people have received no benefits for months because they cannot get to an oral hearing. That is a disgrace. It affects the most vulnerable in our society: the people who have ill health and the people who cannot work. Those people have been let down. <BR /> <BR />We have an Infrastructure Minister who, it seems, did not want to furlough Translink staff to help that company to have the agility to operate efficiently through this crisis.”
“We have an anti-sports Minister. We have an anti-arts Minister. We have a Communities Minister —.”
“I get it when the Health Minister says that he cannot just magic up staff, facilities, buildings or equipment. However, I wonder if the Health Minister is going to spend all the money that he receives and if it is not going to go back to the centre at the end of this financial year. I wonder whether there are any other Departments that should have got, and could have spent, that money. I know that there are Departments that may not need the money either, because they have stopped doing some worthwhile things, and that is also criminal. I make this plea: where is our strategic vision? Where is it being displayed that we are doing things differently, more efficiently and with more agility? Where is it? Can we see it? <BR /> <BR />Not only are the Executive not supporting business and communities at this time, they are working against them.”
“Sometimes, in the heat of battle, forged in fire, is the only time, through necessity, that that can happen, and it needs to happen. Have we the leadership to do that? <BR /> <BR />A total of £600 million is set aside for the health service, with £55 million of that still sitting at the centre. Woe betide any Department that hands back money at the end of this financial year, because the people will ask why. They will ask why we are giving money back when we desperately needed it in our Departments.”
“I am sure that those Members think at night about the horrendous situation that our healthcare workers find themselves in daily. We must do everything that we can to prevent the spread of this disease, to take the burden off the health service in other ways and to make sure that it has the money in this Budget that it requires. <BR /> <BR />Sometimes, in the heat of battle, forged in fire, out of necessity we can become a different animal on a different plane. That is where our health service needs to get to very quickly. It is not the people who work in the health service who will fail us. They never do. It is the system in which they work that fails the staff. It has to become a different animal. It has to be on a different plane.”
“We need to make decisions that will result in money being spent efficiently, and I just do not see it happening. It has been a long time since I have seen it, to be honest, and that needs to change. <BR /> <BR />A good lot of the money in this Budget is having to go, and should be going, to the Department of Health. Let me therefore pay tribute to the nurses and the other people who are at the coalface of this emergency as we speak. Let us think about the grievous shifts and long hours that they are putting in, the horrific sights that they see and the bad news stories that they face daily. No one in the House can fathom what they are going through. Some of us have experience in a care setting, including my colleague Paula Bradley.”
“The Departments are saying, "It's not my place to bid. It's somebody else's place to bid". Another Minister says, "No, it's your place to bid". There we go on that merry-go-round. <BR /> <BR />I am not blaming the Finance Minister for that, by the way, but there has to be a more strategic layout of how the Executive work a Budget and how Departments then bid mid-term and even in monitoring rounds. We see it every time. There is failure upon failure, and we keep doing the same thing not only in the Budget process but in the way in which we spend money. Sooner or later, whether it is me or you or some other Member, party, grouping or Committee, we need to stop the cycle. We need to get off the merry-go-round and do things differently.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. That is a good and valid point, and there is a good fiscal debate to be had on that. Would it not be better, however, to go to a multi-year Budget plan than to have tax-varying powers? At least you would then have the scope, space and time in which to spend money effectively and efficiently. <BR /> <BR />I take the Member's point, however, and it is something that I do grapple with. I know that the Member who made the intervention will grapple with it as well. Yes, let us see how we can do things better. He mentioned the Assembly, but look at the way in which the Executive work. The Executive work on how they spend money. The Finance Minister has said over and over again that he is waiting for bids and that he cannot spend money until he sees those bids.”