Mike Nesbitt
Strangford · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“Think public service, wisdom, generosity and courtesy. Think integrity, insight and curiosity, the lack of which is a key criticism of the two public inquiry reports of recent days.”
“I spoke during Members' statements earlier about the untimely passing of the Western Trust's chair, Dr Tom Frawley CBE. I repeat my condolences to his family, his friends and his many admirers.”
“I absolutely share the Member's ambition to see people living in the community. The trusts provide a range of evidence-informed programmes for individuals who are awaiting assessment. For children and young people, early intervention teams deliver proactive needs-led programmes that are neurodiversity-affirming and trauma-informed.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Western Trust has assured me that it has undertaken a comprehensive early engagement exercise with stakeholders, involving all political parties, local businesses, service users, community groups, the Patient and Client Council (PCC), local media, community planning partners and Departments, including mine and D…”
“The role played by social workers in delivering safeguarding and family support interventions is complex and challenging. The work frequently pivots on multidisciplinary collaboration, with parents and carers positioned as partners in the formulation and delivery of safeguarding and support plans.”
“I fully recognise the impact of the current delays on individuals and families. The situation has arisen due to a combination of factors, including funding that falls short of objectively assessed need and previously missed opportunities to reform health and social care delivery.”
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“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As the motion and the amendment make clear, this is an economic debate, and many Members have made that point. Moreover, as Mr Beattie and Ms Eastwood made clear, there is an ethical aspect to it. The ethics are separate from this debate, however. <BR /> <BR />In opening the debate, Mr Buckley, if I heard him correctly, said that the defence sector is worth about £1 billion to the Northern Ireland economy. Mr Beattie is ambitious and thinks that we could get that up to £3 billion. Is that possible? The Ministry of Defence projects that spending on defence in this financial year, 2024-25, could hit £57·1 billion. How much of that could we reasonably expect to attract to Northern Ireland? In a simplistic way, a sort of Barnett consequential could be applied.”
“I thank the Minister for that answer. Just to clarify: is he basically opening the door for a meeting with Cricket Ireland to discuss the Test match and its funding?”
“If I heard the Minister correctly, he said that, as yet, there has been no implementation of the report, so I will broaden the question. To what extent does he believe that creativity in the arts can help to deliver high-end Programme for Government outcomes?”
“I thank the Minister for that answer. At a policy level, does she agree that it is counter-intuitive for the Policing Board, which is, after all, a scrutiny body, to get involved in service delivery, as is the case with injury on duty and ill health retirement applications?”
“I welcome the Minister to her position and send best wishes to Conor Murphy. <BR /> <BR />InterTradeIreland's staffing is to increase from 42 to 65. Can the Minister explain how she justifies a 55% increase in staffing?”
“I am grateful to the leader of the Opposition for giving way. I seek clarification. If I were to go back to the Northern Ireland Committee, Irish Congress of Trade Unions and say: "I supported the motion. Don't worry. They are asking the Minister only to look at this bad policy", what would it say?”
“The reports estimate that, if it had been UK-wide, the lost revenue to the Treasury could have been between £102 million and £508 million. You will agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, that that is a lot of money, but, as a whole, there would have been an impetus to the economy generating £1·4 billion, more than double the lost revenue. Those are 2010 figures. <BR /> <BR />In conclusion, I like the amendment, which the party will be happy to support. If the amendment is carried, we will support the motion as amended.”
“The benefits that were identified included stimulating the industry; retaining skills; creating new permanent jobs, including apprenticeships; offering citizens an affordable way to improve their dwelling when they could not afford to or were too scared to move; regenerating the existing housing stock; helping the Government achieve their target of reducing carbon emissions; and reducing the viability of the black or shadow market. Very few people were going to the black market, because they could afford to do otherwise. Also, there was an increase in business and an increase in the number of employees undertaking work that they would not have otherwise have done at that time. Customers were less inclined to request cash deals and were happier to look at small firms as a viable alternative to bigger ones.”
“There is another 5% VAT rate that has applied, so there is an evidence base on this. In 2000, the Isle of Man got a derogation, endorsed by the European Union, to lower the VAT rate on the repair, maintenance and improvement of existing dwellings to 5% because of the crisis in the construction industry. Over the next 10 years, there were two formal reviews, in 2003 and 2008, of the impact of that 5% rate on repair, maintenance and improvement.”
“<BR /> <BR />That said, I wonder whether the party opposite, the Opposition, will explain its reaction to the fact that the Northern Ireland Committee, Irish Congress of Trade Unions (NIC-ICTU) said that it is "the wrong policy"; a policy that, if it benefits any customers in any way, it will be those who are in the highest income bracket. I leave it open to the Member to respond.”
“So, the Opposition want to cuts taxes without telling us who will pay for it. Who knew, Deputy Speaker, who knew? I am sympathetic to the pressures that the sector is under. Hospitality Ulster often talks about having to explain why a pint of beer in a bar in the centre of Belfast costs the same as a pint in central London. It says that there are a number of reasons: Northern Ireland has the highest business rates; we have the highest energy costs in the UK; there is no relief on staffing costs, which are just the same; and so many of our pubs are small independents, meaning that they do not have the purchasing power of the big chains that have hundreds of pubs.”
“We have come through a lot, however, and we have a long way to go, so let us not beat ourselves up. Let us do the practical and sensible thing. Once again, I commend the amendment to the House.”
“On the lamp post opposite — this is off the main track, in a residential area — there was a flag that depicted a man wearing a balaclava holding an assault rifle. The young boy wanted to know what was going on. I worked with a recognised third party, and the flag disappeared, but every other lamp post continued to have a flag on it. There was no consultation with or consent from the community. I therefore of course agree that we have to do something about those things, but does anybody think that a new law is going to improve the situation? We have to be persuaders. <BR /> <BR />Mr Beattie has explained why we will not be supporting the motion. Members should consider very carefully supporting our amendment. We want to do this, and I believe that the First Minister and the deputy First Minister want to see change here.”
“I represent Newtownards. Unfortunately, we have the full suite of organisations born out of loyalism, many of which have morphed, and not in a good way, since then. Every summer, we could drive down from here, go on to Messines Road, which takes us around to the peninsula, and every single lamp post will have a Union flag on it, until we get to the Comber roundabout, where there is one UVF flag. Why one? It is a taunt. It is saying to the authorities, "Take it down tonight, and then come back tomorrow to see how many are up". <BR /> <BR />I know that, because there is a residential area near there, and, a couple of years ago, a young family were taking their son to primary school.”
“I hope that Members recognise that it is very rare for me not to accept an intervention. On this occasion, however, I am not going to, and I am going to tell you why. Twice, the proposer of the motion was asked to take an intervention, and twice she said that she could not, because she had so much to get through. She sat down after seven minutes and 45 seconds, wasting some 25% of her time, which she could have used to engage in a debate, which this is supposed to be. I am sorry, but I am not taking an intervention from the Alliance Party today.”
“I am really trying to avoid the term "Other" here, because, although I understand why it was used in 1998, society has moved on, so perhaps it is time to rethink on that front. <BR /> <BR />The other question — it is fundamental to the debate — is this: how does one best change human behaviour? Is it through a top-down law, or should it be done from the bottom up, through working with communities and civic groups? We often use the words "co-design" and "co-production". If a community feels that it has bought into a code of conduct and has some skin in the game, surely that —.”
“From listening to the debate, I believe that two questions arise. The first, as Mr Kearney said, is about how we ensure equality and respect — two of the fundamental values of the 1998 agreement — and how we build this society. Ms McLaughlin talked about the validity of having a position on the constitutional question, and, of course, that is at the core of the 1998 agreement, so it is a question of how we promote, celebrate or perhaps even just defend our culture and identity. <BR /> <BR />As I have said before, it is not about everybody jumping into a virtual blender and coming out the human form of beige. Republicans will be republicans, nationalists will be nationalists, unionists will be unionists and loyalists will be loyalists. Those who do not want to subscribe to any of those descriptors will continue to be what they are.”
“I am a pretty poor body double for Tom. <BR /> <BR />Some years ago, when FICT was established, I was asked to nominate an Ulster Unionist Party representative. I chose a councillor, a soldier, a man of action, and, for three years, listened to his frustration at the lack of progress. He has been trying to get his own back on me ever since.”
“<BR /> <BR />For some reason, I am minded of a widow whose husband was murdered. She was left with a farm, a herd of milking cows, a slurry tank and two toddlers — the last two being a potentially fatal mix. She had to milk the cows every day, and there was nobody to help her. How did she keep the children safe and away from the slurry tank? She got two tractor tyres and piled one on top of the other to create a prison cell into which she placed her two toddlers while she milked her cows, because nobody was there to help. <BR /> <BR />I do not know what the ICRIR will achieve, but there is a lot of pressure on it, because victims and survivors deserve truth, justice and acknowledgement.”
“Rightly or wrongly, that is the position that we are in, and it is up to the ICRIR to prove to us that it is worthy of our support. <BR /> <BR />The two things overlap: people's poor mental health and well-being may be a direct consequence of failure to secure truth, justice and acknowledgement for their loved ones. As a former victims' commissioner, I can testify that we have not done particularly well by victims and survivors, over the years. They had a reasonable expectation that, the moment that they were injured or lost a loved one, the agencies of the state would form a circle of wagons around them and that they would get whatever they needed, be that a bit of shopping, having the children taken to and collected from school or some cash. Those things did not happen.”
“I was listening carefully to Mr McGrath and Mrs Dillon. Mr McGrath made a point about our shocking rates of poor mental health compared with those in England, Scotland and Wales. A fact that we can all agree on is that that is a legacy issue. If you were to take a map of Troubles hotspots, measured by bombs, shootings and murders, and then take a contemporaneous map of hotspots for poor mental health, measured by attempted and completed suicides, drug abuse and alcohol abuse, you would basically have a match. We need to do more about mental health. <BR /> <BR />Linda Dillon made the point that, unusually, there was universal condemnation and rejection of the Legacy Act. Yet tomorrow, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) will come into being. It will effectively become the only show in town.”
“For a nation that had no natural mining resources, we could end up in a really healthy position with renewables. <BR /> <BR />I will support the motion and the amendment.”
“<BR /> <BR />On renewables, of course, we are very much in favour of solar and wind. As we all know, the difficulty with wind is that it is unreliable, which means that we have to work on storage. There is certainly some healthy development in battery storage. The motion talks about tidal energy. Everything that I hear about tidal is that it is not economically viable yet, so we await somebody to make it so. That would be great for us, because we are an island nation and tidal is potentially our greatest green energy source. I remember SeaGen, an experiment in my constituency of Strangford, which produced a lot more energy than it predicted. Happily, the seals that went out for their post-lunch afternoon stroll under water were not cut in half by the blades. There is a lot of potential in tidal to add to wind and solar.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. I think that that is the point I have just made by reference to the Gulf of Mexico. If we continue to extract, there is more risk, and we will have to continue to extract if two thirds of our households continue to use a fossil fuel. <BR /> <BR />We have moved from "No, but" to "No", because the limited experience in Great Britain is entirely negative. Only one licensee got as far as drilling — Cuadrilla, in Blackpool — and, in 2019, there were a couple of minor tremors that were attributed to the drilling. There were another two minor tremors in 2011. Since then, the North Sea Transition Authority has told Cuadrilla that it must use a plug-and-abandonment procedure on its two potential wells. That was in August 2023, and it has until the end of this calendar year to comply with that demand.”
“Three years later, dolphins and other marine life continued to die in record numbers, yet, today, more than two thirds of Northern Ireland households still use oil as their main source of heating. "Not in my back yard" is an issue that we will have to deal with.”
“Thank you very much, Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank Mr Stewart Dickson, who has just made my point for me by saying that he does not want a hydrogen bomb under his feet. There is an element of Nimbyism in our attitudes. <BR /> <BR />We talked about home heating oil. The Chair of the Committee made reference to the fact that we are much more reliant on it, per household, than the rest of the United Kingdom. However, we do not extract that oil in Northern Ireland; we import it. I remind you of what happened in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April 2010: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was one of the greatest environmental disasters of modern times. There was an oil spill because of a blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, and 4·9 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.”
“When we discovered "gold in them thar hills" in the Sperrins, the immediate reaction was a campaign not to allow Dalradian to go ahead. Mr Dickson says no to gas caverns in his constituency, yet they have huge potential. We can generate our own hydrogen, but we will need somewhere to store it.”
“I support the motion and the amendment. Some time ago, when we first thought about fracking, the Ulster Unionist Party's position was, "No, but". The "but" was a reference to the fact that we were open to persuasion and to saying to those who wanted to frack, "Convince us that it is viable, convince us that it is a good idea, and, above all, convince us that it is safe". In the intervening years, we have moved much closer to a straight, "No," than to, "No, but". <BR /> <BR />"No, but" was a reference to the fact that, frankly, it was about more than just Nimbyism, more than a case of "Not in my back yard". It is valid to question our attitude to whether we want to exploit our natural resources. When lignite was discovered in Northern Ireland, the immediate reaction was a campaign against it.”
“Beyond rising costs, another challenge to hospitality and tourism is the electronic travel authorisation. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on any negotiations that he is having on that issue. Is he aware of whether it is on the agenda of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIC), which meets today?”
“I welcome the progress as reported by the First Minister. Was any consideration given to asking the institutions to pay upfront into a fund from which any overpayments could have been refunded?”
“I have been asking myself three questions. One is whether the Minister is genuine in wishing to oversee his Department roll out this legislation; two is whether I think that his departmental officials are determined to roll it out; and three is whether it will be a permissive policy with minimum restrictions, in other words, maximum rather than minimum roll-out. As the answer to all three questions is "Yes", I see no reason to delay the House except to echo the sentiments of wishing the best to Pat Catney, who started this journey.”
“I will finish with a word cloud of what people have been saying about Stephen: "scrupulous"; "even-handed"; "intelligent"; "funny"; "compassionate"; "a tireless mentor"; "encouraging"; team player"; "trusted"; "authentic"; "courageous"; "kind"; and "brilliant". <BR /> <BR />My thoughts are his wife and family, his many, many friends and his countless admirers. Rest easy, Stephen Grimason.”
“Yesterday, Sam McBride of the 'Belfast Telegraph' wrote:”
“Earlier this year, Stephen and his good friend Ken Reid, the long-time political correspondent at UTV, were honoured with chancellor's medals at Queen's University. It was a bittersweet night: great to see them in public again, but tinged with that unspoken suspicion that it was to be for the last time. They did not just reminisce; they revealed, including something that very few people knew. While they remained fierce rivals at all times, beyond the competition, there was collaboration. Sometimes you needed to be in two places at once, so when Stephen interviewed somebody, he sometimes asked them to turn 90 degrees to create a different background and interviewed them again — the second interview mysteriously turning up in the UTV edit suite. <BR /> <BR />After journalism, he worked for the Executive here.”
“Stephen always said that he would take the name of his source to the grave, and, as ever, he has been true to his word. As journalist Kathryn Johnston put it, he was:”
“Then the scoop of scoops: that famous moment in April 1998 in the car park of Castle Buildings, just halfway down the hill outside, when he gave the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement its first public outing as he uttered those famous six words:”
“I stand to pay tribute to one of the finest public-spirited citizens this place has ever seen. Stephen Grimason passed away at the weekend after a long illness. It followed an even longer career as a public servant. I could simply list his career chronologically, but I think that it is much more important to discuss his character. However, for the record, Stephen was born in Lurgan. He was a reporter with the 'Lurgan Mail' and the 'Ulster Star' and became editor of the 'Banbridge Chronicle' at the tender age of 27. Then he went to Belfast, where he worked for the 'News Letter' and the 'Sunday News' and — the big move — as political editor of BBC Northern Ireland.”
“The courthouse was built on the site of an old prison, and part of the construction involved taking bricks from the former prison's wing for those awaiting trial and putting them into a gable wall of the new Constitutional Court. Maybe we could be imaginative about how we link things together. If we did that, what a great permanent home for Colin Davidson's 'Silent Testimony' collection as the start of peace-building and reconciliation.”
“Let us have a peace-building and conflict resolution centre but not at the Maze/Long Kesh; let us retake the Crumlin Road courthouse. The First Minister and deputy First Minister were there last week with Joe Kennedy, looking at the fantastic work on the other side of the road. The tunnel is still there, and it could be reopened. The courthouse could be a conflict resolution centre in North Belfast, which saw more murders per square mile than any other part of the country and where levels of deprivation and dereliction today are very high, as Members such as Mr Kingston quite rightly remind us. <BR /> <BR />When it comes to the prison, the remaining hospital wing and the rest, can we be imaginative? Think of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in Johannesburg.”
“We did not have a view on whether we supported it, but I did attend what I think was the first meeting that the SIB held at the Community Relations Council (CRC). The poor official tried to focus people, all of whom were representatives of victims' groups, on three questions: should we have a centre; if so, what should be in it; and where should it be? Everybody went straight to question 3. Everybody who represented a nationalist/republican viewpoint said, "It has to be the Maze. It is the only site you can have". Everybody on the unionist/loyalist side said, "Oh no, anywhere but the Maze". It convinced me that it was the most toxic choice of land in Northern Ireland that we could possibly have come across. <BR /> <BR />If that issue is still the blockage, I propose something that I have proposed before.”
“As an important aside, if the two that we developed had been Casement and Windsor, what would the rugby union fraternity be saying about not having its development? If it had been Casement and Ravenhill, what would the Association football people be saying if Windsor Park were the odd one out of the three? We therefore need to think about the consequences of not doing what we say we are going to do. <BR /> <BR />Of course, the master plan included an international centre for conflict transformation. The Strategic Investment Board (SIB) was tasked with consulting on the proposal for the peace-building and conflict resolution centre, as it was called. I was one of the four victims' commissioners at the time.”
“I think that I have said before that the feel of this mandate is different. The mood is better, the positivity is higher and the determination is greater, so I do not want to be critical. We have to be honest, however, and say that, over the years, our record on developing major infrastructure projects is not the best. Desertcreat was supposed to be a world-class facility for all our blue-light responders. That did not happen. The York Street interchange could still be years away. Of course, we also have the Maze/Long Kesh. It is nearly 20 years since the cross-party group published the master plan in May 2006. It stated that we should have a multisports stadium. That did not happen. We are living with the legacy of that, because we have built or redeveloped only two of three stadia.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I hope that he agrees that we have heard a very positive and welcome intervention from the Minister on how we process injury on duty and ill health retirement requests. It follows a welcome contribution by the Chief Constable at the previous Policing Board meeting. He seems to be up for a review. My impression is that every member of the board would like to see ill health retirement requests and IODs done differently and better. Perhaps this, finally, is an opportunity to seize the day.”
“Will the Minister detail how his Department came to the figure of 18 million trees?”
“We are in a post-ceasefire environment, so is it not great that we have moved away from having a fleet that is exclusively armoured to having soft-skinned and liveried vehicles? It is a more normalised form of transport for policing, but it has attendant dangers. I certainly join, I think, everybody in the House in condemning anybody who rams a police vehicle and puts a police officer at risk. <BR /> <BR />We will support the motion but not the amendment.”
“I thank the Member for his point. I am not entirely clear in my memory of that, but I accept that the DUP has included it in its motion. I am just saying that I take at face value what the police have said about what motivated the desire to bring on what we call the south Armagh policing review. <BR /> <BR />I will conclude by saying that of course we support the motion. Weaponising vehicles to attack police officers is entirely wrong. It seems that the way forward here is for the Policing Board — the main scrutiny body of the PSNI — to take a view about soft-skinned and liveried vehicles. It is my recollection that police use pushbikes in Crossmaglen, which opens them up to certain dangers.”
“If political interference in policing is going to be talked about, let us remind ourselves of what happened on foot of the terrible incident on the Ormeau Road during COVID, when there was the annual commemoration of those who were brutally murdered at Sean Graham's bookmaker's. On 8 February 2021, Declan Kearney of Sinn Féin, in an article in 'An Phoblacht', made clear that the party's support for the PSNI:”
“I took the police at face value when they told us on the Policing Board that that was what prompted the review, because senior officers realised, having looked at that photograph and the controversy that surrounded it, "My goodness, we have not really reviewed how we police in south Armagh in the way we should have, given the changing circumstances post-ceasefire". I have a bit of a difficulty with the assertions that what happened was "politically motivated". <BR /> <BR />That said, my party will not support the Sinn Féin amendment, and here is why.”
“Part of the reform proposed by the south Armagh policing review seemed to me to say to police officers, whom, for most of my adult life, we have asked to police in the most demanding and dangerous of conditions and to often work from police stations that are the exact opposite of the luxury of Parliament Buildings and this estate, that it was time to move on and to give police officers working conditions that are much more appropriate. <BR /> <BR />As Mr Buchanan said, it all seems to go back to Christmas 2019, when the then Chief Constable, Simon Byrne, was photographed outside the police station with four officers, two of whom were carrying the most frightening-looking automatic rifles with huge sights on them. As Mr Buchanan said, it was "a PR disaster".”
“My goodness, it is like a reverse Tardis. It is a lot smaller inside than it looks from the outside. The corridors are so narrow that you have to turn sideways if you are passing somebody coming the other way. There is no natural light. Until recently, officers went in on a shift pattern that saw them there for four days and three nights, resulting in an annual overtime bill for that one station of £1 million. In the context of the PSNI's hard-pressed budget, that surely was not sustainable and was reflective of a different time.”