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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“The Minister said that work is already ongoing by her officials to increase the general civil jurisdiction of the County Court and that that would include financial limits in defamation cases. She goes on to say that she has not come to a definitive view in that area. However, she makes the point that it would be duplication on my part to put the amendment in the Bill, and that is why it did not come forward today. <BR /> <BR />Clauses 2, 3 and 4 have been debated. They basically tidy, codify and transfer common law into statute. I do not think that anybody has a particular difficulty with that.”
“On that basis, I did not bring forward that amendment. <BR /> <BR />I will go out of sequence and cover another issue raised by the Justice Minister. It is the one that Mr Allister referred to regarding civil actions in the County Court. Mr Allister's argument is, I believe, that it is a deterrent for a potential plaintiff to go to a County Court if their redress is basically built around their desire for financial recompense, because the upper limit in the County Court is currently £3,000. Mr Allister talked about maybe raising that as high as £30,000. I did have an amendment that would have put a duty on the Department of Justice to consult and bring forward proposals in that area.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention, but he did not make that point during his contribution earlier. It was all about the money. I will come to the point about the County Court, if I may, in a second. <BR /> <BR />I will not die in a ditch over serious harm. I understand that the clause is gone, but I would like to make a couple of further comments. The Committee was very keen that I look at pre-action protocols and the potential benefits of alternative dispute resolutions. At one point, I had an amendment to that effect, which would have allowed a judge to order plaintiffs and defendants to engage in ADRs before the commencement of a trial. I thank the Minister of Justice, who wrote to me on 16 February about that issue to point out that Lady Chief Justice Keegan's office is:”
“I will give way in a second. <BR /> <BR />Some people want redress. Some people simply want an apology. They want, for example, me, as the journalist, to say, "I am sorry. I got that wrong. I really regret that". In his comments, Mr Allister made it clear that everybody — well, that was his inference — wants money by way of redress.”
“Mr McHugh said that it was effectively a licence to print lies, which was a sentiment repeated, by and large, by Mr Allister. I disagree. I was a journalist for many years, and I never deliberately printed a lie, big or small. I did sometimes print or speak factually inaccurate comments. I made errors, some small and some large. If I may, I will take exception to Mr Allister, who implied that anybody seeking to take a defamation case was seeking recompense — seeking money. Not necessarily, Mr Allister.”
“However, as I understand it, the case law in England and Wales suggests that you do have to prove that serious harm has actually occurred.”
“<BR /> <BR />It was also my intention — it is clearly in the Bill — that someone would not simply have to prove that serious harm had been done against them but that it was likely to happen.”
“We can address that through some of the clauses that I have inserted in the Bill. <BR /> <BR />I turn to serious harm, which so many Members have difficulty with. I understand that the Committee did not support clause 1, and I understand that Members and the Minister do not support it. In paragraph 17 of his written evidence to the Committee, Dr Scott made it clear that the outcome in England and Wales was not what was expected and that, in fact, some judges there were reverting to the old test that we have here, which, frankly, is whether the ordinary man or woman in the street would think less of you when they became aware of the defamatory statement.”
“<BR /> <BR />As Members have pointed out, my original intent was simply to replicate the Defamation Act 2013 in England and Wales. I accept that that is not going to happen, but I also point out that Dr Scott, now Professor Scott, the man whom the Department of Finance commissioned to conduct the in-depth consultation and produce the report, has said that replicating the Act actually has some serious advantages. At paragraph 18 of the written evidence that he gave to the Committee on 29 October, he suggested that consistency with English law is now arguably more pressing than when he reported in 2016. He stated that it will:”
“The first was that I do not think that there is ever a perfect time to legislate on defamation. It is a moving feast. I quote, for example, the fact that the Government of Ireland are now being asked to review their laws of defamation, and Scotland very recently brought in the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021. Therefore, there is constant updating in the jurisdictions around us. The second reason was the question of whether, post 5 May, there will be an Assembly and Executive functioning in a manner that will allow us to bring forward legislation in this area. I hope that there will be, but there is clearly a question mark against that. That is an important reason why the Department should continue to review what is happening here and in other relevant jurisdictions.”
“I also thank the Committee members and staff for the considerable attention that they gave to the Bill at Committee Stage. I also need to thank the Speaker's Office for ensuring that the Bill was competent and the Secretary of State for allowing me to legislate in a reserved area, namely telecommunications. I thank the Bill Office, the Office of the Legislative Counsel and departmental officials. There were also external helpers whom I will mention at a later date. <BR /> <BR />I also thank the Minister, not just for coming here on a Wednesday morning, when, I am sure, he has many other duties to perform, but because I know that his Department's very strong first preference was that there should be no legislative movement in this area during this mandate. It is important to explain why I went ahead. There were two main reasons.”
“Only one party took up that invitation, so perhaps there were missed opportunities on both sides. <BR /> <BR />The lack of cooperation between myself and the Department was down to a misunderstanding. The first time that the Department wrote to me, it talked about getting together to have a discussion. What it did not do was finish that letter with, "If you are interested, please contact X on Y phone number or Z email", so I was waiting for contact from the Department. However, we cleared that up and, the second time that we agreed to meet, we did meet. It was a very useful meeting, and I thank the departmental officials, the Office of the Legislative Counsel and the Bill Office for their assistance with that. <BR /> <BR />On the matter of thanks, I thank every Member who has contributed to the debate.”
“<BR /> <BR />I will heed the Speaker's recent written advice not to waste the time of the Assembly rehearsing points, positions and arguments that have already been made and rest in the Official Report of the House. Having started this process eight and a half years ago, I find myself about to be much more brief in my comments than I anticipated all that time ago. <BR /> <BR />To address a point that some Members made, that perhaps this is being rushed, I want to emphasise that I started my consultation 101 months ago, in September 2013. I remember putting in everybody's pigeonhole the consultation document and the offer of a briefing. More recently, as I revived the Bill after the three-year hiatus, I offered to meet any Member, party or grouping who wanted to meet me for a briefing about the Bill.”
“I should probably begin with a declaration as a deputy chair of the all-party group on press freedom and media sustainability. It probably does not need saying, but I declare that, for a large part of my adult life, I earned a living as a journalist, working for many of the print and broadcast media outlets that operate in this jurisdiction. That might explain my interest in the laws of defamation, but it does not explain my motivation. As Mr McHugh put it, I am interested in making sure that we have the best possible balance between what are often competing rights: the right of freedom of expression and the right to protect one's reputation.”
“I am still reeling from John O'Dowd effectively quoting Margaret Thatcher. That will take some processing. <BR /> <BR />I will agree with the Minister: in the 21st century, this is as important as water or electricity supply. I hope that he will join me in making a distinction between premises that have access to gigabit-capable broadband and those that avail of it. I would be interested in the percentage of premises that have taken up Stratum and signed up with a telecommunications provider. What are his thoughts on the customer satisfaction data that he requested I forward to his Department?”
“I thank the Minister. Does the Minister agree that, for best practice evaluation of a scheme like this, it should be benchmarked against high street spend in areas of the United Kingdom where no voucher scheme was in operation?”
“However, now, in the Budget, it is just a line for care and maintenance. <BR /> <BR />Frankly, I do not think that we are doing that well. I will, of course, support the Budget, but I hope that, come the next mandate, we do a bit better.”
“Some years ago, we all agreed that it could deliver big-style for our economy with 5,000 new jobs and £300 million of investment, and it was stopped by one party because of opposition to MLK being the site for the peace-building and conflict resolution centre. Since then, very little has happened to develop Maze/Long Kesh or to deliver those 5,000 jobs. It is not as if there is no alternative. I have often proposed taking back control of the old Crumlin Road courthouse and making it the peace-building and conflict resolution centre. The fact is that putting it in the Maze was to choose the most controversial, toxic, contested piece of land that you could in the whole of Northern Ireland in the view of victims, because some victims said that it had to be there and some said that it had to be anywhere but Maze/Long Kesh.”
“I said this yesterday, and I will repeat it today: we had an objective to align the Budget with the Programme for Government, and what we are doing is hurtling to the position where we achieve that by having neither. That is an indictment of this mandate. <BR /> <BR />I hear Members from the two big parties throwing insults across the Floor: "You collapsed it"; "You collapsed it"; "I collapsed it"; "You collapsed it". There is something else that we have forgotten about, and it is costing money out of the Budget. That is the care and maintenance of a 347-acre site known as Maze/Long Kesh (MLK). It has a development corporation whose motto is:”
“Now, that is an output. It is not an outcome, because I was contacted by a family who live outside Ards who had been offered a place and were part of the 93% of success. The place that that family was offered was in a facility in Suffolk in west Belfast, which is a 40-minute drive away, so, by the time the mother or father dropped the child off and got back to Ards, it was nearly time to go back and collect the child. The policy objective of putting the child in a preschool so that the parents could become economically active was a failure, and yet they were part of the 93% that we considered to be a success.”
“<BR /> <BR />If we are going to go for a cross-cutting, outcomes-based accountability Government where Departments and Ministers are going to work together collaboratively and share resources and budgets, we have to think about reorganising our Statutory Committees to make sure that we have an effective means of effecting some scrutiny. <BR /> <BR />If I may, another example from that period was the promise to offer a preschool place to every child for a minimum of four hours a day. I saw a report by the Department that led on that, which boasted of, I think, 93% — it was certainly over 90% — success in offering places to parents or guardians of children who were seeking preschool places for at least four hours in the day.”
“It had six signature projects, one of which was to deliver additional literacy and numeracy support to 18,600 primary-school children. That was a really good idea, and it was backed by finance and appropriate resources. The problem came when we tried to scrutinise it. OFMDFM officials came to the Committee, and we asked them, "How's it going?". Effectively, their answer was "No idea". Their role was simply to get the money into the Department of Education, and it led on delivering that DSC programme. We then asked whether we could get the relevant officials from the Department of Education in front of the Committee. They said, "No. Oh, God no. Absolutely not. They report to the Committee for Education".”
“How many of our citizens get out of bed without the sense of purpose that we enjoy; without the drive that brings us here every day and sends us to bed with a sense of accomplishment or, maybe, accomplishment mixed with a little frustration so that we want to get up and go again tomorrow? A prosperity agenda is very important. It is what we should be aiming for, and we should be using the Budget to create it. <BR /> <BR />As to getting out of our silos and scrutinising, I am minded of an example in the 2011 to 2016 mandate, when I was the Chair of the OFMDFM Committee, now Executive Office Committee. Some cross-cutting activity was going on then that was driven by OFMDFM. Members may recall Delivering Social Change (DSC).”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. It backed up my proposition. <BR /> <BR />Having said that, the Minister and I agree that we would prefer to be less dependent on Treasury and would like to grow our economy to the point where we are generating a lot more of our own wealth. I call that a prosperity agenda. It is measured by two key things: the quality of our public services, particularly Health and Education, and the sense of well-being of our people. Therefore, it is not just about how much money somebody has in their back pocket on a Friday afternoon, important as that is, but their sense of good mental health and well-being and fairness and equity.”
“I have heard some familiar themes mentioned in the course of the debate: getting out of silos, being effective in our scrutiny of the Executive and the Departments, making sure there are adequate and appropriate budgets for the Programme for Government and its many facets, and criticism of the money we get out of London. On that latter point, I did not hear any acknowledgement of the £3 billion-plus — over three billion pounds sterling — that London gave us for mitigations for the COVID pandemic, when our focus was on saving lives and livelihoods. I would argue that there has probably never been a better time for Northern Ireland to be part of the United Kingdom. Although I absolutely accept the legitimacy of republicans and nationalists to seek constitutional change, the lesson of the last two years is to be careful what you wish for.”
“The Minister mentioned electric vehicle charge points. What was he able to tell the meeting about council uptake of the £20 million pot from central government, which is backed by £350,000 from the Department for Infrastructure?”
“They laughed at me; they said, "We've been dealing with alcohol problems forever. The big issue is mental health. We have only one side ward that's secure for somebody with a mental health patient, so when the second person arrives, we have a huge issue, because, logistically, we don't have the facilities to deal with them". <BR /> <BR />My final point is that, in the previous mandate, we committed ourselves to doing something about the fact that we tend to treat the Programme for Government and the Budget separately. There was a desire and determination to see if we could better align the Programme for Government and the Budget. Do you know what? We have achieved that — in the worst way possible — because, as we come to the end of the mandate, we have neither.”
“The Member makes an extremely important and excellent point. The police attend a lot of incidents where the issue is mental health. The Member is aware of the experiment in the south-eastern area — this happened in the Ards and north Down area — where there was a multidisciplinary response and a triaging. Traditionally, if you found somebody on the streets on a Friday night, you might say, "We're going to put them in a prison cell". That is probably the last place that that person should be put, because the underlying issue is not alcohol; it is mental health, so a hospital is where they perhaps belong. <BR /> <BR />When I spent an overnight observing the emergency department at the Ulster Hospital, I wondered whether alcoholism was a big issue for the staff.”
“We need interventions in our schools and workplaces. We have to go for something that is a bit more holistic than simply analysing the spend, Department by Department, in each Committee.”
“If we think about the issues that we are trying to tackle, such as educational underachievement, we will find that we cannot simply point the finger at the Minister of Education and say, "That's your responsibility", because we know that healthier children and children in better-quality housing do better at school, so the Minister of Health and the Minister for Communities have a role to play. <BR /> <BR />I campaign on mental health. I commend Robin Swann for all that he has done, as Minister of Health, on mental health, such as the creation of a mental health champion and a proper 10-year strategy on mental health, but it is not just a health issue. Yes, pills, tablets and therapies have their place in helping people with mental health issues, but it is also a societal issue. We need societal interventions.”
“From memory, probation, for example, did not receive any cut at all, and some of the other agencies therefore took a bigger hit. They did that because they felt that that was the way to do it. <BR /> <BR />However, tonight, we are engaged in a debate on the spring Supplementary Estimates and the Supply resolution in which each Member who speaks talks about the Committee that they represent, be it Education, the Executive Office, Infrastructure, Justice, Finance, or Health. We are not coordinating.”
“Mr Friedman is the author of the book, 'Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough' and, indeed, effectively the inventor of the idea of OBA — outcomes-based accountability — government. I will never forget one of the examples that he gave, which was from Canada. Every agency in the criminal justice system there — the police, courts, probation and prisons — was asked to take the same percentage cut in its budget. The agencies went away, sat down together, came back to government and said, "We have a better way of doing this: we will save you the same overall sum of money, but we're going to take different percentages of cuts, because we think that that will deliver better outcomes".”
“We give hundreds of millions of pounds to the Department of Education — that is the input — and one of the outputs is classroom assistants. Mr Beggs talked about a classroom in which there are four classroom assistants at the back of the class. What is the outcome of that? According to Mr Beggs, there is none: they stand at the back and twiddle their thumbs because they have nothing to do. <BR /> <BR />It was a very exciting day, therefore, when the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), as TEO was at that time, said that it would do things differently with the next Programme for Government. It said that it would be outcomes-based. I will never forget the evening when Mark Friedman brought a team up here to brief the OFMDFM Committee.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, I ask for your indulgence, because I want to be a little nostalgic, as I think that that is relevant to the way in which the debate is being conducted this evening. <BR /> <BR />I was first elected to the House in 2011 for the 2011-16 mandate. One of the first things that I noticed — not in a great way — was the way in which we conduct business when it comes to finance. We are almost obsessed with the inputs of government — giving £x million to Health and £y million to Education — but not with looking at the other side of the equation: the outputs and outcomes. <BR /> <BR />To be fair, perhaps we sometimes look at the outputs. Actually, Mr Beggs gave a very good example of that, albeit in a very small way.”
“I thank the Minister for the answer. There is talk that, without the Budget, Departments will get 45% and then 95%. Of what, Minister? Is that a percentage of this year's Budget or what?”
“The Minister will be aware that, at the Economy Committee last week, we were alerted to some disturbingly negative customer satisfaction reports about Fibrus. What is the Minister's view?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement and welcome Sir Michael's attentions. Will the Minister inform the House of the number of organisations seeking financial support from Invest Northern Ireland in the next financial year and confirm that, as things stand, Invest is not in a position to offer a penny?”
“I will wear that as a badge of honour. <BR /> <BR />When I last drove into the Braniel estate, Christopher happened to be driving out. When he spotted me, there was a big wave and a big smile that seemed to say, "I'm so proud that there's another MLA in my area". My thoughts today are with the community in which he lived, and which he served, but, most of all, with his family, particularly his wife and children. I certainly do not have words that are adequate to express their sense of shock, loss and grief.”
“Frankly, my expectations were very, very low".”
“We discussed the fact that, although there is a very detailed set of Standing Orders that govern how business is conducted in this Chamber, there is actually nothing about how Chairs conduct their business in our Statutory Committees. Maybe that will be part of his legacy. <BR /> <BR />In between times, we served together on the Committee for the Executive Office, which I chaired. I like to fondly believe that Christopher was put on the Committee by the DUP because it felt that it needed to man-mark me, and so put in one of its finest. He certainly was not slow to point out my errors. There were errors — plural — on most occasions. He surprised me again when we met as we were breaking for the election. He surprised me by saying that I had surprised him. I said, "Pray tell". He said, "Well, you've been a better Chair than I was expecting.”
“I am sure that I am not the only person in the Chamber who woke up this morning, hoping that it was not true. Radio Ulster was not long in disabusing me of the hope that that Door to my left might open and usher in a dapper-looking 39-year-old with a mind full of purpose and mischief. <BR /> <BR />Believe it or not, my first memory of meeting Christopher was at an auction house in east Belfast. He was there with some friends. I was there with a camera crew to do a sort of beginner's guide to bargain hunting. It turned out to be a great coincidence that Christopher was there, because he knew everything about getting the goods that you wanted at the price that you wanted to pay. Our last conversation was here last week.”
“When the Minister published the draft three-year Budget, he ring-fenced over £14 million per annum for PSNI staffing costs. I declare an interest as a member of the Policing Board. The question is this: is that money now lost? If it is, the three-year pressures on the PSNI will rise from £226 million to £240 million. I do not see how the PSNI can keep people safe if we choke them of finance.”
“a bill of rights. The scope might be zero. So it is OK, although I totally disagree with it, for a party to say, "We do not want a bill of rights". <BR /> <BR />The Ulster Unionist Party wants a bill of rights, and so the question becomes this: do we go forward with consensus, meaning that all five parties have to agree to a way forward, or do we go forward with sufficient consensus, which is a concept that we relied on heavily back in 1998 in the negotiations that led to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement? If you go with consensus, at a certain point it becomes a veto, and no party in the House should have a veto. <BR /> <BR />We are happy to endorse the report. We are sorry that nothing further is likely to happen in this mandate, but let us go again when we can.”
“to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement did not say that there will be a bill of rights. It said that we would:”
“I am glad that the Member has got one intervention in during the debate. <BR /> <BR />I chaired the Executive Office Committee and, before that, the Committee for the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) for five years. I will not drag the Speaker into it, but he sat on that Committee. Blockages in that Department are the order of the day, so, if the DUP is responsible for the panel not being appointed, let us not pretend that that is some sort of evil one-off. It happens day and daily, or it did in the five years that I chaired the Committee. <BR /> <BR />It is valid — I do not agree, but it is valid — to say, "We do not believe in a bill of rights". NDNA only set up a Committee to look at the bill of rights. It said that we would:”
“Briefly, because I want to finish this point.”
“First of all, there was an attack on the DUP. I do not hold a candle for the DUP. There was an attack on its position that we do not need a bill of rights.”
“I am going to criticise the Chair of the Committee at this point.”
“Nationally, Dominic Grieve, on multiple occasions, gave us detailed papers and followed them up with oral evidence. Internationally, no less a figure than Albie Sachs from South Africa, one of the original Constitutional Court judges, made himself available at no charge. Members will recall that that is why I then questioned why we were appointing a panel of five experts at £500 a person a day. It cost £2,500 to get a panel of experts to come to speak to us when experts were falling over themselves to make themselves available for free. Why five? I know that it is a commitment in NDNA, but why five? Was it to give us a consensus or to give us five various views from which we were to pick the one that we wanted? <BR /> <BR />I have watched the video of the meeting of 25 November, so I understand what happened.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. All that I can say to the Member is this: perhaps he has greater legal authority than I do. <BR /> <BR />Moreover, there is the concept of progressive realisation. That is an understanding that if we say, for example, that every citizen has the right to good-quality, appropriate housing, we will not deliver that in one mandate, because, if we were to, there would be no money for education, schools, hospitals and road building. It therefore happens progressively over time. <BR /> <BR />The second thing that I noticed very early on was the fact that so many expert witnesses were willing to come forward and give us both written and oral evidence for no charge. Locally, as the Chair of the Committee mentioned, we received evidence from Colin Harvey. I was also very impressed by Christopher McCrudden.”