Jim Allister
North Antrim · Traditional Unionist Voice · Northern Ireland
“<BR /> <BR />Last week, a 'News Letter' editorial rightly drew attention to the fact that there is a chorus of demand that it is up to the British Government to pay for that, but no pressure whatsoever on the GAA — the primary beneficiary — which still persists that its contribution will be a miserly £15 million.”
“Public money, we are constantly told, is in short supply and scarce. I am sure that it is, and will continue to be so. Yet, while many in the House pay lip service to the need to prioritise health, there seems to be a majority here who would prioritise public spending on a sporting facility, namely Casement Park.”
“That editorial stated that the DUP "should make clear" its view on the Casement Park costs. Yet, yesterday, we had the launch of the DUP manifesto and not a mention of Casement Park. We have a Minister — Minister Lyons — who has ruled out clawback for non-GAA use of that stadium.”
“Therefore, the Minister comes to the House with a proposal that, effectively, has been written in Brussels, because it tells us how much we can give to our fishing industry in Northern Ireland.”
“The Minister told us that this is a scheme under the Fisheries Act, which it is, whereby all the devolved regions and England and Wales can make their own provision.”
“Rather than removing the green lane, the introduction of the new customs border arrangements will further advance the development of the green lane, thereby helping to make the Irish Sea border and our alienation from the rest of the UK more firmly established.”
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“It is clear to me, having listened to the Minister, that, although the proposal is being brought under the guise of COVID, it is not, of necessity, any longer COVID-driven. It is now being driven by a desire to bridge time so that the Department might bring in longer-term provisions that are nothing to do with COVID but give remote attendance at council meetings a permanency. That is not a good idea, because the idea of electing a council is so that it meets collectively as a council for discussions and decision-making. <BR /> <BR />One thing that concerns me most about the operation of some of the existing rules is that there have been instances where an aggressive chair has overstretched their authority and, when someone was making a point that they did not like, has switched them off.”
“Does the Minister accept that the ministerial car is a departmental asset? If so, what gives him the right to use it for private business, such as he has done? Does he apologise for such use, given that he heads the Department that has oversight of how civil servants conduct themselves in respect of the rules?”
“— of death, so is that the best that the Minister can offer us? Has she really abandoned all hope of improving that junction?”
“Looking back, I raised this issue in 2016, following the tragic death of young Karla Cameron. At that point, the then Infrastructure Minister promised that definitive, real action would be taken at that junction. The junction has proved to be a deathtrap. I suspect that, if it were on the A21 or the A1, there would have been a flyover built years ago. All that we have got, however, at the Woodgreen junction is a few extra lights and some high-friction surface treatment. It is totally inappropriate for a junction that has a record —”
“What is the Department able to do to bring pressure on other companies in order to alleviate the situation?”
“There are not enough spaces on the surviving services to transport necessary goods and —”
“I am sure that we all agree that any company that is dealing in a decent fashion with its workers does not need balaclavas or handcuffs. I want to focus the Minister's attention on the current economic consequences of the situation. There are hauliers who are at their wits' end wondering how they are going to get their goods, some of which are perishable, transported. I will read the Minister a comment that has just been sent to me by a haulier who listened to the Minister's statement. You will get the frustration:”
“The statement refers to the fact that the applicant schools were ranked in merit order. Is that at all reflected in how we go forward or is there no prioritisation of projects? Will the Minister give me an update on where we are with Dunclug College and Cullybackey College? Which project was referred to in the statement as being suspended?”
“That is a retrograde step that is not befitting of our position in the United Kingdom.”
“Let me be very clear: there is no equivocation on and no scope for parity in the fact that Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom. Therefore, there is no place for flying any flag other than that of the United Kingdom on government buildings. That is emphatic and unalterable as far as our position in the United Kingdom is concerned. It is piety dressed up as pious nonsense to talk about seeking parity for a foreign flag, which is that of a foreign country, to be flown with equality in Northern Ireland. So long as we are a part of the United Kingdom, it is and must be the flag of that United Kingdom that flies and flies alone on government buildings in this country. <BR /> <BR />I very much regret that the Secretary of State, in typical reverse gear, is reducing the number of days.”
“I very much regret the diminution in the number of days. I can understand removing the Duke of York's birthday, but to see the birthdays of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge removed from the list is surprising and unnecessary. I do not endorse it, nor do I endorse doing likewise for the Princess Royal's birthday and that of others. <BR /> <BR />It is quite clear that this is a one-way process. There are no additions when, patently, there are days that should be added if Northern Ireland is, indeed, a full and integral part of the United Kingdom. Yet we have this selective reduction in days in a Province where apparently it is a matter of shame to fly the national flag of the United Kingdom on government buildings. Of course, now we have Sinn Féin ever looking for more and, in the words of Mr O'Dowd, demanding "parity".”
“Will the Minister advise the House of the limit of the amount of expenditure that a civil servant, such as the lady involved here, can approve of their own volition? We did not get that information at Committee.”
“Nobody was more vigorous in exposing and opposing the renewable heat incentive (RHI) matter than I was in the House and elsewhere. I invite the Member to reflect on her slur in that regard.”
“Does the Member not think that no time is more apt to complain about squander than when vital public money is needed for so many more deserving causes?”
“That is the context in which Mr Wells and I brought the matter to the House so that it could have the focus of public attention. <BR /> <BR />It is not that I suspect that the House will be in the least bit worried about squandering £261,000; it has poured a lot more than that down the drain over the years. It is about putting a focus on wanton squander — unnecessary, selective for one community and one community only — when there are crying-out needs in this community for expenditure on real needs, not pet-project needs or ego-stroking needs but real needs. That is the point of this prayer.”
“With respect, that is incorrect: she said that it was to facilitate the Irish aspect. However, she did, importantly, say that, yes, there was no other evidence of demand. Eighteen people, on average, was the sum total of demand. This is for one selected group alone; it is only for Irish speakers. Tens of thousands of people in this Province speak Polish as their first and native language; there is no such facility for them. We have thousands of people who speak Lithuanian and all sorts of Eastern European languages, and we might, shortly, have a lot of people who speak Ukrainian, but the regulations apply only to the special ones: only to those who speak Irish. Of course, I am quite sure that the greater number of them already speak English.”
“There is a worthy cause that is crying out for funds, but the House and the Department think that it is more important to squander £261,000 to meet the needs of 18 people a year.”
“That amount of money would employ eight nurses for a year, but the registrar thought that it was appropriate to spend that extravagant amount of money on the IT upgrade before ever bringing any proposal next or near the Committee. <BR /> <BR />That prompted the next important question of the registrar: what was the demonstrable demand for the facility? Here, the story gets even more astounding, because the answer was, "We have had one or two calls a month" — one or two calls a month from people asking for the facility. The average of that might be 18 people a year asking for the facility to record marriage details in Irish. In response to that, it was thought to be appropriate to spend over a quarter of a million pounds. <BR /> <BR />Today, at lunchtime, I attended, with others, the cancer project meeting.”
“Two matters have prompted the prayer of annulment. The two matters on which to focus attention are the unnecessary squander and the process followed in respect of this particular statutory instrument, which provides the facility for someone to record their marriage details in Irish. <BR /> <BR />To start with the process, astoundingly, when the Finance Committee looked at the statutory instrument and called evidence on it, we discovered that, before the statutory instrument was ever brought to the Committee, and before it was ever made, the Department of Finance had decided to spend £261,000 to upgrade an IT system to facilitate that, and presumed — that is the point about process — the support of the Committee and the Assembly to put in place retrospectively that upon which it had already spent £261,000.”
“What that has to do with home economics is clearly nothing, yet it is a barrier to the employment of some. For the Bill to address that, insofar as it will, is necessary, but it should not have been necessary to corrupt the processes of the House in order to pass it.”
“I do not object to the Bill's content. The Bill is long overdue. I do, however, object to the corruption of the processes of the House and to the Business Committee's aiding and abetting that. Last night, we had the same with another Bill. Today, it is this Bill. We have cut corners with all sorts of Bills. The House is doing itself no credit by playing fast and loose with its Standing Orders and processes. That is fundamentally wrong. I suspect that the Bill could have been introduced a long time ago. <BR /> <BR />It is a necessary Bill. St Louis Grammar School in my constituency is advertising for a home economics teacher. The application form talks about:”
“I trust that Mr O'Dowd will look up the dictionary definition of "bigotry". He might see that it applies to a T to Sinn Féin.”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.”
“By "consensus" the Member means that it is subject to the bigotry of the Sinn Féin veto. That is why the issue has never been addressed. If it was in the capacity of the Commission to address the platinum jubilee to the limited extent that it did, one would think that it was surely not beyond it to address the centenary of the country that the Assembly purports to preside over.”
“Can the Commission advise us of when the limitation period expires? What has been the cost to date of such work as has been done?”
“As someone who has campaigned on the artefacts issue for many years, I will reserve judgement until I see the exhibition and the permanency of it. Specifically, will portraits of former Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland be on permanent display?”
“The House knows better, however, and the House decided that it would support clause 19, repudiating any suggestion of tempering it to ensure, beyond doubt, that it would be human rights-compliant. No doubt the Attorney General will have to take a view as to its compliance with human rights, but, certainly to my mind, clause 19 needlessly raises a question about that.”
“There is much in the Bill that is valuable and worthwhile. My concern remains, however, that, by the inclusion of the very dubious clause 19, the Bill's viability within the competence of the House might be jeopardised by reason of its flagrant breach of article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. <BR /> <BR />I have addressed the House at some length on this issue, but to no avail. Clause 19 introduces a blanket and mandatory ban on public hearings, which, I submit, is wholly incompatible with the expectations of article 6 and in conflict with the very clear jurisprudence under article 6 whereby there are multiple cases that make it plain that you can only have a ban on a case-by-case basis and not on a blanket basis.”
“I am surprised that the Chairman has not read clause 5. It begins by indicating that the offence is sufficiently committed if there is merely influence. It does not need to come near to being harassment or abuse: influence is enough.”
“Therefore, I say this to the House: pause, think and do as the sponsor will do. Support the very basic tenet of introducing into the Bill a reasonable excuse on which the court — not us, not the accused — will decide. Should that not be what our courts are all about?”
“I said that clause 5 makes that mother the criminal. If clause 5 were amended in the way that I suggest, it would give that mother a fighting chance of not being a criminal. She could say that it was a reasonable thing to do as a mother. Members, seemingly the majority in the House, want to criminalise that mother and put it beyond doubt that she could never have a reasonable excuse. That seems to be an ultimate exercise in the oppressive totalitarianism that some are so anxious to embrace. Indeed, they may embrace it because of who proposes the amendment, never mind the logic or sense of it. I find in the House a great dearth of understanding of what the criminal law means and what it should mean, and there is a great assault upon its integrity. This is one of the clauses that attacks it most head-on.”
“That is what this modest amendment is all about. <BR /> <BR />The one hesitation I had in tabling the amendment was lest it make the Bill human rights-compliant. At the moment, its absolutism stretches its human rights compliance. If it is the will of the House that such an offence exist, it should at least have that basic component that virtually every other offence in the criminal calendar has. We should not be so dogmatic and totalitarian in our approach of refusing even to contemplate a court maybe being able to find that what was done was reasonable. <BR /> <BR />I gave the example, at Consideration Stage, of the mother of a 14-year-old girl who accompanies her, against the child's will, to the abortion clinic, pleading with her not to have an abortion and giving her motherly advice.”
“She wants to rob any accused person — sometimes, in other circumstances, she is defensive of accused persons and their rights — of that most fundamental right to say, "But what I did was reasonable", and for the court to decide whether it was reasonable. <BR /> <BR />Once you exclude that, you rob the court and the accused of the fundamental right to decide whether what was done was reasonable. That is totalitarianism writ large. That is suppression of protest writ large. That is the fundamental denial of a most basic tenet in respect of any offence that arises in the criminal calendar. It is not, as someone said, a get-out clause. It is not simply about the accused saying, "I had a reasonable excuse". No; they can say, "I think that I had a reasonable excuse, but you, the court, decide whether it was a reasonable excuse".”
“With respect, the Member is absolutely wrong. Clause 5 utterly excludes a court from looking at whether something reasonable caused it, because clause 5 is drafted in absolutist terms. If the person does any of the things in the Bill, because there is no defence of reasonable excuse, they are automatically guilty as charged. It is absolute. Once you prove the actus reus of the offence, it is the endgame: the offence is proven. <BR /> <BR />That is why the Member, in previous interventions, attempted to articulate a case against the reasonableness defence. She wants to be totalitarian. She wants to be absolutist.”
“Why does that offend anyone who believes in "innocent until proven guilty"? Why does that offend anyone who believes that, when criminal prosecutions are brought, someone should have the right to a defence? That offends only if you are an apostle of totalitarianism. That is what absolute offences are about. I welcome the fact that the sponsor — there is no one more enthusiastic about the Bill than the sponsor — has, at Consideration Stage and since, accepted the basic principle that we should create criminal offences that do not expunge that most fundamental tenet of letting a court decide whether or not something is reasonable conduct. To create an absolute offence is a stretch way beyond where the Assembly should wish to go.”
“All they are asked to support is the introduction into the Bill of the very lowest common denominator of criminal defences in respect of an offence: namely, to let the court decide whether what was done was reasonable. That is not by your standards or mine; it is by the standards that the court would set in that respect.”
“It so offends the very principle that the House is so intent on defending, namely that of death through abortion, that you can never have a reasonable excuse to dare to breathe opposition to it. That is the ultimate in totalitarianism, and that is what the Alliance Party, Sinn Féin and the SDLP are embracing today.”
“I will take an intervention after I develop this point. <BR /> <BR />We would be in a situation where we are saying that someone accused of that sweeping offence, which includes silent actions designed to influence, should be afforded the basic tenet that applies in respect of virtually every other criminal offence: having a reasonable excuse. A court would then be required to rule on whether that which was done was reasonable. <BR /> <BR />The alternative is the totalitarianism offered by Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance, whereby, under our rule of law, you simply decree that, "It is an absolute offence. You cannot protest. It can never be reasonable to do so", as you would in Russia. There is no comprehension of there being a reasonable excuse for doing that.”
“Within that ambit, it is overwhelmingly the case that our law provides reasonable excuse for someone accused. By putting that into the Bill, we are being entirely compatible with the trend in creating criminal offences. It is not about asking the Assembly to define what a "reasonable excuse" is, because every case is different. It is about saying to the court, "If the defence is raised by the accused, you decide whether what they did or said was reasonable". It is not the House that will decide what is reasonable. Judging by the House, nothing could be reasonable.”
“Amendment No 4 is very focused. It focuses on the criminal offence that arises in clause 5 and on introducing a very modest modicum of acceptability and reform to that offence. It is a very wide offence. It ranges from embracing harassment and abuse to the mere issue of influence. As it stands, it is an absolute offence. That is to say, like driving your car with no insurance, there is no answer to it. You cannot ever defend yourself against it. It is an absolute offence. <BR /> <BR />In the criminal calendar, that is very rare. It is very rare for a very good reason, namely that the basic premise of a criminal offence is that it comprises the actus reus, which relates to doing the act, and the mens rea, which relates to that which is informed by the mind.”
“The Member speaks, in respect of amendment No 4, about being fearful of giving some opportunity to people to bend and formulate an excuse: legislation puts that exclusively in the hands of the court. It is for the court to decide whether something is a reasonable excuse. It is not self-certification, as appears in other parts of the Bill, by the accused; it is for the court to decide, so there is the protection of the court having to be persuaded that it is a reasonable excuse. It is not just something that you claim and that is the end of it.”
“I just want clarification to make sure that I am following this. What, then, does amendment No 2 add? If you simply exclude clause 9, there would always be the residual powers of the court on this range of issues, so what does amendment No 2 actually add by stating that? Is there a reason for stating it?”
“When I came into the House, I thought for a moment that Minister Poots had changed not just his constituency but his Department, but I am glad that the farmers of South Belfast need not be alarmed. <BR /> <BR />In respect of the Bill that was passed, is the Minister saying that, given the supremacy that has been bestowed on the integrated sector, it would now be unlawful to restore equilibrium to other sectors? Is that not a dreadful commentary on how audacious and wrong-headed the Integrated Education Bill is? It has created an unlevel playing field on which other sectors will be put to detriment.”
“It is wrong that the Assembly should make rules for any succeeding Assembly. On that basis, I am opposed to the amendment.”
“This is an unnecessary provision. We are at a stage where we should embrace normality in the House, and the House should not legislate, as it were, for the next mandate. It is a matter for the next mandate to reach a view. <BR /> <BR />There is some party expediency in the proposals. Proxy voting, in particular, has enabled a lazy and a centralised party approach to the House. Many people vote not knowing, in many instances, I suspect, what they are voting for because they are not even here to listen to the debate. Now, we will compound that by continuing to allow that lazy approach. That approach also allows parties to suppress any notion of dissent in their own ranks. <BR /> <BR />This is ill advised and is incompatible with the fact that we are approaching normality.”
“If that is so, surely the right approach would have been to await the outcome of the independent review. However, the sponsor and those who support her were prepared to gazump that review by rushing forward. Would that not have been the proper order in which to take these things?”
“Positive discrimination translates, on the other side of that formula, into disadvantage to those who do not benefit from the discrimination. Only one sector will benefit from that positive discrimination, and it can do so only to the disadvantage of the other sectors. That is the reality; that is where we are; and that is why I will vote against the Bill today.”
“I trust that the people to whom they said that will realise that their trust was misplaced. That is the reality. There is little point in saying, "I am against something, but I will not take every step that I can to prevent it". That is really what it comes down to.”
“Under the Bill, when Slemish College is oversubscribed, the Department will have to provide the spaces that it needs. When Ballymena Academy is oversubscribed, the response will be, "Sorry. You are not in the top tier. You are not the special ones. You will not get the extra places". That is what it comes down to in real terms. When parents and teachers complain about the fact that their sector, be it maintained or controlled, is getting a raw deal and is not getting the privilege and preference that others are, they can ask Members, "Did you do what you could have done to stop it?".”
“The Ulster Unionist Party and others have used the POC down through the years in many ways where it would be hard to identify that. I am no fan of the POC; I have made that plain to people. There is a sector here, however, that will be discriminated against, and is the petition of concern not meant to provide protection against discrimination? The sector that will be discriminated against is the 93% who do not attend integrated schools. <BR /> <BR />Let me illustrate that. I have four marvellous post-primary schools and more in Ballymena. One is Slemish College, an integrated college. I have nothing against Slemish College; in fact, I have done many things to help it. Another is Ballymena Academy. Both schools are regularly oversubscribed.”