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 not just about the Economy Minister coming along with a plan. It is about the Economy Minister and the Finance Minister finding the money for that plan, which is very often the greater stumbling block in all those things. <BR /> <BR />However, in the meantime, businesses are bleeding financially and will bleed financially both from the negative impact of people staying away and by the fact of having to equip themselves with staff to carry out the checks. It is a matter of very considerable concern, quite rightly, for business. <BR /> <BR />That brings me to question the worth of the passport or certification process. I will take a practical example. Someone goes into the centre of town who is not vaccinated. They have not taken the test; they cannot produce the certificate.”
“<BR /> <BR />That leads on to a point that many people have touched on: the critical question of who is going to enforce this. We have had pass the parcel from the Executive on enforcing face masks. Who is going to enforce this? The burden on business is indescribably high. If you are running a small hospitality business with a couple of entry points, suddenly, you need two extra staff for whatever hours you are open to do the checking. That has not been in your business plan; that has not been taken into account when the viability of opening up business was decided. However, suddenly, that is the burden and the reality. Frankly, the disproportionate burden on business has not been properly gamed out, and it is a gaping hole amongst some other flaws in the proposal.”
“When the Minister comes to answer, he needs to tell us how the regulation will be judged. What are the criteria by which we will decide whether it is working or not? In a month's time, when the Executive review it, by what criteria will they judge it? That is the best question, and it is the critical question that needs to be answered here tonight. <BR /> <BR />We can look at Scotland. The evidence suggests that certification has not made any positive difference there. One might say the same about the Republic of Ireland. If that is right, what is it about the regulation that causes the Minister to think that certification will be different here? I am not so interested in what the Minister thinks will happen; I am more interested in knowing by what standard the Minister will judge the success or otherwise of the proposition.”
“I have to say that I would have expected that, if the Executive were making a decision, they would not have to go looking for that evidence but that it would have been presented to them. If that was not so, perhaps the First Minister has a point. It still does not explain, however, why one would sign off a winter plan anticipating such a thing. Perhaps there is a bit of ambiguity about that issue. <BR /> <BR />For me, Mrs Erskine asked the key question. She posed a pertinent question about the regulation that you are bringing in: what are the criteria by which you will judge its success or failure? What does it have to show? Does it have to show a reduction in the R rate, in hospital admissions or in deaths? What is the benchmark for the success or failure of the regulation?”
“I hear the Health Minister say, "Oh, yes, there has". The First Minister replies, "Oh, no, there hasn't". It is a bit pantomimish: I have heard others say that it is all there to be read on the Department's website.”
“For the first time, we are making a real, tangible, visible difference between people. That is a wrong step. It is the fundamental reason that I find the idea of COVID passports unacceptable. <BR /> <BR />Other matters trouble me. In order for certification to work, it inevitably requires access to what should be private and confidential health information. It provides government access to very personal data. It requires the sharing of very personal data. Surely, in our health regime, we have a fundamental right to privacy and confidentiality, yet that is unsustainable in the face of the regulation. The First Minister has told us that, although he signed off the winter plan, which, apparently, anticipated certification, no evidence has been presented to the Executive to justify certification.”
“Yet, for me, the certification proposal is a step too far for a number of reasons. <BR /> <BR />My starting point is this: up to this point, every COVID regulation applied equally to us all, whether it was wearing a mask, socially distancing, not going here and not going there. It was universal. The problem that I have with the regulation is that, first and foremost, it causes distinction and differentiation. It picks out those in our community who, for whatever reason — good, bad or indifferent — have chosen not to be vaccinated. It sets them apart as people who cannot go to certain places if they do not go through the hoops of certification.”
“As we debate this legislation tonight, it is highly probable that criminal penalty notices have already been issued in respect of legislation that we have not even voted on. It offends me as a Member of the House and as someone who is elected to be a legislator that legislation is taken for granted. At this very moment, a police officer or someone else could be issuing a penalty notice on proposals that we have yet to vote for. That is not right, and it cannot be right, yet it is the persistent system that we have followed in the House. It is a system that is contemptuous of the House and has been tolerated and, indeed, embraced for far too long. <BR /> <BR />I come to this debate as someone who is double vaccinated and with a booster, convinced about pro-vaccination. I have no difficulties with that at all.”
“May I ask for clarification? Did I hear the Minister correctly when he said that an employee in an establishment requiring COVID certification from the public does not have to produce proof of certification?”
“I want to ask the Minister about the business that clearly fell outside the Health portfolio. I noticed the appointment of 15 people and three chairs to four North/South bodies — the Loughs Agency, InterTradeIreland, the language body and Tourism Ireland — in order to keep those bodies active. Was that agenda item approved for inclusion by the DUP First Minister? How does the Health Minister feel about being the DUP's surrogate when it comes to keeping "North/Southery" on the road?”
“The Minister has proclaimed that it is not unusual for a Budget to go out to consultation without the express endorsement of an Executive vote. The difference this time is that there has been, from what I can glean, the express public disapproval of the majority of parties on the Executive for this proposed Budget. Does that therefore mean that the real political horse-trading that will shape the Budget has yet to come? What is the consequence of that for the holding of a consultation, when it is clear that it is the political haggling that will shape the Budget?”
“Surely the question for you to answer, Minister, is this: why were such unfair criteria set in respect of some agency workers? Can you tell the House how many agency workers are included for the £500 payment and how many, in consequence, are excluded?”
“I welcome the indication of progress in this matter. It is something that has been discussed almost every year since I arrived in the House, so it is good to hear about some progress. I salute the charitable trust, which really got this moving. Will the Minister tell us what, if any, public money is going into this project, which will meet a public demand?”
“Apart from the Executive of which the Minister is a part, the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland must be the most dysfunctional and polemic organisation still in existence. From much of what you read from the Baker Tilly Mooney Moore report, I thought I was listening to an obituary for the Executive. <BR /> <BR />I will ask two things, if I may. In your statement, you referred to an operational issue that has impeded registration since August. What is that? Secondly, what assurance is there that those who have been found so wanting will not just move to the next awaiting quango? What restrictions exist on people who are found so wanting so that they cannot move on to that next body and inflict the same failure there?”
“Yet we had commentators, like Chris Donnelly, who is deployed from time to time to pontificate on the BBC, asking what was offensive about it. It was wholly offensive and, indeed, sick. It demonstrated that, for some, making victims is not enough; they also have to deride and tramp on their graves. Shame on those who promoted such a sick video at this time of year.”
“Ann Travers reminded us that her young sister had been murdered by the IRA, and she said:”
“For many of us, Christmas is a joyous family time, and understandably so. For some, particularly victims of terrorism, it is a time of remembrance, heartache and the empty chair at the dinner table. And yet some in our society think that it was not enough to make victims; it is also necessary to deride them and to visit great hurt upon them. We had another example of that in recent days through a particularly sick video by Gerry Adams, glorifying the slogan of a murderous organisation, poking fun at people "not having not gone away, you know", which was directed quite clearly at the victims of terrorism. <BR /> <BR />One of those victims, Austin Stack, whose father was shot and fatally wounded by the IRA, said:”
“Can the commissioner tell us, in this centenary year of Northern Ireland, given the vast supply of artefacts and emblems that the Commission hides away in a warehouse, how many of them were put on display during the centenary year, and how much the Commission continues to pay to hide away those artefacts in a huge warehouse?”
“Having refused to allow a centenary stone, has the Commission no shame about its barefaced disrespect for unionist interests? That disrespect is shown to the very point that the request for it to lobby for the planting of a tree to mark the platinum jubilee of Her Majesty, whose Assembly this is in constitutional terms, draws a blank from the Commission.”
“Despite the authority of the Fiscal Council's documentation on the net fiscal balance, which, on page 36, it clearly articulates as being £10·3 billion, the Minister still seeks to cling to his debunked, spurious assertion to the House in times past, such as in February 2020, that the net fiscal balance is only £3 billion. Here we have it on the highest authority, yet the Minister still thinks that he knows better or, rather, that his politics know better.”
“The statement refers to a British-Irish Council paper on language acquisition in early years. Can one acquire that paper? I looked at the British-Irish Council website, and there is no mention of it. Indeed, it is a website that, on early years, has not been updated, it seems, from 2016. Is that paper available to Members? Does it deal with more than indigenous minority languages? Presumably, it does. Is there any duty in our Departments to encourage languages other than minority languages, such as French and Spanish, which are, obviously, of potential economic advantage?”
“The Member indicates that he anticipates putting the word "willing" before "participation" in a hunt. I suggest to him that that solves nothing because, in clause 6(3), the participation is not in the hunt but in the activity from which the dog then hunts. So, mere willing participation does nothing to diminish the problem. The problem that the Member has with this is that, deliberately, he sought to make it a strict liability offence. Unless he relinquishes that, he will not make amends on this. If he is relinquishing that, the proper thing to do, since that is the cornerstone of the Bill, is to withdraw the Bill and come back with one that does not have that cornerstone.”
“Where is the strict liability in respect of badger baiting?”
“Yes. I am sorry that Mr Lyttle was not listening to me. I made it plain that I do not support the principle of the Bill because it is to criminalise walking my dog. I cannot accept that.”
“I am sorry that the Member was not listening.”
“I can only respond by saying that the Member is correct. This, to put it shortly, is pro-pest legislation. Save the pest; criminalise the dog walker.”
“The dog that chases the rabbit is not doing so out of a call of conscience; it is doing it out of natural instinct. Yet, we want to make natural instinct a criminal offence.”
“The actus reus of the offence is the dog hunting the rabbit. You do not need any mens rea or any intent. That is it. End of. <BR /> <BR />Mr Stalford made a point about the cruelty, but I do not hear talk about some of our diminishing species. Take the curlew, to which foxes present a real threat. I am sure that, when the fox catches the curlew and pulls it to bits, it is pretty cruel, but, in this situation, the only interest is in who catches the fox. How can that be right?”
“Not "in the course of which a man and dog hunt" but:”
“If the Bill stopped at clause 6(1), yes; but clause 6(1) is then superseded by clause 6(3), which is the point that takes you to the position where the man is walking the dog, the dog is off the lead, and the dog runs away and chases. That is all it takes. If it hunts a rabbit, the offence is complete, because the man has been taking part in an activity, as clause 6(3) states:”
“I will start here and work round, if I have time.”
“No, Mr Stalford, we are talking about much more. I could begin to understand the Bill if that is what it was talking about. The Bill is talking about any chase, anywhere, by any dog, of any mammal. That is what the Bill is talking about. If the intent was what Mr Stalford says and what Mr Blair might later tell us really was his intent, why was it not drafted that way? Why was it drafted in that wholly inclusive way, that means that it becomes a strict liability offence for a dog to chase a rabbit?”
“The first knock at the door will be from the PSNI on foot of a criminal conviction, asking him to hand over his shotgun, all because Mr Blair thinks that it is right to create a strict liability offence out of a dog doing the natural thing of chasing a rabbit. That is why I say that this is absurd legislation in its reach and in its intent. As Mr Blair told the Agriculture Committee, he wanted to create a strict liability offence. That is what he wants the House to vote for — to create such a strict liability offence. That is why I will not vote for the Bill.”
“The other activity could be walking the dog. Many's a Sunday afternoon, when I had a golden retriever, I walked by the banks of the Kellswater River. Under this legislation, had my dog run off and killed a rabbit — not even killed it but chased and hunted it — I would be guilty of an offence. How absurd is that? <BR /> <BR />It is not just loose, careless drafting. Clause 6(3) is there for a purpose. It is there to underscore the strict liability of clause 1. It is there, deliberately and consciously, to make it a strict liability offence if you are engaged in an activity such as walking your dog and your dog merely chases or hunts a mammal. In that instance, you have committed an offence. <BR /> <BR />What happens to a farmer in the community when he is convicted of an offence such as that and he holds a firearm certificate?”
“I say that because of the marriage between clause 1 and clause 6(3). Clause 6(3) is clear. The proposed section 1 makes it a strict liability offence to participate in the hunting of a wild animal with a dog. Clause 6(3) states:”
“It does not matter that you told the wife to renew it and she did not do it. It does not matter. No excuse will stop a prosecution for driving with no insurance, for the good reason that it is critically of public interest importance that you do not allow any leeway for circumstances in which other members of the public can be injured by your acts. Therefore, you cannot have any excuse for not having insurance. Strict liability offences are few and far between in the law. Another example is statutory rape. If someone has intercourse with someone aged 14 or under, it does not matter what consent, excuse or belief as to age there was; it is statutory rape. It is a strict liability offence. Mr Blair seeks to create the strict liability offence where, if you are out walking a dog and that dog chases a mammal, it is an offence.”
“I will give way at the end, if I have time, because time is limited. <BR /> <BR />There does not even have to be a kill to create illegality under the Bill. It is the chase that is to be criminalised by the Bill in a way that is wholly oppressive, because clause 1 creates a strict liability offence, as Mr Blair intends. The starting point and the finishing point in the Bill is that you shall create a strict liability offence. What is a strict liability offence? It is one in which you do not have to bother with showing intention, for which there is no excuse and which, if it happens, is an offence, no matter the circumstances. Let us take some examples. Driving with no insurance is a strict liability offence. It does not matter that you forgot to renew or thought you had renewed your insurance.”
“Indeed, that is exactly why one of the last Acts of the old Parliament in Northern Ireland was the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 1972, followed through with some updates by this House in 2011. For those 50 years, it has been a criminal offence to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal in any circumstances, including in the course of hunting. Cruelty itself is defined in that legislation as "unnecessary suffering". From listening to some in this debate, you would think that we were entering into the novel territory of suddenly embracing the concept of avoiding cruelty to animals for the first time. However, the Bill is not about targeting cruelty; it is about targeting hunting per se. That is the target in the Bill.”
“When looking at any legislative proposal, a good starting point is asking this question: is the current law adequate? In Mr Stalford's last intervention, he made the point that:”
“I think that, if I may say so, it is overreach on the Bill sponsor's part with regard to imposing his view of the world on country communities in particular.”
“First, I apologise to Mr Blair and to the House because I was not in the House for his opening remarks and the early parts of this debate. I had to attend a family funeral earlier today. <BR /> <BR />The Bill is ill-considered, needless and, in some parts, it is very poorly drafted. It really is a triumph of prejudice against some country pursuits.”
“It is clearly a strict liability offence. That is the principle that he has put in the Bill, and that is the principle that the Member now asks him to resile from.”
“Which Mr Blair does the Member think we should listen to? Is it the one who has just spoken or the one who told the Agriculture Committee that he had:”
“We are at the point where the Caravans Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 is to be reviewed. This is a timely occasion for the caravan petitioners to make the case that the 2011 Act needs to have root-and-branch change, in order to give them security of tenure and protection against extortionate treatment and to ensure that they have a situation that is tenable and fair. That is why the petition is entitled 'Fairness for Caravan Owners'.”
“There has also been the introduction of new rules without consultation with caravan holders, putting an arbitrary limit on the age of a caravan that can be sustained on a site, along with coercive pressure to purchase new caravans from the park owners and limitations on who else you can purchase from. Then, there have been attempts to monopolise the ancillary services — again, sometimes, at extortionate rates. For example, many people who want to place decking by their caravan have been told that they can have that done only by the staff and the contractors of the park owners, and therefore extortionate prices can be charged. <BR /> <BR />One of the things that go to the very heart of the inequity is a refusal by some caravan park owners to recognise and coordinate with owners' associations.”
“Among the grievances is the fact that they have no security of tenure on a caravan park. They get a licence from one year to the next, and, then, at the end of that year, they are vulnerable, as has happened this year in one park, to exorbitant demands for increases in pitch fees — in one case, a 35% increase, which is unconscionable and unacceptable. The first thing that caravan owners require on their sites is security of tenure. That is absolutely vital.”
“This petition, signed by 3,768 people, represents families across Northern Ireland who have grave grievances over the manner of their treatment by some, but, I stress, not all caravan park owners.”
“I am staggered by what the Member has said. Anyone who knows anything about repercussive costs knows that, if the Assembly were to proceed down this unique route in the United Kingdom, inevitably, there could and would be repercussive costs. Frankly, to swipe that away and say, "I do not accept it" is not good enough, particularly from the Chair of a Committee.”
“Does the Minister agree that, among the many issues that need to be reviewed, there are two in particular that cry out for attention, namely the need to bring regulation to exorbitant increases in pitch fees, which, in some cases, have been as high as 35% in any one year, and the need to bring security of tenure for caravan owners on their existing sites?”
“Where do we stop with this matter of accelerated passage? Next week, we have a justifiable case to improve benefit access for people who are terminally ill; of course there is an exceptional time issue with that. However, there was no exceptional time issue that saw the feet-dragging from January 2020 to November 2021 on this issue. Therefore, on that basis, I will not support accelerated passage, though I support the Bill.”