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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“The question that arises from that is this: where was our Health Committee in February when that directive was issued? What questions did it ask of the Minister? What exploration did it make of it? How did it interrogate it? I can find very little evidence of anything in that regard. It is critical that citizens in Northern Ireland are not left behind on this issue and that we get the same fair crack of the whip as elsewhere in this United Kingdom, because we are all commonly paying the same taxes and the same National Insurance contributions and, therefore, should be entitled to the same benefits in that regard.”
“I ask that because people in my constituency and elsewhere who are fearful, and who are already experiencing the loss of their home to provide for social care, want to know whether they are equal citizens. If they are equal citizens, that cap will apply. <BR /> <BR />This week, there has also been focus on the fact that, back in February, the Minister introduced a change to the continuing healthcare scheme to the effect that you are financially eligible for that continuing assistance only if your care can be adequately provided in hospital. That means that no one qualifies, because anyone whose care can only be adequately provided in hospital will be in hospital. How, therefore, can you possibly qualify for that assistance?”
“I want to address the issue of social care in Northern Ireland. Last week, our United Kingdom Government indicated an increase in National Insurance contributions (NIC), with a view to contributing further to the health service, including social care. In association with that, they announced that they would be introducing an £86,000 cap on the amount that anyone would have to pay during their lifetime for their social care when they reach the stage at which they are dependent on residency in some facility. My first question is this: will we, in Northern Ireland, benefit from that same cap? Or, though we will get £400 million as a result of the NIC increase, will that money be diverted elsewhere?”
“So the presumption and the operating basis is that there is a blanket ban on people being excluded. The Minister says that this can be adjusted. Why, then, does she not simply acknowledge the presumption of open justice and allow the court to decide whether it must make an exclusion order, in the light of the interests of justice in each case, on a case-by-case basis? Is that not the way to go?”
“The Minister talks about adjustment by the court. Proposed new article 27A(1) is very clear:”
“I say this to the House: please do not just rubber-stamp clause 9. Take a long, hard look and do the right thing by everyone involved in the criminal justice system.”
“Yes, of course, in cross-examination no one should seek to humiliate or vilify someone who says they are a victim, but, in pursuit of the fundamental that their client is innocent until proven guilty, they must not have their hands tied behind their back, as Gillen has done in those cases. Now we are going to compound that by hiding it behind closed doors. <BR /> <BR />I say this to the Committee and the House: think very carefully about slamming the door on open justice. There is no need for it. You can build in the protection of allowing a judge to do that in cases where it is in the public interest to do so, but abandon this presumption and this blanket ban on open justice, because, by imposing a blanket ban on open justice, you do great despite to the whole process of justice.”
“<BR /> <BR />We are supposed to regard everyone as innocent until proven guilty, but when you fetter cross-examination, you are effectively, perversely reversing that. The presumption in these cases now is almost that you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent, and by hampering, thwarting and destroying effective cross-examination, we have produced that situation. <BR /> <BR />If we are now going to add to that unseemly situation by allowing all proceedings to go on behind closed doors so that no one can see the farce that cross-examination now is in such a trial, I say this to the House: we are headed very much in the wrong direction. We have already done too much, through mere directions, to how such trials are conducted.”
“Under Gillen, however, we now have what I describe as an absurd and dangerous situation where, if you are defending someone against the accusation of someone under 18 years of age, your hands are tied behind your back during cross-examination because the judge has to approve the questions that you will ask and can disapprove the questions that you want to ask. It totally takes the live action and purpose out of cross-examination and means that the evidence is not sifted and tested as it should be. Cross-examination is the essential bulwark that stands between the man or woman accused and their conviction. An effective cross-examination that tests the evidence is the best bulwark for a person in that position.”
“I do not know whether all Members know that, if you are defending someone in respect of a serious criminal offence that involves a complainant who meets the category of "vulnerable" — that can mean someone who is under 18, and many sex cases involve individuals who are under 18, some of whom are considerably sexually experienced — you can ask in cross-examination only the questions that the judge has approved in advance. Cross-examination is a living, evolving part of a trial; you cannot script it. The direction in which it goes is often dictated by the last answer given, and often it takes you into territory where, you suddenly discover, the truth lies.”
“I say to the Committee, "When you come to look at clause 15, please consider conditioning the ban with the threshold of it having to be in the public interest to exclude". Otherwise, it is not just unnecessarily draconian but potentially destructive to essential confidence in our open justice system. <BR /> <BR />I make that comment not least in this context: much of this flows from the Gillen review. It seems to me that in some cases — indeed, in many cases — Members, members of the Committee and people in the Department were star-struck by the eminence of Lord Justice Gillen and thought that, if he said it, it must be right. Lord Justice Gillen has led us to the incredible situation where the cross-examination of some complainants has been so tethered and fettered that it has become farcical.”
“<BR /> <BR />I would have thought that the way to approach it and to obtain a legitimate objective would be to, rather than imposing a blanket ban, insert in what would be new article 27A under clause 15 words like, "Where the court is satisfied that it is in the public interest that a person is to be tried on indictment for a serious sexual offence, the court must give an exclusion direction". That would leave it within the control of the court; instead, the Bill would put it beyond the control of the court by introducing a blanket ban. That will not produce fairness and openness; it will suppress fairness and openness in some cases — maybe in many cases — unnecessarily.”
“Part of the confidence-building aspect of our justice system down through decades and centuries is the fact that we have open justice, that we do not hide behind closed doors and that we generally do not convict people away from the public gaze. That is for the profound and good reasons that we do not want to generate gossip, misrepresentation and misconception of how our justice system operates. Therefore, fundamentally, we operate an open book and a justice system that is open to the public. Of course, there have to be certain exceptions as one progresses through that, but to come to the point in the Bill where we introduce a blanket ban on the public being present at any trial that deals with any serious sexual offence takes the matter far further than it needs to go.”
“I am pretty sure that it is not in the 2008 Order, so why would we not carry the clause through to its apparent logical conclusion, making the offence not just the operation of the equipment and the recording of the image — I am a wee bit intrigued as to what the difference between the two is, but I will leave that to one side — but the distribution for gain or otherwise of such an image? In her winding-up speech, perhaps the Minister can explain why the offence does not have that dimension within its ambit. <BR /> <BR />Clause 15 creates a blanket ban on public access where a trial is taking place relating to a serious sexual offence.”
“I do not anticipate needing to be long, because, one issue apart, I do not really have any fundamental objection to the content of the Bill. I want, though, to make a couple of comments on clause 1, after which the burden of my remarks will relate to clause 15. <BR /> <BR />In clause 1, we have the upskirting and downblousing offences. The point that puzzles me somewhat is this: the clause makes it an offence to operate equipment and to record an image. It does not seem to make it an offence to distribute such an image, for gain or otherwise. I cannot think of where else that might be covered.”
“— that there is a total lack of confidence —.”
“— memorials to gallant RUC dead. Is she really surprised —”
“Does unionist and loyalist confidence matter, or it is only nationalist and republican confidence that matters to the Chief Constable and the Minister? When she talks about reflecting, she must be aware of the irreparable damage done by surrendering the streets of west Belfast for the terrorist funeral of Mr Storey. She must be aware of the compounding of that with many other issues, such as the mistruths about why there was no helicopter to oversee an INLA show of strength. She must surely know of the deep loss of confidence provoked by the Chief Constable's plan to hide from public view —”
“As I recall, the strategy has been with us for about six years — perhaps even more. In that time, expenditure on it has been something over £100 million. Can the First Minister truly say that there has been success commensurate with that value in that time? When we look at the building a united community strategy, what is the message of the failure — it is no surprise to me — to build a united Executive? Does that not jar with the protestations of success in that project?”
“— over Northern Ireland back to the United Kingdom.”
“— is for the EU to surrender its sovereignty —”
“If that is so, any such change is useless in removing the obscenity that is the protocol and does nothing to render it acceptable. What needs to be done —”
“As Tyrone enjoys its hope and glory, I say that that was a wise move by Sam Maguire: well done in that regard. <BR /> <BR />That brings me to my primary topic: Brexit. I want to make it abundantly clear in the House that tinkering with the Union-dismantling protocol, extending grace periods — doing all those cosmetic things — will not change the fundamental objection to that obnoxious protocol. Whatever changes are made — I note that the vigorous implementers have toned down their foolhardy demands and are talking about tinkering etc — the fundamental test of all of that is whether Northern Ireland is still left in a foreign single market for goods subject to a foreign customs code and a foreign VAT regime, overseen by foreign laws and adjudicated on by a foreign court.”
“Saturday certainly was a remarkable sporting spectacle. We saw unbelievable skill, great grit and determination and relentless pursuit of the goal. There was heart-stopping excitement for those who watched. Little wonder that there was such frenetic and ecstatic waving of flags in the colours of red, white and blue as Emma Raducanu swept to victory in the US Open. How timely it was that, at the same time, we had the Last Night of the Proms. As 'Land of Hope and Glory' was belting out in the Royal Albert Hall, Emma was delivering hope and glory on the other side of the Atlantic. I congratulate and pay tribute to her. <BR /> <BR />County Tyrone had its own experience of hope and glory on Saturday, thanks to the very wise decision of Sam Maguire to leave the EU.”
“I did not have the opportunity to know Pat Hume as others did. I did, though, meet her in the European Parliament on a number of occasions, when she accompanied her husband. Certainly, those encounters chime with what has been said in the House about her personal qualities. I therefore very much associate myself with the condolences that have been expressed, first and foremost to the Hume family. The role of a mother and a grandmother is so pivotal in any family that there is a particular void when they pass. I also express condolences to Pat Hume's political family. There is no doubt that they, too, are suffering the loss of someone whom they very deeply respected and valued.”
“It is important that we hear answers from the Minister on that specific point. We should be putting, first and foremost, education with the safety of our children. Our schools, overwhelmingly, are safe locations for our children. Therefore, I reject the idea that, at the first sign of someone anywhere in the class or school, having any sort of symptom, it is everyone out. That is not working, nor will it work.”
“<BR /> <BR />If our schools are to be open, and, clearly, they should be, the presumption must be that children attend school. Yes, this might be more radical, but I would have thought that the approach should be that a child who has symptoms is tested. If the test is positive, they stay at home for 10 days but the other children continue to attend school. If they show symptoms, they are tested; thereby, we maintain continuity of attendance for the far greater number in our schools and we alleviate many of the impossible burdens put upon our teachers. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the fact that the PHA is now going to test children, but I still have this residual query: are the teachers not still going to have the burden of supplying all the administrative work to the PHA? How is that going to work?”
“On Monday, their P4 pupil was sent home for a test. On Tuesday, their P2 pupil was sent home for a test. On Tuesday afternoon, the P6 pupil was sent home for another test. Mr Chambers made a very pertinent point. He talked about the trauma that testing causes to young children, who, in most cases, will be COVID-free, and yet they are subjected to the invasive test, which builds within them a mountain of fear. That is an increasing problem. I have had parents say to me, "My child was terrorised by that. They won't go back to school. They don't want to go back to school. They're scared of another". The parents are scared about what happens if another test is required. We are dealing with tender young lives. It is easy sometimes to forget that.”
“There is no doubt that our schools are in a very fraught situation. I know that as chair of the board of governors of my local primary school, and I declare that interest. Equally, there is no doubt that the present situation has not been functioning adequately, if at all. However, some Members who have spoken in the debate seem intent on whipping up fear about the safety of our schools. It sounds as though some would rather our schools were closed than anything else. That has to be fundamentally wrong. <BR /> <BR />This hokey-cokey business of being tested — being out of school for a test, back in and then back out for another test — is not working. I, like, I am sure, many other Members, have had so many parents getting in touch. One told me that their P6 pupil was sent home on Friday for a test, which took place on Sunday.”
“Given what the Member has said about those processes having already been approved by the Executive in August — I assume that that is correct; I do not know, but I assume so because no one has risen to contradict him on that — and, if that is so, does it not suggest that not only is the debate a stunt but is one that illustrates the risible dysfunctionality of an Executive where one lead party tables a motion to eviscerate a Minister of the other lead party? Is it any wonder that the Executive lack any credibility?”
“That seems to be where the Bill has led many in the House. In other circumstances, they defend the Catholic maintained sector, but, tonight, they are going to vote for a Bill because they like the title of it, without considering the substance of it. That is not what we were sent here to do. I say to the House: reject the Bill.”
“Are we so beholden to perception that we think that we all have to tick a box because there is the nice word "integration" in it and thus vote for something that we do not believe in?”
“The former Minister is absolutely right. Taken together, clauses 6 and 7 are an amazing combo of dictatorship for one sector that has the capacity to liquidate another sector. That is incredible. Not only is this a Bill intent on liquidating academic selection but it seems to be a Bill intent on liquidating much of the Catholic maintained sector. It really is beyond comprehension that the House would move tonight to approve such a fundamental principle. <BR /> <BR />I listened to Mr O'Dowd, who, very systematically and effectively, demolished all the principles in the Bill. He then concluded by saying, "Even though I have demolished all its principles, I am going to vote for it". What is wrong with this House?”
“If the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools is such a body, it must therefore include provision for integrated education. That means that a council that, consciously and deliberately, does not want to have integrated education, because it wants to have its Church schools, is told, under this legislation, in the most draconian of measures, that it:”
“The principles are established by the wording of the clauses. The sponsor of the Bill has just read into clause 7 something that is not there. She said that it talks about employing bodies. It does not. It talks about "education bodies". Her Bill, not me, then defines what "education bodies" are, and her Bill states that they include the Catholic maintained supervisory body. It is therefore her words that establish the principles. <BR /> <BR />Clause 6 goes even further, and we could read it as saying that the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools:”
“That is breathtaking in its arrogance, and the Member is nodding that that is her intent.”
“How arrogant. How absurd. How intolerant is that? It is beyond comprehension that anyone would think that integrated education has such a holy status that it must be imposed involuntarily. That is the effect of clause 7: it is an involuntary imposition. A school might want its own new school, but it cannot have that, because clause 7 says, "No, you must have a different type of school. You cannot have your Catholic school. You must have an integrated school, as defined here".”
“Although he was Education Minister, the Member obviously did not study history very well. <BR /> <BR />I have described clause 7 as audacious. It is so audacious that it is a calculated put-down to the Catholic maintained sector. The imposition that you can have a new school only if it embraces that hard-line definition of integration is put emphatically upon the Catholic maintained sector, because it applies that stipulation to "education bodies", and "education bodies" are defined in clause 13 as including not only the Department and the Education Authority but the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools. <BR /> <BR />Let us read clause 7:”
“In fact, the Member provokes me to change "primacy" to "supremacy". That is what the Bill is about: giving supremacy to the integrated sector. He tempts me into a historical review. One of the mistakes made in Northern Ireland at the outset was to provide other than a single state system of education. What should have been done is that the state should have said, "We will provide a system open to everyone. If any Church or any other body, whatever it is, wants to have a different system, pay for it". If we had done that, we would not be in this mess. Instead, there was generosity to ensure that Churches could continue to run their own schools, and it got to the point where the state ended up funding them 100%. That is what caused the division in our education system, and, in retrospect, it was, I believe, a mistake.”
“What an audacious attempt to impose integrated education. Yes, I will give way.”
“So you could have a situation in which an integrated school is sitting with empty spaces, but you must create a new school, and, in order to create it, you must ignore the fact that there are empty spaces in the existing integrated school.”
“Methinks Mr Lyttle doth protest too much. <BR /> <BR />There is a striking, breathtaking arrogance to the primacy that the Bill insists on bestowing on integrated education, whereby what CCMS provides and what the controlled sector provides is lesser and secondary — to the very point that if anyone ever wants a new school under clause 7, the presumption is that it must be an integrated school. How dare anyone want anything else. How ignorant of anyone to think that, maybe, a different type of school is what they want. It underwrites it and guarantees its delivery. It then has the audacity, in clause 7(2), to decree that the matters that you shall not consider as special circumstances include:”
“Yet, we peddle this fashionable notion that oh, we are so high-minded and so liberal in our outlook that we fail and refuse to recognise the reality and we have this great homogenous view of the world that, even though we know that there are different talents and abilities, we insist on imposing an education system that fails to recognise that. That is exactly what the Bill is about. <BR /> <BR />I will give way, provided that the Member does not lead me further astray and outside the ambit of the Bill.”
“That little excursion began with my perceived exposition of clause 1(1) and the fact that it abhors and outlaws selection and a difference in ability, even though we all know — we know it in our own families — that every kid has a different ability, some academically and some in other directions.”
“In a moment. Anyone who looks back on the fact that we could have successfully, last November, had academic tests, will be conscious of the fact that the Chairman of the Education Committee was one of the cheerleaders against that, advocating and demanding that we did not have that. Of course we then moved to an even worse stage of the pandemic. I will give way to Mr Stalford.”
“Anyone who looks back on the fact that we could have —.”
“In a moment. <BR /> <BR />It has now come to the point of making it clear, out in the open, that its purpose and intent in framing an academic system in Northern Ireland is one that abhors and almost outlaws academic selection by reason of my second point: the primacy that it gives to integration.”
“Of course, it comes from a party that has always put itself in a position to put down academic selection. Last year, it used COVID as the launch pad to ensure that there were no academic tests.”
“The Bill, in clause 12, removes that definition and rewrites it in clause 1. In the rewriting of that definition, it launches its assault on the very concept of academic selection. By statutory provision, it provides that integrated education is defined by various things, including, at clause 1(1)(c): "those of different abilities." You cannot have an integrated school if it does not embrace all abilities. Therefore, you could never have an integrated school based on academic selection. That is a deliberate intent of the Bill. It goes further in clause 1(2): it requires the intentional promotion of people of "different abilities". That underscores the fact that integration abhors selection and that you cannot have selection and integration in the same room. It is an open attack on the very concept of academic selection.”
“There are two points of substance — at least, I think that they are points of substance — that I will make about the Bill. The first is that it is a thinly veiled assault on academic selection. In fact, it is not thinly veiled at all; it is a very determined assault on academic selection. The second one is about the primacy and elitism that it brings to what is called integrated education. <BR /> <BR />The first point about the assault — it is implicit in the Bill — on academic selection arises from the very strategic and deliberate redefinition of "integrated education". Under article 64 of the Education Reform Order 1989, "integrated education" is defined as:”