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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“I understand that there may be some need to disapply them up until the end of the current emergency, but why would we want to disapply until the end of the 2022-23 financial year the key protective measures that lie in Part 12 of the Local Government Act? That seems to me more than is warranted by the current COVID emergency, and it is a detriment that the House should not embrace. I have equally serious concerns about clause 5(2). <BR /> <BR />The rest of the Bill is COVID-related and, on that basis, has a justification for moving forward swiftly. I am content with that but not with the issues that I have identified.”
“It is not a COVID-related change but a permanent change to the Local Government Act, and I do not think that we should amend the Local Government Act in such a permanent way through rushed legislation. <BR /> <BR />That brings me on to clause 5(2). I am not convinced of the need, nor do I see the need, to extend to the end of the 2022-23 financial year the possible disapplication of large sections of the Local Government Act. Clause 5(2) would disapply Part 12. Part 12 of the Local Government Act has 19 sections, and they are significant sections. Those are the sections that we have been talking about: section 84 right through to section 102.”
“I say to the House that, if, properly, we are taking clause 2 out of the Bill, with a view to future legislation, equally, we should take out clause 3 so that it can be sifted and assessed adequately and completely, rather than rushed through, because it is a permanent change.”
“I say that not least in the context that, frankly, there are occasions when the auditory processes in local government do not build confidence. That arises in part because the local government auditor appoints a staff member who is embedded in a council for five years. Frankly, in my experience, the relationship becomes far too cosy. <BR /> <BR />I have had experience in my area, and the Minister has made some directions in respect of the council that I refer to, where special audits have been ordered as necessary. That arose only because of the too cosy relationship, I believe, between the member of Audit Office staff and that council. If we are to diminish it further, whereby there does not even have to be an annual audit, that is not a safe or proper direction of travel.”
“However, sections 93 and 94 are about the carrying out of the audit; section 95 is about the publicising, if something is found. There is not the alignment that is suggested, I respectfully suggest, between sections 93, 94 and 95. The effect of clause 3 is to remove permanently the need for the Audit Office to annually audit councils in regard to the standards of sections 92 and 84. That is a big step. It is not a step, I respectfully suggest, to be taken in rushed legislation. <BR /> <BR />If clause 2 is to come out, with a view to returning to it on a more timely occasion, equally, I suggest that clause 3 should come out, on the basis that the House needs time to consider whether it wants to make the changes that clause 3 suggests.”
“I respectfully disagree. Section 95 is about a different thing; it is about the publishing of audit findings. Sections 93 and 94 are about the conduct of the audits. At the moment, in section 95(1), we have this provision:”
“I have just read a large part of section 84. Then, in section 93, we have the situation where the Audit Office, particularly on the financial side, must carry out an audit each year to determine whether the council is discharging that function in section 92. In section 94, the Audit Office must do likewise in respect of improvement assessments. That covers such things as efficiencies. The Audit Office, given that efficiency is one of the tests, will carry out an audit to see whether a council is performing its functions efficiently and making efficiencies. In other words, is a council giving good value for money to the ratepayers who pay its way? <BR /> <BR />The Minister told us — indeed, the explanatory and financial memorandum also tells us — that all that clause 3 does is to tidy up to make an alignment between sections 93, 94 and 95.”
“Linked to that is section 92, which is very important. It says:”
“In discharging its duty, the Act says, the council:”
“I do not have any difficulty with the portions of the Bill that directly relate to the COVID crisis, but, as I indicated earlier, I strongly object to the initial attempt, under that guise, to bring in other amendments. I welcome the fact that the Minister will desist in that regard in respect of clause 2. Now that I have had time to study clause 3, I have to say that it is in the same category. It is a change to be made permanently. It is not COVID-related. It is making a strategic change to the Local Government (Northern Ireland) Act that the House passed in 2014. It particularly seeks to clip the wings of sections 93 and 94 of that Act. <BR /> <BR />When you look at the Local Government Act of 2014, you see that the pivotal starting point for all that is section 84, which creates a general duty on a council to:”
“Right up until the end of the financial year 2022-23, we will give powers to remove Part 12 of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 2014. Part 12 has some critical powers. It has the power in section 98 of special inspections of councils. It has the power in section 100 to issue directions to councils. Under the cloak of COVID, there is a severe danger that there will be much corner-cutting by some councils. The Department should not surrender powers way into the future to hold councils to account on those things. <BR /> <BR />I am glad that the Minister has accepted that she will not move clause 2, but I would like to know why we ever got to a position of having to progress this legislation in such haste in the first place.”
“A matter that further troubles me is that I have heard no explanation of why this was left to be rushed. Why, when it was known that the regulations had an expiry date in May, was action not taken sooner? Why was it left until the last minute? Who was asleep at the wheel? The House is due a proper explanation of why the matter evolved in this manner. <BR /> <BR />Clause 2 could not be permitted by any self-respecting House to pass on accelerated passage. It is a shameless power grab that, from what I listened to, does not even seem to have been foreshadowed to the Committee. The Committee seems to have been advised that the legislation was necessary for the COVID situation, yet, cloaked within it, we have a shameless power grab in clause 2. I will also say more about that later. <BR /> <BR />Clause 5(2) also concerns me.”
“Any legislature should feel averse to the very concept of accelerated passage.”
“What progress has been made in repairing the devastation of our east-west links? The answer is "none", which means that I want to register the view that North/Southery should not be proceeding so long as the east-west has been trashed. I trust that the new DUP leader will so ensure and wipe the smile off Sinn Féin, who take pleasure in the DUP's acquiescence in the current situation.”
“Further to that point of order, I certainly welcome the fact that my application to have the Building illuminated tonight has been granted. This is the successor Chamber of the Northern Ireland Parliament. This is a momentous day. It is a slight upon all who value it that, within the Chamber, that event is consciously and deliberately being refused to be marked. Shame on the situation.”
“On a point of order, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker. Is it not beyond ridiculous that, in this, the centenary of the official opening of the Northern Ireland Parliament, that event is to go wholly unmarked in the Chamber today? Why is that?”
“Does the Minister agree that the real and lasting cost of his implementation of the protocol is the distortion of trade arising from the intolerable impediments on trade within the United Kingdom and, of course, from the looming costs that have yet to land from the EU diktat that the cost of all the checks must be passed on to businesses? Have those costs even been quantified? How disastrous will they be?”
“I have no doubt that he will be missed in the manner that has been expressed today. To all who are affected, I express my thoughts and prayers. I cherish the service that, as a public servant, Gordon Dunne gave to North Down and to Holywood in particular. From my family connections there, I know the assiduous nature of his service in that community.”
“I join in the generous and deserved tribute to Gordon Dunne upon his passing, which is a reminder to us all of our own mortality. I have known Gordon Dunne for many years. The tributes that have been paid sum up the man as honourable, straightforward, without malice and, as a consequence, very personable. He served his constituency extremely assiduously. He was the personification of the constituency representative in his commitment to ensuring that the needs of his constituents were always to the fore. That is a good example for us all. <BR /> <BR />I express my condolences to his wife and family; to his siblings and wider family, some of whom, in fact, are members of my party; and to his political family in the DUP, of which he was such a stalwart for so long.”
“How true. <BR /> <BR />To the new beholden First Minister, Mr Givan, I say that we have given more than we have left to give — far too much. Unionism has been stretched beyond giving point, and, by living up to your name, Mr Givan, you will ensure that this Poots/O'Neill Government will go down in history as the P O'Neill Government. What a pitiful, hopeless place unionism has been brought to by the poodle brothers of Poots and Givan.”
“Today is a day of victory for ransom politics. It is a day of indisputable victory for Sinn Féin. It is a day of shame and humiliation for the DUP, added to by the fact that the nomination made today was in defiance of a vote of the DUP Assembly group, where as many as 24 of those gathered voted against rolling over and proceeding. Doing Sinn Féin's bidding mattered more to the DUP leader. In recent days, the DUP leader has been spoken to like a small boy by Sinn Féin. He has been told what he can do, what he cannot do and when he can do it. Today, he spinelessly rolled over, having paid the ransom and having paid the Dane-geld. Mr Poots, I say to you: power bought by paying the Sinn Féin ransom is power not worth having. <BR /> <BR />Kipling said of the folly of paying the Dane-geld:”
“I am interested to know whether, in pursuing its work on the matter, the Committee surveyed Members to find out how many are fluent and capable of making a five-minute speech in Irish and how many in Ulster Scots? Do we know that?”
“— to the point at which Sinn Féin now thinks that not only can it select its own Ministers but it can select other parties' Ministers. That is the sham that this place has become.”
“Let me remind the House that the all-precious-to-some Belfast Agreement provided for how language issues were to be dealt with. It delivered a settlement in that regard. It was not any of this, but, of course, as ever, there is an insatiable dimension to all of this, and the same approach ever persists: pocket what you can and go on to demand more. We are seeing that day and daily —”
“He could certainly count on my support if the amendment referenced financial matters, but it does not. It has the vague, opaque phrase "appropriate demand". There is no linkage to the financial cost. None whatsoever. If the Member wanted to address that, he should have made that clear in his amendment, but, amended or unamended, the motion is unacceptable to me. I will vote against it, amended or otherwise, because there is something more important to me than squandering money in that fashion. We should be genuinely addressing the real, abiding, painful needs in our society rather than ticking a box so that Sinn Féin can say, "Ha! We got another one over on the wretched unionists". That is really what this is all about. <BR /> <BR />Mr McNulty told us, "Here are deals. Here are agreements".”
“I think I will take my direction from the Chair. I am not denigrating it; I am stating the reality. This is the prioritisation of something that is more important to the Member who just spoke, by virtue of the vote that he will deliver tonight, than the situation of his constituents. If we really cared about the pain and suffering of our constituents, we would not be wasting money; we would be channelling every last penny into addressing those needs.”
“Shame on this House for having that priority. Yes, I will give way.”
“Am I to say, "The Assembly that I belong to cares more about a vanity project of interpretation into Irish than it does about the fact that you are on a Zimmer, in increasing pain, not getting to sleep and not able to cope with the pain. It cares more about translating into Irish than it does about putting money into alleviating your situation"?”
“It is not that there are Members of the House who do not speak and understand English, or who are inhibited in their participation in the House because of their lack of a grasp of English. Everyone in the House speaks and understands English, and yet we have this farce of squandering precious resources by pouring them into the unnecessary provision of simultaneous translation. We then say that we really care about the health service. <BR /> <BR />Tomorrow morning, when I do one of my weekly advice centres, I am quite sure that, as happens most weeks, one of the people waiting to see me will say, "Mr Allister, I have been on a waiting list for three years. I can't get seen". What am I to say to that person?”
“This morning, the Assembly began an early part of its business by discussing the appalling waiting lists in our community. Right across the House, people paid lip service to the urgency and the top priority of addressing the fact that over half a million people in our community are on waiting lists and that some have been on those waiting lists for years. Tonight, however, the Assembly will end its business by declaring that it has a greater priority. It wants to take precious resources, which could make some small contribution towards tackling those waiting lists, and prioritise its spend on Irish language provision in the House. It is not the case that any Member of the House is prohibited from speaking Irish. Standing Orders guarantee that.”
“I am intrigued by the words in the amendment "where there is appropriate demand". How is that quantified? Does that mean that, if no one can speak Ulster Scots, you simply liquidate that part of the package? Does it mean that, if only half a dozen people occasionally want to hold forth in Irish, you do not have the service? How do you quantify it?”
“If it does not offend the Sinn Féin controllers of the Commission, I suggest that, in the interest of the bees, a rose bed could be planted to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland, and then the bees could feed on the nectar that is produced. What could be wrong with that?”
“We saw the scandalous refusal of a centenary stone, the refusal to deploy in an exhibition the artefacts that range over many decades — artefacts that are stored away at public cost and never allowed to see the light of day — and the refusal even to light up the Building in memory of innocent victims of terrorism. Why is it that this Commission does nothing that does not fit with the Sinn Féin agenda?”
“I suggest that, this year, under this Commission, we have seen overt oppression of any non-republican expression.”
“The question was about what progress has been made. I did not hear much about progress. I heard a lot of talk about talk, but no action. Indeed, half the answer was devoted to answering a different question about connections on the island of Ireland. The question is about inter-UK connections, and I did not hear mention of the key connection: the A75. Is the Minister still so grossly disinterested in that that she does not even mention it?”
“In light of the Minister's response to my previous intervention and what he has just said, will he explain to the House why we have all seen pictorial presentations of an indoor meeting of the British-Irish Council last weekend with unmasked individuals participating indoors?”
“Before the Minister leaves the matter of indoor gatherings, what regulation currently pertains to indoor gatherings where public officials meet? Is there a requirement to wear face masks?”
“I express solidarity with the Minister in facing the bile of the Member of Parliament for North Antrim. <BR /> <BR />The Minister says that the most important issue facing us is the one that he has addressed today. Unfortunately, half of the Government, of which he is a part, disagrees. They think that foisting Irish language legislation on Northern Ireland, by whatever means, is much more important. Is that not a huge credibility problem for the Executive? <BR /> <BR />In that vein, I do not read a word in the statement about increasing the number of beds in our health service. Under devolution, almost 2,000 beds and all the accompanying staff have been removed from our health service, and then we are surprised by where we are. Has the Minister a plan to build back in our health service? Whatever happened to the 2017 elective programme?”
“The Court of Appeal judgement was a shocking indictment of the Department, its relevant officials and its processes. The Minister is not prepared to tell us whether, in consequence, any staff will be disciplined. Is she prepared to tell us whether the Department is still relying on the legal advisers who told it that it had a worthwhile appeal and wasted further public money? Is the Department aware of further pending challenges apart from the one referred to in the Minister's statement?”
“On the issue of quantifying the number of cases with hernia mesh problems, can the Minister give us some indication of that? A small number of constituents have raised the issue with me, and, as Ms Bradshaw said, they all report a dismissive attitude towards their situation. Can the Minister quantify how many people are making complaints about the issue?”
“<BR /> <BR />North/South bodies are included, but they operate on a different financial year. I would like clarification on how that is to be reconciled. How do we read across in a calendar financial year and in an April-to-March calendar year for the North/South bodies?”
“How does that impede independence? I sit on the Audit Committee, so I have some insight into how the Northern Ireland Audit Office presents its accounts etc. One of my biggest concerns is that it has a very opaque arrangement in the local government side of its auditing. There does not seem to be much definition of its budgets and of how it conducts itself etc. Regardless of whether there is a connection, I have always experienced considerable disappointment with how the Audit Office, with any sort of vigour, audits some local government organisations. I am concerned that the Audit Office and, particularly, the auditing of local government, which lies within it, are outside the remit of the Bill. I look forward to hearing why that is the case for all those bodies and what further plans there are for the future.”
“As I understand it, NI Water is an NDPB, so why is it not included? I am struggling to understand why that is so, because, if we are to have read-over in all these matters, we need a consistency of flow, particularly when you consider that bodies like Translink led the demand for more and more cash during COVID, for example, yet we do not seem to have the transparency that we would like. Likewise, NI Water has huge capital needs. Is the Bill not going to do anything to help us analyse all that in an open and transparent way? <BR /> <BR />The Audit Office is specifically excluded. Of course, I understand that it has to have maximum independence, but surely we are not talking about impinging on its independence when we talk about setting out the road map that it should follow in how it portrays its budgets.”
“I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate. Some of the points that I will make may well have been made. I very much welcome the principles of the Bill. It is long overdue. The financial review goes back about a decade, and here we are, finally getting round to the first piece of legislation. As I recall, the financial review will require further legislation. Will the Minister indicate what else is intended to be brought forward to implement the financial review and whether it will require further legislation? <BR /> <BR />Ms Dolan made reference to the absence of some bodies. I, too, am concerned about that. Translink, NI Water, the Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA) and the trust ports are, in the main, big spenders. The Driver and Vehicle Agency is not, but Translink and NI Water in particular are.”
“It was no banter, and it was no parody; it was a calculated slur on, undoubtedly, one of the hardest working Ministers in the House. On many occasions, I have had cause to disagree with the Minister, but to think that such a spectacle would unfold courtesy of a Member of Parliament is truly, truly appalling.”
“Not for the first time, the Member of Parliament for my constituency has embarrassed himself through his buffoonery, his words and his deeds. This time, he added an appalling layer of vicious insult: an unwarranted attack on the Health Minister that was delivered in circumstances and in a manner that would have caused many of his constituents to cringe at his being their elected Member of Parliament. <BR /> <BR />The incident demonstrates yet again Mr Paisley's capacity for flawed judgement. That any public representative at such an event would think it appropriate to bound onto the platform to roar out those insults shows a serious lack of judgement. We are told that he apologised, and that is good. However, the initial response that I heard was an attempt to wave it off as banter and parody.”
“We cannot look back without looking forward. We look back on the time of Mrs Foster as First Minister, and we now look forward to whether there will be another in that position. I make the point — it is clear and indisputable — that the absurdity of the system puts a question mark over that and takes us back into the doldrums of ransom politics. That is not a good place for the House to be.”
“The absurdity is underscored by the fact that a party that does not want Northern Ireland to exist, never mind succeed, now has a veto on whether her successor can ever take office. What an absurd system, one that enables that party — Sinn Féin — to make —.”
“We have had many disagreements, and we still have, but Arlene conducted herself in office with considerable poise and presence that will not be easy to replicate. In all my dealings with her, I found her straightforward and honourable. I have known Arlene for many years, both in this life and in her previous life in the law. <BR /> <BR />It could not be said, though, that her removal from office was either straightforward or honourable, and it leaves a considerable scar on the body politic. We had a power grab with no perceptible policy change and, clearly, with no gaming of what would happen next, which means that, because of the absurdity of the system in the House, we are now back into ransom politics.”
“Mind you, "retiring" is the last word that you would associate with Arlene Foster, but there we are.”