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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“In the same vein, the Member's Committee has considered a successive number of these regulations, each of which bears the affirmation that no impact assessment was made. Sometimes, it says that there was no "regulatory impact assessment" or simply no "impact assessment". Has it never given the Committee concern that it has been asked to consider regulations where there has been no impact assessment?”
“Is it not utterly fatuous to say that we could not have inspectors if we do not pass the statutory instrument? This statutory instrument is about robbing the Minister of any discretion. It is amending each relevant section in each of the current Acts to state that the Minister will make such orders as are called upon by the protocol. Without the protocol, the Minister could make whatever directions he wants about inspections, but, with the protocol, he can make only those that EU directives require him to make, and that is something that he can never, ever change. It is enslavement, and the Minister well knows that. Shame on him for trying to put it upon this House.”
“I do not and will not consent to that, and I am very sad that some who should know better — I wonder whether they even read the regulations — will endorse the very enslavement of this place to EU rules.”
“Under annex 2, the protocol binds Northern Ireland to over 300 EU directives and regulations, leaving us unable to ever change them and obliged to follow whatever changes Brussels makes to them without any consultation or input from us. <BR /> <BR />This is a shameful day for our legislative Assembly. We are being asked to surrender the right to legislate according to our own needs and to have that right suborned to the diktat of EU regulations and directives. Strip away all the fancy words, and that is what this statutory instrument is about. It puts upon the people of Northern Ireland 45 EU directives and regulations that we can never change.”
“<BR /> <BR />We were told — we were promised — that Brexit was about making our own laws. The iniquitous protocol sets Northern Ireland apart as a place that will not make its own laws, and here we have Members of the House meekly and limply advocating that we enslave ourselves in that very way. I am not prepared to consent to that, so, when the opportunity arises, I will seek to give the House the opportunity to vote against this enslavement. To me, it is an utterly retrograde and appalling measure that separates us from the United Kingdom and deprives us of the right to make our own laws on these subjects. It underwrites the annexation of Northern Ireland into the orbit of the EU by subjecting us, under annex 2 of the protocol, to these 45 directives, of which there are many more scores to come.”
“Under the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, we subject ourselves to two EU directives that we can never change. Therefore, let no one mislead the House or the public by pretending that this is only a technical measure that involves no change of policy. This involves the most fundamental change to the manner in which we are governed in decades, and, of course, it says to us that no longer will this House or a Minister of this House decide what legislation governs these subjects. We will be bound and chained to 45 EU directives and regulations that we cannot change. That is the seriousness of what this statutory instrument does, and it is most disappointing to me that a DUP Minister is here in the House urging and advocating that enslavement.”
“In other words, what we are doing in the statutory instrument is surrendering the power of the devolved Assembly to make our own laws that touch on these issues and intend instead to commit ourselves irreversibly to imposing the laws that are in the protocol: laws that we do not make, that we cannot change and into which we have absolutely no input. Yet the statutory instrument enslaves the House to not one, not 10 but 45 EU directives and regulations. It commits us to the unquestioning adherence to and implementation of each and every one of those. <BR /> <BR />Under the Plant Health Act (Northern Ireland) 1967, we unalterably impose 11 EU directives and regulations. Under the Diseases of Animals (Northern Ireland) Order 1981, we enslave ourselves to 32 EU directives and regulations that we cannot change.”
“This statutory instrument marks a seminal moment in the Assembly. For me, it is a most disturbing moment, which should, frankly, be equally disturbing to anyone with any fidelity to the Union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Contrary to what some unionist Members read from their weekly paper press release, this is not a statutory instrument that is merely technical and makes no policy change. It signals a fundamental change in the manner in which we are to be governed because it amends the statutes of the United Kingdom in these subject matters to require the Minister to make such orders as are "necessary" by the relevant protocol.”
“Looking forward, Minister, under the iniquitous protocol, overheads and production costs will be very adversely affected by reason of feedstuff and fertiliser imports. What is the likely consequence for profitability, for farm-gate prices and, indeed, for consumer prices, of the gallows for the Union that Mr Poots is building at our ports?”
“Last week, I asked the Business Committee to list, for this afternoon's business, the Further Consideration Stage of my private Member's Bill. The Committee refused to do so. Yet now, we arrive at a point where, after Question Time, there is no business for the House. <BR /> <BR />Why did the Business Committee not, as a precaution, list a second piece of business, so that that Bill could have been progressed? Now, neither Bill is to be progressed. What sort of management is that?”
“It is not on this matter. It is on a different matter.”
“I want to return to the question of openness and transparency with regard to Waterways Ireland. The Minister has told us that it has no board. That means that there are no minutes that any member of the public could ever read. In fact, when my office phoned Waterways Ireland to ascertain how one could follow its work, we were told to read its annual report. Read its annual report? The 2016 report has just been published this year. We are in the ridiculous situation where even the Chair of the Committee has to come to the House to ask what projects are under way. If there are no minutes, no accountability and no oversight, how is a member of the public meant to follow the work of Waterways Ireland as it spends our public money? Is it not a farcical situation?”
“I read in this statement that the intergovernmental agreement proclaims a focus on support for victims. Does that extend to seeking truth for IRA victims who died because the Dublin Government assisted in the spawning of the Provisional IRA? Does it extend to those who failed to obtain justice because the Dublin Government denied extradition for decades and allowed collusion between the gardaí and the Provisional IRA? Does any of that interest the Minister enough to have pressed her Dublin counterpart for truth and justice for such victims, whom she should represent?”
“Given the very clear connection between our prisons and our criminal justice system, does the Minister think it appropriate to join in a tribute to Lord Kerr, who sadly passed away suddenly this morning? Lord Kerr was a man whom I knew throughout my professional life, first as a member of the Bar and then as he progressed through the various tiers of the judiciary. He served with distinction at a time when many judges were under serious threat, and some were murdered by the IRA. Of course, he became our Lord Chief Justice and went on to be our representative in the Supreme Court until just three months ago. Will the Minister join in a tribute to him and in extending condolences to his wife, Gillian, and family?”
“Yes, please. So that we are clear on this, I will say that part of the cause of the total disrespect of the processes of the House is the indolence of the Executive in addressing this issue. It took from July to November to approve what is, effectively, a two-page Bill. Really? Is that the standard of misgovernment that we have reached in the House? Then, of course, there is the ready reliance on accelerated passage. It is a situation of the Government's own making.”
“Two months, which could have been spent on scrutiny in the Committee had the Bill been brought to the House then, were wasted. Who was running down the clock to get to December and say, "Oh, poor us. We must have accelerated passage"? <BR /> <BR />We could have had the Bill much earlier in the year, and I protest, most vigorously, at the erosion of the powers of the House and at the easy option of accelerated passage being taken. It is not good enough. It should not be the easy passage that it is. I, for one, want to record my dissent from the slippage into repeated accelerated passage.”
“Therefore, the drift, step by step, whereby the Assembly is always finding excuses to dispense with normal procedures when matters such as this are raised, is alarming. There is not much point in Members saying that they are uncomfortable with this and offering various platitudes such as, "We do not like doing it" or "It is not the way that we would do business but we are going to do it". It is either right or wrong. Further to this, the point has been made that we had 31 years to do it, but no one bothered. Since January, there has been an opportunity to do it, but it was not done. <BR /> <BR />Over two months ago, on 23 September, the Minister went to the Infrastructure Committee about this issue, and, over two months later, we are here.”
“Accelerated passage should be utterly alien to the House. Sadly, it is becoming far too familiar to the House. It should be alien because it is the role of a legislative Assembly to sift, test and interrogate legislation. Accelerated passage strips out all that; it removes the critical Committee Stage, during which matters can be sifted, tested and interrogated, and it takes the shortcut of simply legislating on the back of Second Stage and further debates. That should be alien to a legislative Assembly. It should be particularly alien to a legislative Assembly in which you have an all-party Executive because, without an Opposition, there is no other opportunity to interrogate the issues.”
“On a point of order, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker. Are we discussing accelerated passage, or are we discussing the merits of the Bill? From listening to the current speaker, I think that she has jumped the gun and moved to Second Stage.”
“Can I bring the Minister back to the point that Ms Dolan raised about the lower end of the procurement market and her example of schools? Hitherto, if a school had a broken window, it would bring in a local handyman and have it fixed for very little. Today, the school reports it to Armagh or wherever, someone comes and looks at it, someone comes back and somebody comes out again, and the cost is phenomenal. Will the Minister consider bringing to the table of the board a proposition that there should be an exemption threshold below which local service needs can be met by the local management in the way that, formerly, it was done?”
“— properly lanced yesterday by the refusal, at any stage, of —”
“When they dismissed the very idea of prosecutions, it was clear that they are not interested in justice. They are interested in maximising the rewriting of history, which is why, of course, this continues to be a boil that needs to be lanced and should have been —”
“If you want to talk about collusion, talk about it across the board. If there are those who colluded, it is not a one-way street. Anyone involved in criminality deserves the rigours of the law. There should be no exemptions for Sinn Féin or anyone else. That should be the starting principle. <BR /> <BR />What we have is a hierarchy — a Finucane elite — who think that they can demand what no one else gets. Even when they were offered a public inquiry, they said, "No. We need an international judicial inquiry". Such is the elitism attaching to the matter. Of course, the bottom line is that it is all about insatiability. They are insatiable; they will never be satisfied. They would not have been satisfied with a public inquiry unless they had got to write its outcome. That is the plain truth.”
“Look at the Finucane case: it has had Weston Park; the Cory inquiry; the de Silva report; the offer of a public inquiry; legislation especially drafted to deliver that inquiry; and a criminal trial and a conviction. When I contrast that with all the rest, the deficit is staggering. Compare that with those who were burned alive at La Mon, those who smothered under the rubble of Enniskillen and those who were butchered at Kingsmills. <BR /> <BR />If we want to talk about collusion, we need to talk about all the collusion. That would include the collusion of some who have sat on Benches in the House, who were leaders of the IRA and who doubtless colluded in multiple murders. What did Martin McGuinness know about the Enniskillen bombing? What did he know about the murder of Pat Gillespie? What did he know about countless other murders?”
“The murder of Pat Finucane was terrorist, brutal and extremely shocking, just like over 3,000 other murders; yet, compare and contrast the attention and the demands in respect of those.”
“How does the deputy First Minister feel about the guarded border that is being provided by the Republic of Ireland in respect of COVID-19? Does that not illustrate the faux anger and farce of opposition, both from Dublin and politicians such as herself, to as much as an extra camera on the border when it came to Brexit? Is she so wedded to an ideology that she does not care whether restrictions on imports into Northern Ireland cripple the Northern Ireland economy, or, in fact, is that what she is looking for?”
“On a point of order, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker. Will you advise the House if amendment No. 11 says any of the things that the Member says it does?”
“I have listened patiently to the Member, but the thought that keeps occurring to me is that she is lecturing us through the surrogacy of Dr Tom Black about doing the right thing. Did she think of any of that when she was leading the colour party at a funeral that was attended by thousands of people? Did she ever think of doing the right thing? Or is what she says for everyone else but not her and her cronies?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am obliged. I would like clarification. We have debated a sequence of these regulations for many successive weeks. On each of those weeks, the Chair, in recognition of the reality that events have moved on, has permitted discussion that brings the matter more up to date. Are you today making a contrary ruling so as to restrict us to regulations, some of which are no longer extant or even relevant?”
“Can the Minister clarify this: is there still an active board in respect of Foras na Gaeilge? I ask that because, according to its website, there has been no board meeting for which minutes have been produced since January 2019 and, indeed, no minutes have been produced in English since 2018. Why is that? <BR /> <BR />In respect of the assistance given to the Irish language groups to disburse COVID-19 money, can that money be spent outside the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland?”
“Can I revisit the matter and say, "Not moved"?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I thought that amendment No 24 was dependent on amendment No 18, which was not moved. I should not move amendment No 24, I think.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am drawing to a close. I have reiterated the point that there is a fundamental choice to be made about whether you want legislation or not. If you do not, you have to explain why. That raises a number of questions. Each of the clauses, with the amendments that improve them, is worthy of support. I trust that they will receive that support. If they do, I am pledged that I will seek to address the issues that some people have with them. For some, there is no addressing them. It would not matter what I did; I could stand on my head, and it would not make any difference. However, there are Members who have genuine concerns, and I am quite prepared to deal with those, if I have the opportunity to do so.”
“<BR /> <BR />That is why it is important that, if a significant influence is brought to bear on a subject, there should be a record of it in the Department. To deny a record of that gives a Minister carte blanche to have his mind changed by vested interests, and no one will ever be the wiser about it. It is clear from RHI that Moy Park was a very active lobbyist on tariffs, when they should be increased and when they should not be decreased, among other things. Yet, not a word of it is recorded in that Department. Was that right? I say that it was not, and I am trying to remedy that situation by requiring that, if Moy Park comes lobbying again on those issues, there has to be a record. The choice is between keeping a record or having no record and leaving yourself open to the same scenario again.”
“The Minister said, in respect of amendment No 15, that I had tentatively offered, at an earlier stage, to drop 8A (2)(d) in relation to the function of the Department. The Minister then said that all the rest of it is far too wide. Sorry, that is the definition of lobbying in the UK Parliament's legislation. The essence of it is being lobbied about key components, about legislation, policy and things that the Department can do, such as issuing grants and contracts. Surely, if someone is lobbied about those things, that should not remain a secret. If it turns out that a Minister makes a volte-face or suddenly announces a very generous grant to a particular interest, there will be no record, ever, of how his mind was shaped and changed by the lobbying interest.”
“I made the point that they hang together. There is a triumvirate connection between the recording of an internal meeting of the Department, a meeting with externals in the Department and the lobbying of Ministers etc. However, I am in the hands of the House; I cannot dictate the outcome of any of these votes.”
“I will in a moment. <BR /> <BR />If I am wrong about that, I will be delighted to have that discussion.”
“I think that Ms Sugden and Mr O'Toole have made points that require being addressed, and I am certainly more than willing to try to do that. Some of those points I can almost answer here and now, but, if we are going to have a discussion, I am happy to wait. I am not so sure that Mr Muir has indicated that he is that persuadable, but my door is open on the issues. The thrust of Mr Muir's argument was pretty much like the Sinn Féin thrust, in that codes are enough, so he does not seem to me to be willing to consider more than codes.”
“I think, in part, that I have indicated that. Of course, there were opportunities before today to table amendments. Until last Wednesday, there were opportunities for all of us to table amendments. If those concerns had manifested themselves in amendments, we might have had an even more constructive debate on the issues. <BR /> <BR />I started the winding-up speech on the group by saying that you will always find a reason to do nothing. By not tabling amendments and then criticising the amendments that are tabled, you can easily find a reason to vote things down. I say, however, to those who are concerned that I have indicated a willingness to be amenable to sound suggestions, but I can do that only if the clauses survive this stage. There is room to move forward.”
“I am not sure that I entirely follow. I do not think that it is the civil servant who would be holding you to account. I do not get the essence of how it is the civil servant who is holding you to account. If you are the Minister, you are being held to account, as is the civil servant, as is the special adviser, to keep a proper record. That is where the holding to account comes in.”
“The one danger with that is the public perception of creating a cocoon for the political elite: "If you are a politician, this does not catch you". There is a logic to saying that a Minister must have the freedom to discuss with his party policy options and policy ways forward. I am not saying it is impossible, but it is more difficult to frame that in a way that it captures every political representation made to a Minister, because some of those representations will be in the category of lobbying. If they are in that category and if you come to another RHI, should it be concealed that party A lobbied party B to do something? That should not be concealed, but I hear what the Member says.”
“If we are not going to shrug our shoulders, we need to do something about it, and it starts with the recording of decisions. That might require some finessing of which decisions, where and when, but the principle that those who urge rejection of amendment No 13 and clause 6 want to reject is the principle of keeping any record about anything significant. That is the invitation that is being issued to the House. On the other hand, I issue an invitation to make sure that we craft legislation that will for ever make sure that the head of the Civil Service cannot say that there was a policy decision not to take notes, because such a decision would be in breach of the law. That is the basis of the invitation to do something about these matters. <BR /> <BR />Ms Sugden raised the point about whether the political exemption should be wider.”
“It was not the legislation that caused the then head of the Civil Service, Mr Sterling, to say that there was a conscious decision not to record, lest it provoke freedom of information requests. That was not legislation; that was a culture. That was a conscious decision by Ministers in the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister that matters should not be recorded lest it give rise to FOI. <BR /> <BR />We cannot just push away the idea that we need to do anything with the straw men that are being set up in this debate. You have to face them with the realities of some of the evidence in RHI, and, in facing them with some of those realities, you have to make a decision. Are we going to do something about it, or are we going to shrug our shoulders?”
“Then, there would have been no RHI, would there? That is the reality. The ex-Minister says, "This is how things are done": we would not have had RHI if that was how things were done. It was the very absence of those things that lay of the heart of all of that.”
“I appreciate that point, but you have to have a baseline. The baseline surely is the decisions that are taken between a Minister and his civil servants and special adviser on an identifiable occasion, and, if such a decision is taken, that decision should be recorded. Otherwise, we will get to the ludicrous situation of Andrew Crawford saying that, "In seven years, I never saw a minute of a meeting involving Ministers". It is that mischief that needs to be addressed. Yes, we could find reasons to do nothing, but doing nothing is open season and an open invitation for things to carry on as they were.”
“<BR /> <BR />Ms Sugden, for example, raised some interesting points. She talked about amendment No 13 being too restrictive, and I think that Mr O'Toole also talked about that. She asked what "every internal departmental meeting" means and whether we are talking about substantive meetings. I must say that my inclination is to say that, yes, we are talking about substantive meetings. It is about finding the wording that embraces that without creating loopholes, which is always the challenge. I do not think that it is about the whispered meeting down the hall. Clause 6 and amendment No 13 are talking about a departmental meeting where a Minister and a special adviser are gathered together inside a Department and are settling and making decisions and deciding actions. That is the thrust of amendment No 13 and clause 6.”
“That is a poor position for the House to be in. <BR /> <BR />I listened carefully to the debate. There are points that I am amenable to taking on board, but no point can be taken on board if the relevant clause falls at Consideration Stage, because, at Further Consideration Stage, you cannot reinsert something that has been decided on in principle at Consideration Stage. If Members are interested in ensuring that we could better some clauses — we probably could — we can do that at Further Consideration Stage only if they are still here. If they are gone, they can never be bettered. I say this to those with concerns: if your concerns are about improving those clauses, I am up for addressing them. I have always been up for talking to Members who have concerns about those issues, and I am certainly up for that going forward.”
“That is the choice that each one of us is making: do we want the changes to be binding? Do we want to address the issue of people giving official information to the benefit of family and friends? Do we want to make a binding deterrent to that, or do we want to comfort ourselves by saying that, because we have drafted amenable codes, it will not happen again? Really? That is the fundamental choice. We must ask ourselves why it is that people want amenable codes and interpretation and do not want anything binding. That is the Minister's position. Why is that? The essential voice on that is coming from Sinn Féin, which, of course, as I pointed out, never wanted codes in the first place. It voted against them. Now it wants to make sure that, if we must have codes, they will not have the teeth of legislation.”
“If the response of the institutions is to say that we will do nothing that is binding or lasting and that we will create no deterrents, the House will further diminish its public standing because it will have failed to tune in to the expectation that more than a few transitory, amendable, amenable codes is the answer. That, I say again, is the fundamental choice. <BR /> <BR />I remind Members of what I read to you from Lord Bingham, when he outlined that codes are just codes:”
“Do we want cosy codes that we can change, tweak and amend to suit purposes, or do we want the bite of legislation? That is the fundamental and abiding choice. That is a choice to be made in the context of one of the worst illustrations of bad government, which the RHI inquiry exposed. If the response of the House is that we do not really need to do anything and we certainly do not need to do anything that we cannot tweak, change and interpret as we go along, I say to the House that it is living in a bubble. People in the Province were rightly scandalised by what emerged.”