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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“Sorry, they close early on Easter Sunday. You are right. Originally, they were totally closed.”
“Pubs are currently open from 5.00 pm to 11.00 pm etc. They open at 5.00 pm on Good Friday. They are totally closed on Easter Sunday.”
“To many people, Easter is important because without what happened at the first Easter, there is no Christian faith and no Christianity. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is celebrated at Easter. Without the first Easter, there is no Christian faith. Is it beyond this society to show some deference to those of Christian faith, to whom Easter Sunday is one of the most important days in the Christian calendar? Is it really beyond this House to say, "No, we can show no deference to that. We can show no respect for that because we're a secular society"? Yes, that may well be, but we are still a society where, at least in a token fashion and to many much more than that, we aspire to be a Christian society. So, why is it that we have to liquidate that last vestige of respect for that?”
“Absolutely. Of course, being drunk is not a defence to any criminal offence. That is undoubtedly so. However, it is still a fact that the statistical survey for Northern Ireland shows that 53% of assailants carried out their abuse under the influence of drink. That is a reality. We cannot duck and dive away from it. <BR /> <BR />Therefore, I say to the House that, for those reasons, it is foolhardy and wrong to embrace an extension beyond 2.00 am to 3.00 am. If we do that, let us do it with our eyes wide open. I hope that I have put before the House some of what might come into our vision if we do that. That is why I believe that pillar of the Bill to be ill conceived. <BR /> <BR />I must also say to the House that I do not support the assault on Easter.”
“<BR /> <BR />The question is this: knowing that, do we then, deliberately and consciously, decide to extend opening hours and give people another hour — way beyond the normal closing time, of course — to 3.00 am and then stand back and say that we did not intend there to be an upsurge in violence or, as the Norwegian study shows, a 16% increase in assaults, and for wives and children to pay the price? Sorry: we are legislators. The laws that we make affect ordinary lives. Therefore, we have to, with great caution, decide whether the steps proposed are the right ones.”
“You cannot simply say that the Assembly can utterly wash its hands of that and say that it legislates only for good publicans and good drinkers. No: we legislate for everyone. We are legislating in the context where we know that 53% of those who attack their wives and partners do so when under the influence of drink; where alcohol is a causal factor in more than 60 medical conditions; where it crowds hospital beds; where it costs the public purse almost £1 billion a year; and where alcohol abuse costs almost 300 lives a year. We cannot divorce ourselves from that. We cannot wish that away.”
“I do not dispute for one moment that there are some very well run public houses and some very committed publicans. I am sure that Mr Catney fits exactly into that category, but that is not replicated in every case, because the publican, when someone leaves his premises, cannot be responsible for him. The number of criminal convictions that arise most often arise out in the street. There are fights in pubs, but they are not the generality of what gives rise to prosecutions. Once the inebriated individual leaves the premises, he is no longer the responsibility, in any legal sense, of the publican. The publican has no control over him. It is out there in our streets. We have all seen some television footage of the sort of loutish and thuggish behaviour that sadly takes place when people are in those circumstances.”
“It is not just the rough and tumble out in the street, where people with too much drink in them just want to fight. It is the hapless wife, the hapless partner and, yes, perhaps even the hapless kids at home who bear the brunt. When we come to the issue of extending licensing hours, I say to the House that we need to stop, pause and ask ourselves whether we care about those people. Do we care enough about them to ponder whether it is right to increase the facilitation of the availability of alcohol through our clubs and pubs?”
“Of course, as the Norwegian study shows, it is not just the impact of violence. I can tell you that I spent a career at the other Bar. I represented many young men who did some very foolish things who would never have done those foolish things, who would never have done those violent things and who would never have done those shameful things but for the fact that they were under the influence of alcohol. Many times, the offences were committed as they poured out of public houses at the end of an extended licence, with many lives wrecked, not just by the over-imbibing of alcohol but by the behaviour that came from it. We know from a Northern Ireland statistical survey that 53% of domestic abuse assaults come from individuals under the influence of alcohol.”
“Yet, here we are, about to endorse that very proposition of allowing people to drink in every club and pub up and down the country every weekend until 3.00 am, knowing that it will impose extra costs but seemingly not caring enough about those costs to even delay this debate until we know what they are. We are rushing our fences on this without those figures.”
“However, it cannot yet give the figures. Why are we debating this before we have those figures? Where is the sincerity in taking those figures on board if we are already going to have agreed in principle to the very Bill that gives rise to that financial bill? It was a gross dereliction of duty to bring this Second Stage debate before we knew the costs to the public purse through the PSNI. As the PSNI has pointed out, it is the extra administration costs, the extra overtime costs and the extra costs of needing additional personnel to deal with people spilling onto the streets at 3.00 am.”
“The obvious riposte to that is, "Why we are having the debate today, if we do not have those figures?". The PSNI is saying to the Northern Ireland Assembly at paragraph 27:”
“If that study is right, what the House is being invited to do is to create the circumstances where, in drink, we will increase the number of assaults by 16%. That is why the question that was posed and unanswered in the explanatory document is so important. The PSNI is very clear. We do not know if it has yet given the figures because the Minister would not take an intervention. I will take one now if she wants to tell us if the PSNI has given us the figures.”
“The Member's point is not devoid of truth, but the logic of his point is that you should not have any closing times. If people are going to go home to drink, why not 4.00 am, why not 5.00 am, why not 24 hours? It is an absurd proposition that we weaken our licensing hours because people would still drink at home nonetheless, an utterly absurd proposition. <BR /> <BR />It does not just impact on health; it impacts on crime. There was an interesting study by Stockholm University that I recommend to the Committee. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health conducted a survey across the experience of 18 cities in Norway of the impact of extending opening hours, and it found that, for every hour by which you extend the opening hours, you increase by 16% the number of assaults: 16% for every hour.”
“Just let me finish this point. <BR /> <BR />Let me remind the House of this: the report shows that, in 2018, there were 284 deaths because of alcohol misuse, which is many, many times more than road traffic deaths. There were almost 300 deaths because of alcohol abuse, and then the House thinks that it is right and appropriate — nay, necessary — to extend the facilitation of alcohol consumption by extending the hours to 3.00 am. <BR /> <BR />I will give way.”
“<BR /> <BR />The report also tells us that, every day — not occasionally — 200 hospital beds on average are occupied by those getting treatment for substance abuse. Other figures show that alcohol is the biggest component, being involved for generally two thirds of those receiving treatment for substance abuse. Two hundred beds. We have heard, during the COVID crisis, about the great pressure on our beds and on our hospital system, and now we discover that 200 of those diminishing beds are necessary for addiction and abuse treatments. I simply want to ask this question: by extending liquor hours until 3.00 am, do we think that we are helping that? I do not.”
“I am not a prohibitionist or anything like it, but we need to deal with the realities. I do not know how many of those who have taken part in the debate took time over the summer to read the Northern Ireland Audit Office report 'Addiction Services in Northern Ireland'. I do not know if the Minister has read it, but it is a chilling read. There is a page in it that sets out the key facts. It is worth reminding ourselves of some of the key facts about alcohol addiction in Northern Ireland. The estimated cost, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General, of alcohol misuse every year in Northern Ireland is up to £900 million. Almost £1 billion. That is much more than the budget of many Departments, much more than the budget of many arm's-length bodies and much more than the budget of many agencies. Almost £1 billion.”
“I also have a lot of sympathy with the campaign of the local breweries, which are undoubtedly being squeezed by the monopoly in the mainstream liquor industry, and I can well understand their resentment and desire for change in that regard. <BR /> <BR />Fundamentally, when we come to the issue of extending drinking hours, we are talking about every pub and club in Northern Ireland having the right to be open every weekend — that is when it is most likely to be; certainly 104 times a year — until 3.00 am. Then we tell ourselves that we are in the business of dealing with alcohol abuse and that the Bill will help to tackle alcohol abuse. Really? <BR /> <BR />Let us consider the impact of alcohol in our society. Of course, anyone and everyone has the absolute right to indulge in alcohol.”
“I will strive to be shorter than Ms Woods. I hope that I do not drive some of you to drink with some of the things that I might have to say, but here goes. <BR /> <BR />I cannot support the two landmark components of the Bill, which are extended opening hours and the assault on Easter. There are elements of the Bill in the subsidiary matters that are deserving of support. The clauses dealing with vending machines are worthwhile. Tidying up the issue of sixth-form formals is a necessary move. The alignment of the ending of entertainment with the ending of sales is important. The delivery of alcohol to minors is an important issue, although I noted Ms Woods's interesting point about how that can be enforced. The measures on off-sales advertising are right and necessary.”
“To date, there has been a refusal to release them at council and departmental level. It will be good to see them in due course. Can the Minister tell us, as he builds the gallows for the Union at Larne, whether he has the support of the Member of Parliament for East Antrim?”
“Paragraphs 26 and 27 of the explanatory document refer to the PSNI being asked to provide estimates of the additional policing costs arising from the extra hours of opening and the extra administrative tasks. Paragraph 27 says that the PSNI undertook to provide those figures but they were not finalised at the time of publication. Now that we come to debate the Bill, have they yet been finalised? Can the House be told what, the PSNI says, are the extra costs of the proposals?”
“I am much obliged to the Chair for giving way. The Minister declined and, therefore, I will pose the question to the Committee Chair. I am seeking some information and hope that she might be willing to give it.”
“I want to follow on from Ms Sudgen's point about rural areas. In the north of my constituency, there is a string of five villages: Armoy, Bushmills, Dervock, Mosside and Stranocum. The Minister told me yesterday in answer that there are plans for nine new social housing units in Armoy. The problem is, Minister, that there is no sewage capacity left in Armoy. In all the other villages that I named, there are no plans for social housing, and none of them, apart from Bushmills, has sewage capacity. Where is the joined-up delivery? It is all very well to say that there is a commitment to provide extra houses in certain villages, but, if there is no sewage capacity, there will be no houses.”
“Is it not utterly fatuous to pretend that this attack on the transfer test is really rooted in COVID? COVID is obviously a fig leaf for those who always have been, and always will be, opposed to affording the ladder of elevation that transfer affords many children. Should Members not dispense with the shamelessness of pretending that this attack on the transfer test has anything to do with COVID?”
“Will the Minister give some clarity for those employed in the hospitality sector, which has been closed down for the last two weeks. Will they now qualify for backdated furlough payments?”
“Will the Minister give us some indication of the estimation of the number who wrongly received? I received an answer today that says that 72 have repaid. How many are still outstanding? When it comes to repayment, Mr McHugh told public radio that he had great difficulty in contacting Land and Property Services and in getting a process to recover the money. Is the Minister aware of any difficulty in LPS receiving back payments that should never have been made?”
“Some might think that there is a need now for a track-and-trace system for COVID small business grants following the scandalous retention of such vital money by the deputy First Minister's party until they were flushed out by Stephen Nolan. Why should the public not conclude that, if Stephen Nolan had not caught Sinn Féin out, there would never have been an intention to pay back the money?”
“The Minister is doing much work on North/South infrastructural projects. She has a great enthusiasm for that and has held many ministerial meetings in connection with that. How many times has she met her Scottish counterpart to discuss the much-needed improvements on the A75 and A77, which are such vital links for our economy?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Since the Assembly last met, it has emerged that a lead party of government, Sinn Féin, retained COVID business money for more than six months, until it was flushed out by Stephen Nolan. When today, if at all, will the Assembly have an opportunity to ventilate and discuss that issue?”
“Thank you. When this is over and it comes to reviewing how things went, will it include a review of how well, over previous years, the Department prepared for a pandemic? Will it include a truthful review of how many hospital beds, including ICU beds, were removed from our system over the years?”
“That is one of the fundamental reasons why there is a credibility issue for the House on this issue.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is not that there are not points to be made against these regulations. There are, but not by those who agreed them. That is the difficulty. The fact that they are more likely to kill the economy than to kill COVID-19 is certainly a point that can be made. However, politics, not for the first time, is over-riding the issues. This debate, in its own way, shows that. <BR /> <BR />To finish, I come back to a point that I have made many times: here we are again with a junior Minister, who, when we debated some of the early amendments on 30 June, could not be in the House because he was off attending the funeral of a terrorist. Yet, once again, the public are being lectured by people who have not apologised and are being told, "Do as we say, not as we do".”
“When they were debated, it seems, from reports, there was not a cheep of opposition because they were the pre-packaged, already agreed proposals of DUP/Sinn Féin. So, for the Environment Minister to strut his stuff as if he were an opponent of the very things that he did not require a vote on in the Executive, and which his party endorsed, is quite inappropriate. <BR /> <BR />Maybe a little embarrassing. Maybe that is why, today, we have had but one token speech from the DUP Benches on that issue. Where are the defenders of Edwin Poots? We are told in press briefings that, apparently, it was not a solo run. I suspect that that is probably right. If it was not a solo run, he is looking very solo tonight in this debate. No one is rising to defend his position.”
“We then had the DUP Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister, who also is a member of the Executive, seeking to create an aura that he and his party were not really for these regulations and that they were, in fact, in opposition to aspects of them. That might be for the gullible within the base that he was trying to settle, and who were unsettled by the stringency of some of the regulations, but it is not for any thinking person who knows anything about how the Executive operate. Anyone who knows anything about that knows that nothing comes to the Executive table until it is put on the agenda and agreed by the First Minister and the deputy First Minister acting jointly. Therefore, the proposals that came to the Executive on Tuesday night came with the imprimatur of the Democratic Unionist Party.”
“I think that "preposterous" was the right word for the First Minister to use, on Friday night, on the social media that she does not use. What a preposterous situation that a Minister who is a party to the making of the regulations so misunderstands them as to go out of her way to misrepresent what they say. Nowhere do those regulations say that spectators cannot attend elite sports. Whether they should is another question, but they do not. In any event, we had the farce of the sports Minister telling people the very thing that was not in the regulations as if it was. <BR /> <BR />Of course, it did not end with Sinn Féin.”
“Bear in mind what the First Minister had said. Nonetheless, even before the regulations were made — they did not come into effect until 10.30 pm on Friday, even though various hospitality places had been told to close from 6.00 pm, and did so. Up until the moment of 10.30 pm, the regulations were of no legal effect whatsoever. Yet, at about 6.00 pm or 6.30 pm on Friday, the Communities Minister — a member of the Executive, who had agreed the very regulations that were coming into effect — sent a letter to the sporting bodies in Northern Ireland telling them that, with immediate effect, they could not have spectators at their matches. Not surprisingly, chaos and confusion reigned in Coleraine. <BR /> <BR />What a preposterous situation.”
“<BR /> <BR />Maybe it is not entirely coincidental or inappropriate that there is something farcical about a debate such as this because, frankly, there is something farcical about the Executive's stance on issues such as this. Last Wednesday morning the First Minister, quite properly, came to the House and gave us an outline of what the Executive had agreed. I stood where I am standing now, and one of the questions I asked was, "Where does this leave spectators at elite sporting events?" She very clearly indicated that nothing had changed in that regard and that spectators could still attend elite sporting events under the existing restrictions. <BR /> <BR />We had such an event on Friday night at the Showgrounds in Coleraine, involving Ballymena United from my constituency and nearby Coleraine.”
“There is, indeed, something inherently farcical about the debate, in that we are debating amendments to regulations that have been overwhelmingly superseded by events. These regulations date from a time when the Executive were telling us that hospitality venues were safe but your home was not. Therefore, you could meet your granny in the pub but not in your home. That was the genesis of the regulations that we are discussing. Of course, to make places of hospitality safe, their owners, with great diligence in most cases, spent thousands of pounds on taking the steps that the Executive required of them, only to have all of that pulled away last week and those very premises, effectively, closed.”
“Those issues need to be addressed urgently.”
“Frankly, Mr Speaker, that is not good enough.”
“After the debate started today, Finance Committee members got a letter from the Department that I find astounding. There was no written authority given by the Department of Finance to spend the extra millions on welfare: there was a verbal approval, we are told. There is no legislation governing it. Guidance on spending public money states that you need written authority: it does not exist. <BR /> <BR />Oh, yes: the letter was sent out last Friday. After I had raised the matter with the Finance Committee on Wednesday and the Committee pressed officials about it, a letter went out last Friday retrospectively approving. Up until that point, it was a shrug of the shoulders and the giving of a verbal approval. The same thing happened with the good relations money, the SIF money: again, only a verbal approval.”
“My understanding is that that would be social investment fund (SIF) money. Why do we not have legislation that authorises the expenditure of yet another £8 million of social investment fund money? <BR /> <BR />I asked that question at the Finance Committee and asked to see the letters, because the guidance that covers the funding of public money requires that you should not have any more than £1·5 million on any subject in a black box unauthorised by specific legislation. You should not have it for more than two years. I therefore asked, "Can we see the letters, please, that drew that to the Department's attention before it gave authority to items like that £34 million without having any budgetary authority to do so other than the Budget Act?".”
“That is the figure that has been spent not on the authority of any legislation that governs the affairs of an individual Department but on the sole authority of the Budget Act. Of course, that robs us of proper scrutiny of the basis for any spend. I raised the point last year that millions of pounds were being spent on the basis of the Budget Bill, whereas there should be legislation to cover that spend and it was not there. Here it is again: this year, £34 million is being spent on welfare reform without legislative authority other than the Budget Bill. Why is that? Why has the Department for Communities not legislated to govern that? NI Screen is to receive £14·5 million, which is now, belatedly, covered by legislation. On page 219 of the Estimates, we find that almost £8 million is to be spent on good relations.”
“In the annually managed expenditure (AME) figures, we have a figure of £33·4 million for this year. We know that, in 2018-19, the actual figure was £23·7 million. We know that the provision made last year was almost £29 million; yet, on page 42, we see that, this year, it is to be £33·4 million. As I understand it, the tariffs, which were reduced, have continued to be reduced and have not been increased, so I would like to hear from the Minister why the figure is at £33·4 million, which is £11 million higher than the last out-turn figure that we have been provided with. That is one of the things that I would like to have explained. <BR /> <BR />The other matter that exercises me about the Estimates, as it did last year, is the black-box figure.”
“Given that we are in October, why are we not getting the out-turn figure for 2019-2020? As I understand it, the out-turn figures are known from June or July. Why, when we get Estimates in October, are we not getting the out-turn figure for the previous year? The importance of that is that it affords MLAs the opportunity to compare and contrast the provision being made today for this year with what was needed last year; in fact, all that we are being given is what was provided or made available last year, not what was needed last year. I do not understand why the Estimates do not address that issue. <BR /> <BR />When we turn to an issue such as that, by way of example, on page 42 of the Estimates we come to the vexed issue of RHI expenditure.”
“The Estimates are, undoubtedly, pretty dry documents, but they are important because they amount, along with the Budget Bill, to the legal authority of the House, as the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland, for the spending of public money. Therefore, they perform or should perform a critical role in terms of that responsibility to be paid by the House to the people and in the transparency that should attend it. <BR /> <BR />The first issue that I want to raise is a presentational one in respect of the Estimates. In every table, wherever one goes in the document, it sets out, for example, what the resource provision is to be for the current year, 2020-21. Then, it tells us what the provision was in 2019-2020 and what the out-turn was in 2018-19.”
“The Minister has never acknowledged that Paul Quinn was not a criminal. He knows that that is what is required to unlock the matter. Why can he not find it within himself — he holds a position of great authority — to offer to an ordinary family in south Armagh an acknowledgement that their son was not a criminal?”
“I ask the Minister to look at one particular sector in business that has not been provided for in rates relief, namely the B&B sector. Its businesses primarily pay domestic rates, yet they seek to operate businesses that have been devastated. Would it not be fair and appropriate, in that niche, to provide rates relief for B&B operators?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I draw to your attention the actions of the Minister for Communities? On Friday, before the relevant legislation was even made, the Minister issued a misconceived direction to sporting bodies that misrepresented what would be in the regulations and caused untold confusion and upset, not least at the Showgrounds in Coleraine. Should the House not expect the Minister to know what is in the law and whether it has or has not been made?”
“In respect of sporting events, can, for example, Irish League matches continue with the present level of supporters?”