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 last 24 hours have been far from confidence building. For weeks we were told, apparently on medical advice, that our homes were the danger spots, pubs were safe and you could see your granny in the pub, so to speak. Now we are told that hospitality has to close, and of course the great losers in that will be some of the lowest paid in our society. <BR /> <BR />Kids have had 28 days of schooling in seven months, and now schools are to close. What assurance is there that we are not just going into lockdown by stages; that if things are not better in a fortnight, our schools will reopen? Meanwhile, off-licences are open. My specific question is this: during the two weeks, are schools expected to provide facilities for key workers? Some teachers have been diligently in school since March. Does that have to continue?”
“Does the First Minister agree that the Pledge of Office, with its undertaking to support the rule of law unequivocally in word and deed, is a solemn commitment, not a flexible commitment? Does she also agree that the flagrant breach of the rule of law, insofar as the coronavirus regulations are concerned, by her deputy First Minister has not only driven a coach and horses through that pledge but, sadly, severely undermined the messaging on COVID-19?”
“The Member speaks of ensuring that there is local benefit. In light of her lauding of renewable energy, does the Member have any comment on yesterday's Audit Office report, which demonstrated that the big financial winners were financial institutions subsidised by local funds from local consumers going into their coffers, courtesy of a renewable energy scheme?”
“That is farcical and ridiculous. It demonstrates the lack of sincerity by the main parties in the House about even the very concept of opposition. The totalitarianism that runs through the veins of some of them is very evident in this approach.”
“The Member cannot say that she does not agree and then come to the House and propose the very thing that she does not agree with. If she did not agree with the two-year limitation, she would vote against it instead of moving the motion. The thing is a farce. It is also an invitation to the two big parties to simply bide their time until the two years are up before they give way to their natural inclination to doormat the minor parties in government — to make sure that they make their position as ineffective as possible within government and, as I say, to doormat them. What can those parties then do? Nothing. They can come and sit here, but they do not have the functions or powers of opposition, and those who would doormat them and drive them out have the luxury of knowing that they can do all that without facing opposition.”
“In a moment. They are making sure that, although parties could have had the full functions of opposition and all the backup of opposition if they had had the courage to go into opposition in the first two years, leaving it until after two years before an election means that all of that is taken away. What does that say about the Executive's bona fides and their commitment to even having an opposition if, at the end of that period, it is so disposable that it is simply binned?”
“What a grudging, half-hearted endorsement, if you could even call it that, of opposition that you can have it but can access it only for two years. What a farce. If a situation arises in which, after two years, there is a bust-up on the Executive and a party, or parties, decides that it cannot stay in there any longer, all that it can do is join Gerry Carroll and me on these Benches, with no function, no powers and no opposition. What a fix by the parties that dominate government to shield themselves in the last years of the mandate from any effective opposition to make sure that they can neuter the voices that might oppose them by robbing them of any function of opposition. They are making sure that —.”
“<BR /> <BR />I do not know whether we will ever end up with the proper functions of an Opposition, but I have severe doubts about it, given the mindset of the House. However, certainly, as a member of AERC, I look forward to the investigation of the matter and look forward to attempting to ensure that, after all these years, the House will finally have the opportunity to have an Opposition with teeth, not some timid ticking of a box. Of course, the wherewithal has to be supplied as well as the political will, and that might be the biggest hurdle.”
“It sits uneasily with the structures of the House to even contemplate an Opposition. Of course, its tardiness in doing so is illustrated by the fact that 'New Decade, New Approach' said that the very report that we are to commission today should have been with the House in July. Such is the indifference of the House to the very concept of opposition that, even if it is belated and hamstrung by the fact that it will not be opposition in its full form, there will doubtless be many in the House who will want to tie it even further. There are parties in the House that fear opposition and were scared and uneasy that, on the return of Stormont, the SDLP or the Ulster Unionists, for example, might have had the courage to be the Opposition, because they like the cosy cabal whereby they are all in government with no one holding them to account.”
“Of course, the pernicious absurdity of mandatory coalition is that that alternative can never be presented. For as long as you have a system that says that any party that retains a handful of MLAs will automatically and as of right be in government, you cannot afford an alternative at an election. Therefore, the practical, forward-looking function of an Opposition is fundamentally undermined.”
“That, of course, fits entirely with the ethos of the House, which flows from the absurdity of mandatory coalition in which there is no thought, respect or regard to even the possibility of opposition. <BR /> <BR />One of the functions of an opposition is not just to challenge, scrutinise and oppose but to present an alternative at future elections.”
“In pre-COVID days, Members were invited — I was certainly invited and was always happy to take up invitations — to visit schools and to speak to politics societies etc. Very often at such events, I would ask the pupils to name me three things that denote a democracy in the Western world. Invariably, you would get an answer about universal suffrage — of course — but you would also almost invariably get an answer about the existence of an opposition. Of course, that is a correct answer, because no self-respecting democracy or legislature can hope to operate successfully or credibly without an opposition. Yet, for all but six or eight months of the 22 years of the existence of this Assembly, we have had the farce of having no opposition.”
“Every party has had such opportunity. For four weeks, parties have had the opportunity, which is repeated today. I really do press upon you that Standing Order 25 is made for precisely this situation, if it is the will of the House. Of course, if it is not the will of the House, the debate will proceed. If it is, the matter should move to the votes.”
“Further to that point of order, may I ask you, Mr Speaker, to look at the terms of Standing Order 25? It is precisely for this situation. It says:”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Pursuant to Standing Order 25, I want to move that the Question be now decided. This is the fourth successive week in which we have repetitively debated the issue. Each of the five main parties has again had the opportunity to contribute. In accordance with Standing Order 25, I move that the Question be now put on the amendment and the motion.”
“I am grateful to the Minister. His message is that, until there is a vaccine, the only response that we have to an upsurge in cases is to clamp down with various shades of lockdown. That is the only strategy that there is. Is it not the case that the balance of the scientific evidence suggests that people who have had COVID acquire some element of immunity? Is that right or wrong?”
“It is not only the planning application that the public cannot see, there was a letter from DAERA that the Minister says gave him instructions on these matters. A business plan has also been submitted. None of those are available to the public or MLAs. I understand the desire of the Minister to blame officials and the Department in Westminster to salve his unionist conscience. Is he not in danger of becoming the Minister who provides the infrastructure for an Irish Sea border? Is that not what is really happening?”
“Given that with renewable energy, particularly that from wind turbines, very significant costs have been passed on to electricity consumers, will the Minister undertake to publish an accurate audit of how much electricity consumers are paying for renewable energy?”
“When you put all that into the balance of what will be the increasing impact on the well-being of the wider community and of our economy, you see that, frankly, the threshold for lockdown gets higher, not lower. I fear that we are maybe a little too ready to rush to a lockdown, with no exit strategy and insufficient thought given to what it ultimately does to the whole community.”
“We were told that 15,000 people could die. In what was a balanced and considered speech made with the authority of someone who has had COVID, Mr McCrossan referred to the situation in Italy. We all saw that, and it was frightening. It was no great surprise, therefore, that there was a fear of our health service being overwhelmed back in March. Can we really say with the same vigour or conviction that that same threat exists today? There are 18 or 19 people in our ICUs with COVID-19, and there were two deaths, I think, last week. Can we really say, as justification for a wholesale six-week or whatever lockdown, that the threat is such to our health service that we must have that?”
“I think that most scientific data relating to COVID seems to agree that there is an element of immunity in those who have had it, though there may be some dispute about how much. If, every time the infection rate — not the death rate — rises, you go into a lockdown, when do you ever get out of it? The next time you come out and the infection rate rises again, because the virus is still there, you go into another lockdown. Where is the exit strategy? It is that ongoing effect that will really begin to kill our economy and put us in a very perilous position. <BR /> <BR />Yes, it is necessary to have regulations and to supervise them, but it is also necessary to think through what the long-term strategy in all this is. I understand entirely that the first lockdown was premised on a great fear of our health service being overwhelmed.”
“I agree absolutely. In fairness to the Health Minister, he said in his opening remarks that it was a balance and that it was not just about health, although, obviously, that is his primary discipline and concern. The Member is absolutely right: there has been considerable damage done — some of it may be irreparable — to some people's well-being and to kids. To think that we would move to a six-week lockdown without the data is staggering. <BR /> <BR />My fundamental question about moving into lockdowns is this: where is the exit strategy? How do you get out of the lockdowns? As I said last week, if, every time there is a rise in the infection rate, you introduce a form of lockdown, you will never build any immunity in the community. The Member for North Down does not like that idea.”
“I am staggered, if that is so, that data as basic, far-reaching and essential as that is not being given to the Executive, if that is correct. It is beyond appalling to think that they could be asked to impose a six-week lockdown without having the basic data. We need urgent clarity on the veracity of that claim. If it is not true, that needs to be rectified; if it is true, the circumstances that give rise to it need to be rectified. Either way, it cannot be right.”
“According to that source, the Executive are not being given the data that would justify such decisions as the reported call from the Chief Medical Officer for a six-week lockdown.”
“Any of us would be foolish to envy him his role, but we are giving him phenomenal power if we are giving him, by a mere direction made in that manner, the right to recommence the emergency. I therefore question why that regulation is drafted in such sweeping terms. The emergency periods had to pass through a legislative process here, but we seem to be adopting a great shortcut in respect of that, about which I, for one, am not happy. <BR /> <BR />The Chair mentioned the lack of data to back up some of these regulations. That is a real concern. However, if you listen to the media today, you will learn that that is a concern not only in the Committee. According to some anonymous source in the Executive, that is a concern in the Executive. Really?”
“Therefore, by publishing online a revocation of the emergency, and by having it published in the 'Belfast Gazette', the emergency can be reinstated. That does not seem to me to be an adequate course embracing the basic concepts of consultation. That is in addition to the point that the Chair made about being able to take away from or add to the various postcodes etc simply by making a direction. You can do much more than that. Under this regulation, we are giving power to the Minister to reinstate an emergency that has been revoked by simply decreeing such. I am not sure that that is a healthy situation. <BR /> <BR />It is not that I do not trust the Health Minister. The Health Minister has, I think, the most difficult job in government.”
“At the stroke of a pen, the Health Minister alone can decide to reinstate the emergency. If those plain words mean what they seem to mean, they drive a coach and horses through the idea of anyone, never mind a scrutiny Committee, or even the Executive, having any say. Paragraph 1(4) states that any direction or revocation of the emergency:”
“"Fair enough", you might say, because that is after "consulting" the experts, but let us think about that. It talks about a situation in which the emergency has been revoked. The Health Minister, and only the Health Minister, with no need to consult anyone other than the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser, can make a direction revoking the ending of the emergency period. It is there in black and white. It states:”
“I will make a few comments in a moment about the pros and cons of various issues. I want to pick up on what the Chair of the Health Committee had to say in his opening remarks. I am not a member of the Health Committee, but I will take at face value what we were told. He rightfully made the criticism that, if the Committee is not being provided with the data that justify the regulations, that is a very poor situation. The Committee cannot scrutinise without knowing the facts relating to the issues that it is scrutinising. That is a valid contention. <BR /> <BR />The Chair said that there was concern in the Committee about the lack of oversight for any future additions and changes to these regulations. I strongly share that concern. At schedule 2 to the regulations, there are a couple of things that I find surprising.”
“Now, mistakes will be made — that is an inevitability when handling something like this — and you need a safety net and a capacity to take quick countermeasures. However, there needs to be a strategy in mind that is more than just reacting to the rise in the number of cases. If we keep doing that, when will we ever get out of this? That is my question.”
“Do we not need to get to the point at which we severely ring-fence the vulnerable but allow the rest of society largely to get on with their lives in the expectation and hope that it will create rising community immunity? The attitude is that, if there is a big rise in the number of cases — not, happily, a great rise in the number of deaths or a great rise in the number of intensive care patients — we say, "We must be severe in our clampdown. As the cases rise, we must come down on the movements of the community". Our proportionality is about restrictions proportionate to the number of cases, not the number of deaths. That strategy will never create a strategy for getting out of this situation. <BR /> <BR />I say to the Executive that there has to be wider thinking about where exactly we are going.”
“Unless the virus obliges us by dying out or a vaccine is found — that seems some way off — by this course of action, we are constantly saying that our only answer is that, when the virus rises, we close down. Is that the sum and substance of the strategy? <BR /> <BR />Some countries have maybe shown that there is another way, and there has been much reference to Sweden. Immunity has been disparagingly called "herd immunity", but community immunity among the fit and healthy may be an approach that will have to be considered. Bearing in mind the economic and mental health consequences, I do not see how we go on indefinitely repeating the same answer that is not an answer. I ask where we are going with our approach. What is the strategy?”
“Yesterday, we had a statement from the GAA acknowledging the difficulties and saying that it was going to cancel club matches, but it has not cancelled inter-county matches. If what I read today is correct, it is still anticipated that up to 400 people can be at such matches. Organisations too have an obligation to give leadership. I question whether that has been there with the depth and sincerity that are needed. <BR /> <BR />The question that I have to ask about all the regulations is this: where are we going with them? Is all the action that we are taking about delaying COVID, or is it about defeating COVID? If it is about defeating COVID, should the fit and healthy not have a role in allowing immunity to grow? If, every time the virus raises its ugly head, our response is to shut things down, how do we ever get off the roundabout?”
“Until the day comes when the Ministers and Members who put themselves in that position unequivocally, with no weasel words, apologise to the public, whom they exhort to follow the rules, for not following the rules themselves by attending that funeral et cetera, the Executive will be beset with a credibility issue on the regulations. That is the reality. Some might like to duck and dive and pretend otherwise, but that is the reality. <BR /> <BR />Maybe it is no surprise that, when political leaders set that example, other organisations, never mind individuals, think that they too can be above the law. We have seen that with some of the GAA gatherings that Mrs Cameron referred to, where, for three successive Sundays, we saw social-distancing breaches and all of that.”
“Therefore, when you bring a debate to a House such as this, hoping that the public are listening and heeding, and the presenter of that debate is one who, with his colleagues, thought himself to be above the very laws that he speaks to, there is a fundamental credibility problem. The same applies to the Member for Foyle Ms Anderson, who was very prominent in that flagrant breach of the law and who, indeed, at or about that time, was tweeting exultantly about wakes and all sorts of things. What sort of example of what sort of leadership has been set?”
“<BR /> <BR />Before I get there, it is important to say that, although the Executive, understandably, make plaintive pleas to people to do the right thing — I echo those pleas, as we all should act with the utmost responsibility, follow the public health guidance and not take it lightly — an abiding problem for them in their messaging is typified by the very presentation of the debate today. The motion was moved by a junior Minister who does not come to the issue with clean hands, so to speak. When it came to the test of that junior Minister on the critical issue of the Executive living by their own laws, he failed it because he was a participant in the most flagrant breach of the regulations by attending the Storey funeral at a time when the regulations said that people who were not family et cetera should not even be there.”
“We are, undoubtedly, discussing a very serious issue, and COVID has, in all sorts of unpredictable ways, reached every corner of our society. Nothing that I say today will minimise the threat of COVID. I am conscious that, not having stood in the shoes of those who have suffered from COVID, one needs to be cautious about what one says going forward. In the course of my remarks, I will raise some issues about where we are going in tackling the pandemic.”
“Principal Deputy Speaker, I am sure that all the warm words welcoming you back may have caused you to think that you did not know that you were so popular. Savour the moment. I suspect that —.”
“On a point of order, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker. In the light of your opening remarks that Members would be restricted in their comments, and, now, in the light of the fact that eight of the 10 minutes of the junior Minister's speech would have been, on any construction, in breach of that ruling, can you now revisit it and advise the House that we will all have the same latitude in context in regard to these regulations?”
“Minister, none of us needs to be reminded of how tight finances are, particularly during COVID. Am I to understand from a written answer that you gave me that £482,000 was spent on preparing landing 4 in Fern House for three women republican prisoners and that the annual ongoing resource cost will be £355,000? Have we really got things into the proportion that they should be in, in these times?”
“Miss McIlveen raised my issue. I am content.”
“I trust that this will prove a more successful appointment than that of the interim commissioner. Arising from the disastrous breakdown between many of the victims and the interim commissioner, what lessons have been learned and what mechanisms are in place to deal with such a situation should it, unfortunately, arise again?”
“I join in welcoming back Mr McCrossan. <BR /> <BR />I do not, for a moment, downplay the threat of COVID, nor do I diminish the fact that 584 people have died. However, I am also conscious that, in the first six months of this year, 2,302 people died from cancer, and who knows how many deaths have been hastened by the delays in cancer treatments? For those last six months, the Department has basically been caught in the headlights of COVID. When we reach a point where the Royal College of Surgeons has to say that we need to ring-fence staff and facilities for necessary surgical procedures etc, does that at all suggest to the Minister that the medical advice that he has been relying on and that has caused the Royal College of Surgeons to have to make that point has been somewhat flawed?”
“I suppose that the Treasury is always an easy target for devolved institutions, although there may not always be a matching acknowledgement of the scale of financial assistance, particularly during COVID-19. On the point about the capacity to transfer from capital to resource, is the Minister looking for that only during the COVID-19 emergency or as a long-term change? If it is to be a long-term change, would legislative change be required?”
“It was Gina Miller's case that led to the very declaration by the Supreme Court that Parliament is supreme. That created the principle, and that is the principle that informs the recent legislation and the treaty.”
“It is time that they drew a line and realised where they were being led. Thank you.”
“Those are the things that they want to preserve by supporting the protocol, because it is the protocol that threatens jobs, fetters our trade with our biggest market and will put businesses out of business, and it is the protocol that will take money out of the pockets of our consumers to pay the extra tariffs and customs. However, they come, with crocodile tears, with a motion about threats to business and job losses, when the very thing that they are supporting is the thing that will do that. Does Sinn Féin care? No, because the ideological achievement of driving a border down the Irish Sea trumps everything for Sinn Féin. <BR /> <BR />My only regret is that some who should know better — some who recognise the pattern of needless motions — will egg them on today by voting for that motion.”
“Let us be clear: Parliament can do and undo. That is perfectly lawful and within parliamentary sovereignty. To hear Sinn Féin, particularly the Member for Foyle who, to this day, is proud of her breaking of the law as a bomber, pontificating about upholding the rule of law has a special resonance all of its own. It is a party that, in more recent times, has been more than happy to break the law on COVID restrictions, but, today, it is pontificating about someone daring to break the law. That is such dissemblance. However, the dissembling does not end there. The party pretends concern over job losses and business failures.”
“The Member is right. All of that was EU-induced, and, of course, the British Government had to seek an exemption from the European Convention on Human Rights to bring in that discrimination. The people complaining today were not complaining then about any of those matters.”
“He has done very well, and I take some pride in that.”