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 am afraid that I do not share the Minister's confidence that all is as well as he says with the GP service. We have all had cases of people despairing of being able to see their GP. One case from my office comes to mind: a lady who had been waiting for weeks to see her GP. She contacted my office: she should not have to contact an MLA to get to see her GP. She saw her GP the next morning. The symptoms detected meant that she was rushed to treatment for cancer at the City Hospital. What sort of a harvest of cancer cases will we have post COVID? That is a real concern, and the impediment to ready access to GPs contributes to it.”
“In addition to that, of course, there was the extensive support for the furlough scheme. The Economy Minister told the House this morning that up to a quarter of a million people benefited from that scheme. When we add in that direct aid, is it a reasonable assumption to conclude that there must have been aid of the order of about £5 billion of extra funding to Northern Ireland since the onset of COVID? Is it the case that £800 million or thereabouts remains unspent at the centre?”
“The Member deals with an important point. The Minister today had the perfect opportunity to disavow those callous, cavalier comments by the permanent secretary, but she did not take that opportunity. Does that create a fear that, in fact, those comments still drive the approach of the Department?”
“They have already suffered more than they can; I fear for their future now.”
“Mr Speaker, you will know that I am not noted for my level of agreement with the Member of Parliament for North Antrim. Indeed, maybe the First Minister could say the same. However, I must say that I do agree with his severe reservations on this issue. He said that we have to learn to live with COVID and that we cannot kill our economy. Messages such as that are contradicted, I have to say, for a trading town like Ballymena when it is headlined as, effectively, a hotspot. You told us, First Minister, that this did not impact on business. Sorry, but it does. When you pick out a town like Ballymena and headline it as a hotspot, then footfall is affected. Hence, I think, the original question: what are we going to do for those businesses that are now going to feel the draught from all of this?”
“Last week, the Health Minister announced that Queen's University was making available 80 extra medical school places. Will the Minister tell the House if that meets entirely the demand from those disappointed until their grades were upgraded, or is there any knock-on effect on next year, which would be most unfortunate for that upcoming cohort?”
“Whatever confusion might arise in the four nations, I suspect that the First Minister will agree that the greater challenge lies at home in the undermining of the Executive's message by the episode of the deputy First Minister's attendance at the Storey funeral. Has the deputy First Minister apologised to her — she has not apologised to the public — for attending the funeral and for breaching your own joint regulations?”
“If the flag flies on this Building, it will show whether or not there is any respect, from the Assembly Commission and those who govern this place, for the people who want to be part of the United Kingdom. If the flag does not fly, it will be a calculated and deliberate insult to everyone who values their place in the United Kingdom and another confirmation of just what would await us if we were so foolish to leave the United Kingdom.”
“I do not get extra time so I will not. <BR /> <BR />Ms Ennis said that she sees nothing in this Building that accommodates her culture. My goodness, if I walk into this Building and walk up the steps from the main hall, I am faced with the portrait of an IRA commander who was responsible for multiple murders of my constituents and others. <BR /> <BR />To get back to the regulations. I welcome the fact that they are bringing things up to date. I welcome the fact that the two Sinn Féin Ministers — Communities and Finance — will now have the Union flag flying from their headquarters. I welcome the additional days. However, I say to the Assembly Commission that there is a test coming for respect within this community: 7 June 2021 is the centenary of the formation — the first sitting — of the Northern Ireland Parliament.”
“Here they are today, happy to take all the privileges of being part of the United Kingdom, bursting to get us out of the United Kingdom, promising a new Ireland and, yet, within Northern Ireland, they cannot even accept the flying of the flag.”
“John O'Dowd said that some people seem to have forgotten that they had signed up to what he called the Good Friday Agreement. That is a message that he and his party should take themselves. Whatever else the Belfast Agreement can be faulted for, it involved — we were told — an acceptance that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. If that is correct, how can there be resistance to the flying of the flag of the United Kingdom on government buildings in Northern Ireland? If there is a recognition that we are part of the United Kingdom, one inevitably follows the other. Instead, we have had today, particularly from the first Sinn Féin Member to speak, Ms Sheerin, was bile against all things British and the flag. Yet these are the people who tell us that a great new dawn awaits us in a new Ireland.”
“It does not bestow on the Business Committee the power to limit the Members who wish to speak to three minutes. It bestows only on the Business Committee, in consultation with yourself, the power to set the totality of the time. Where has the three-minute limit come from?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am interested to know under what Standing Order Members are being restricted to three minutes? Standing Order 17 relates to speeches in the Assembly. Standing Order 17(4) says:”
“Further to that point of order, is it not the case that, in order to enable Minister Mallon to make the provisions, she is now going to be given powers that she hitherto did not have? Is that not what has been declared today?”
“— Commission ensure that there is no humiliating insult whereby the flag of our nation is not even flown at the centenary?”
“Given what we just heard from Mr Carroll and Ms Sheerin, does the Commission agree that it will be a test of the capacity of some to show respect for how the centenary is marked? There are some who like to pay lip service to respect, but I think that today has been an illustration of how difficult that is for some. In that regard, could I bring Mr Blair back to Mr Storey's question, which was not answered? We have a rich history that is shown in artefacts that the Commission controls, including portraits of former Prime Ministers and military figures, all of whom contributed. Will the Commission ensure that, for the centenary, those are not hidden away and are shown as part of our history? Will the —”
“Mr Beggs identifies an obvious lacuna in the accountability provisions. In respect of there being no power in the Commission to investigate Ministers, no doubt the House will be delighted — I hope that the Assembly Commission will be delighted — by the shortly upcoming opportunity to fill that void by passing clause 5 of my private Member's Bill, which would make the Commission accountable for complaints against Ministers as well, and therefore complete the circle of accountability, which presently has that gap. I trust that the Commission will look forward to such an opportunity to fill that gap.”
“No later than last night, the Minister's political party affirmed opposition to Northern Ireland's economic place in the UK being compromised by the protocol and proclaimed opposition to any new customs infrastructure in Northern Ireland as an immoveable foundational pillar. Why, then, is the Minister continuing to be ready to provide infrastructure at our ports in Northern Ireland to create an Irish Sea border?”
“Then, last night, the Member's party, whether as a rebuke or otherwise, said that it continues to maintain that the protocol must be scrapped. Are those some people who will continue to fight it, and which side is he on?”
“Thank you, Mr Stalford. Very formal. <BR /> <BR />The Member has been telling us that his party is all on the one page on this matter. I refer back to the point that Mr Aiken raised. Last Friday, the First Minister said:”
“If the Member is concerned about the fettering of trade, why is he a supporter of the vehicle for fettering that trade, namely the protocol? It is the protocol that fetters the trade each way, yet he and his party are the biggest cheerleaders for that protocol.”
“I have been listening with interest. The Member says that we need legislation to iron out some of the difficulties, but, yesterday, he was the very Member who brought to the House his outrage at the fact that the sovereign Government were prepared to bring in legislation that would ameliorate, for example, the exit declarations. If he is concerned about the difficulties that are being created, why is he so opposed to a Government ameliorating the exit declarations? Does he agree with exit declarations?”
“In fact I said no such thing. I said that I supported the extension of the scheme but that we had to recognise, and this is where the maturity comes in, that you cannot go on forever pouring money into the scheme. There have to be other ways to create and to keep employment, because if there are companies which are never coming back you cannot keep pouring money into them. It is pretty simple.”
“So, too, has the community been, in general. Two wrongs do not ever make a right. I am making the point that, at some point, people have to get real about the economic future.”
“I am not going to defend the bailout of the banks. They were treated with considerable generosity.”
“Yes, without the furlough scheme, we would be in a very dire situation, but you cannot realistically expect that things will go on indefinitely. It comes to personal and collective community responsibility, and I am sure that, as we go forward, there will be other needs to be met in different ways, perhaps.”
“I am not saying that the furlough scheme should not be extended, but it cannot be extended forever. Sadly, there are businesses that will never reopen. At some point, realities have to be faced. You cannot keep putting your hand into the pocket of the Treasury if there is no realistic prospect of that spend turning good. As hard as it is for politicians in a devolved arrangement to face such realities, there comes a point when those realities will have to be faced, because, as Mr Stalford said, some day, someone — possibly down to our grandchildren — is going to have to pay for this. Do we want to create such a mountain of debt on future generations for the ease of being able to say, "We found money off the money tree in 2020"? There comes a point when reality has to settle in.”
“In a moment. We had Mr O'Dowd's infamous shire of bs comment; we had the illiteracy of our Finance Minister saying that the lockdown could be blamed on austerity. There comes a time when the Assembly has to grow up and recognise its responsibilities in the here and now — responsibilities that are here, not elsewhere.”
“There are some, of course, whose raison d'être is to blame the Brits.”
“Before we take the mote out of the eye of Westminster, maybe we should have a look at the Executive.”
“You cannot blame Westminster for everything. My goodness, in respect of expenditure here, the Executive have not been able to spend, to date, all the money that they have received in respect of COVID from Westminster. Mr Dickson rightly told us — I am sure that each one of us could add to it — about the small traders who have fallen through the net with no help. We have a haulage sector with next to no help, yet money in the coffers not provided.”
“It would be hard to dispute some of the recitals in the motion — recognising the significant impact that the COVID-19 crisis has had on the public and noting the projections that more than 100,000 people could be unemployed by the end of the year — but there is something churlish about it. There is no acknowledgement of the very substantial assistance that has kept our economy afloat. Of course, as taxpayers, we are entitled to benefit from our membership of the UK — that, of course, is the big advantage of being in the UK — but I do not think that it would have really done those who tabled the motion any harm to acknowledge the sheer scale of assistance that has been provided. I have always thought that one of the self-inflicted dangers for devolution — not just here but elsewhere — is the risk of it simply becoming a grievance machine.”
“The Minister will be aware of the great anger and frustration amongst victims that it took a judicial review to break the deadlock on this matter, with the resulting delay and cost to the public purse. What confidence does she have that there will not be further contrived delay when it comes to agreeing the funding and is there a risk of another judicial review? It would be quite shameful if that was necessary.”
“Does the Minister agree that, whether it is this planning decision or any other, pursuant to the Executive (Functions) Act, she can now make that decision without recourse to the Executive, and without awaiting any amendment to the ministerial code? Does she agree with that?”
“— set up straw men about disparity, when the creators of the disparity are the people sitting in front of me.”
“That is an issue that needs to be addressed in a vigorous way. <BR /> <BR />It is unfortunate that we are having a debate on an issue in which there is an attempt to —”
“I, therefore, stress the point: the Assembly starts from a very low base when looking to pontificate about sentencing for all. I recognise that there is an issue about picking specific sectors for a particular format of sentencing, but there is a bigger issue, which is the issue that I have been talking about. <BR /> <BR />There is an issue that the Justice Minister needs to look at seriously. The 50:50 practice of half probation and serving half the time in non-homicide cases is rightly regarded as the soft option, because that is what it is. Putting criminals on probation is what causes most of them to laugh as they walk away from the criminal justice system. The idea of a 50:50 process in sentencing is one of the issues that is bringing the whole criminal justice system into serious disrepute.”
“It really is stretching credulity to hear people in this House talk about not creating a hierarchy of disparity, when they, through their political parties, have done exactly that. That is why I say that this Assembly, peopled in the main by folk from those parties, lacks credibility on this issue. Of course, it lacks it, particularly, on the Benches of Sinn Féin, which, to this very day, not only campaigns for the release of IRA murderers but refuses to call them murderers and to condemn their acts as terrorist acts and still justifies those acts. They come here today, nitpicking about whether we will be creating a disparity, when they are the living, walking illustration of hypocrisy and disparity on the issue of criminality and yet cannot say that it was wrong to kill. Nay, they celebrate; they glorify the killers.”
“This House significantly lacks credibility in discussing these issues and in propositions about tougher sentences being required, because four of the parties that make up the Government in this House were advocates for opening the prison doors and letting out the murderers. Whether those murderers were child killers or police killers, the unanimous view of four of the parties in this Government was, "They are different; let them out". <BR /> <BR />I listened to Mr Blair say that we cannot have a disparity, a hierarchy of victims. It is a bit late for the Alliance Party to think in those terms, because, in 1998, that is exactly what it endorsed. If you killed a policeman, you got out of jail. If you killed your neighbour or your wife in a domestic, you stayed in jail.”
“It has been the biggest con of our time that the protocol was necessary to protect the Belfast Agreement.”
“I do not think that I can. <BR /> <BR />Take the issue of state aid. There are many socialists on this side of the House. State aid is the essence of socialism. It is about government propping up business; it is about government with handouts. Yet, when you have a Government, possibly in a Bill, wanting to give themselves the freedom to do exactly that, who are the first people up in arms? The mighty socialists. What a sham this is, and, of course, it is all dressed up, most disingenuously, as being about supporting the Belfast Agreement. The Belfast Agreement, I remind the House, never had anything to say about trade across the border in terms of whether there should or should not be a border.”
“Yet, when a proposition is mooted — whether it is mere speculation we will see — that some of that fettering could be loosened and that, for example, you would not have exit declarations, which is a preposterous proposition in the first place, to trade internally in the United Kingdom and that you could have the facility for the United Kingdom Government to look after business by providing aid to businesses in need, when those two propositions are mooted, who is up in arms? The very people who tell us that they care about business and about jobs. Two measures that would greatly assist the retention of business are suddenly anathema. Why? Because their ideology is more important to them than anything else.”
“I do not know how many times in the House I have heard Members from all sides proclaim their concern about business, workers, consumers or jobs and affirm that they will do anything to advance those causes. Yet, the protocol is the one thing that poses a considerable long-term threat to business, workers, consumers and jobs, and it is the one thing that they clutch dearly. Make no mistake about it: the protocol cuts us off from our primary market, which is the United Kingdom. It fetters our trade in both directions, most particularly from GB to here but also from here to GB.”
“— and their parents left to despair over what all their efforts had been for. That was wrong.”
“<BR /> <BR />Fundamentally, in all of this, we should think about the students and the pupils and the unnecessary distress that they were put through last weekend. It should have been rectified before Thursday. It should, at least, have been rectified on Thursday. Instead, students were hung out to worry —”
“Thank you. I trust that the Education Committee will take up the cudgels on the issue and conduct an investigation of how we got here, whether CCEA is fit for purpose and what lessons are to be learned. It is not a matter that can be let rest. The Minister was effusive in his support for CCEA. Did the Minister have complete sight of the algorithm that has failed — if he did, it compounds his folly — or did he leave it to CCEA and, in leaving it to CCEA, was he let down? Those are questions that we need answers to. There is blame in various quarters, and I certainly do not exempt CCEA. It is not the first time that CCEA has messed up on exams. It was on a far lesser scale in the past, but this is not the first time. A long, hard, vigorous look needs to be taken at CCEA to see exactly where things went wrong.”
“That must be done if some degree of equity and fairness for our students is to be salvaged from this. <BR /> <BR />It is not just a matter of leaving it there. How did we get here? Is CCEA fit for purpose? That question needs to be asked, because it was not just the Minister who defended CCEA: the chief executive of CCEA could not have been more bullish in his defence of this indefensible system.”
“We are at the point where university places that had been dangled before students were, because of the perverse CCEA results, snapped away from them. The question now is whether they can be returned to them. Of course, it is vital that those who have now got the rightful grades that they were first denied also get the university places that, to this point, they have been denied. That will take extra funding. Yes, Sinn Féin, which ridicules following the GB examples, will, of course, be the first party with its hand out for the funding to enable that to happen, because I suspect that it will be on the back of Barnett consequentials that extra funding will be provided. That will not be for just this year — these are three- and four-year courses — but for future years.”
“He accepted that teacher grades for GCSE were the appropriate benchmark and decider but persisted in saying, "Not so" about the same teachers' grades when it came to A levels. Then, belatedly, on Monday, when the ground was removed totally from below him, he came to accept that as well. It was that deafness and blindness to the problem that was the greatest weakness that the Minister showed in all of this. I commend the very many pupils, parents and teachers who campaigned to great effect and eventually secured what was rightfully theirs from the beginning. I commend them for that and for the vigour and determination that they showed. <BR /> <BR />Now, of course, we are at the halfway point of the crisis.”
“It has been interesting for me to observe the internecine blame game between the Executive parties. However, make no mistake about it: this is a shambles made in Stormont. It is not the first, and, I fear, it will not be the last. I welcome the fact that the Minister eventually came to the point of U-turn. I remain critical, however, of the blindness and deafness of the Department and the Minister to the problem for so long. <BR /> <BR />What everyone else could see on Thursday the Minister denied. What everyone else could see on Friday the Minister denied. Eventually, on Monday morning, he came to the realisation that he was on untenable ground, which was also, of course, shrinking ground, and that he had to make the U-turn on GCSEs. Even in making that U-turn, he compounded the insult to teachers in our community.”