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 agenda is to cull and disengage the statutory sector, if I can put it like that, from these education facilities and to hand them over to the voluntary sector. What does that mean for the kids of north Antrim? There is no alternative voluntary capacity or opportunity there. I think the nearest centre is in Bangor. <BR /> <BR />That brings me to a critical point. Who have been the key beneficiaries of the scheme? Some of the most deprived kids in our schools, who are low in self-esteem and self-worth. They get a weekend or a few days at a centre such as this and suddenly they discover that they, who feel that they have always been put down, have got an interest. There is something good that they can do. There are things that they are good at. They leave those centres believing in themselves.”
“The first contact from those making the proposition in the Education Authority was four weeks ago, when they went down to the centre and broke the news that they were going to close it. That is no way to treat anyone, least of all a centre that has been a roaring success for many years. <BR /> <BR />I think of the squander by this Executive — we will hear something more about that tonight on BBC 'Spotlight' — and then I read that £1·3 million will be saved by this project. But will it? In fact, the £1·3 million will simply be redirected within the Youth Service. This will not save one penny of the Minister's overall budget. The money will be redirected. It is quite clear to me, from the underhand way in which this has been done, that it is serving another agenda.”
“I must say, I do not understand why the powers that be want to destroy a success story. That is what Bushmills is and has been for generations. Of particular concern — it raises my suspicions — is the manner of the process deployed here. First, there is a supposed review, and Bushmills is fifth on the list, and, because that seems to put three County Down centres at the top of the list, it is suddenly rejigged, and Bushmills is third. <BR /> <BR />What is even more concerning is that, during this process, no one even troubled themselves to visit the centre. No one went down to meet the excellent, dedicated staff, to talk it through with them and to see what they do day and daily. Some desktop operation was established, whereby it was decided, "Oh, well. Let's close Bushmills." That is an appalling decision.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During Question Time, the Economy Minister said that I had written to him, pleading for a constituent to be included in the RHI scheme. In view of that distortion, may I correct the record? In September and October of this year, I wrote to the Minister on behalf of two separate constituents who had applied to the scheme back in February and who had heard nothing. I did what any other constituency Member would have done: I wrote to ask, "Why have these people not heard about their applications?".”
“It might cost him his job, but does the Minister agree that at least one of his predecessors, particularly Mrs Foster, was asleep at the wheel in failing to exercise ministerial supervision and ensure that adequate cost controls were in place? Will he give us an update on how much this squander made in Stormont will cost us in the future?”
“The only answer is that we are penalising them because of the bigotry and belligerence of Sinn Féin, which wants to equate those gallant men and women with the terrorists who are closest to its heart and who set themselves up to do down the forces of law and order. Therein lies the scandal at the heart of this thing. It is the elevation of Sinn Féin's undying commitment to the terrorist cause that causes it to block doing the decent thing for the decent men and women who served in our armed forces.”
“It is, in fact, a badge of the failure of the system of government here that our veterans have been so badly let down. They have no representation because, under the system, a veto has been gifted to those who are on the side of the terrorists rather than on the side of the forces of law and order. <BR /> <BR />Let us be very plain: this is not about validating army actions internationally, nationally or any other way. It was not the ordinary soldier who decided that the United Kingdom armed forces should intervene in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else; it was government and Parliament and politicians. Why are we penalising the ordinary soldiers who did the only thing they could do, which was to fulfil their duties in their day job? Why are we penalising them, when they suffer as they have suffered?”
“From Mr Kelly's lips came forth the real reason his party is not prepared to show due deference to military veterans: the pernicious equivalence that he and his party seek to establish between those who served the forces of law and order and those who served the forces of terrorism. He made it abundantly clear that, so long as others stand in the way of, for example, a pension for terrorists, Sinn Féin will belligerently block matters as just as this. It is that pernicious equivalence that Sinn Féin seeks to obtain between the soldier who served his country and the terrorist who shot civilians and soldiers — anyone they could find — in the back. The attempt to establish that equivalence lies at the heart of Sinn Féin belligerence and bigotry on the matter. That is the truth of it.”
“We know for a certainty that it is the exercise of the Sinn Féin veto that has denied representation because of evidence given to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on 24 April 2013, referred to by Mrs Long, when the issue of why the Executive had not even responded to an invitation to send representation was raised. That was dealt with by two Ministers — Mr Poots and Mr McCausland — and both had to acknowledge that it had never been brought to the Executive table because Sinn Féin had blocked it. <BR /> <BR />Let us be under no illusion: the reason there is no representation for veterans in Northern Ireland at the centre of this matter is that bigoted, belligerent Sinn Féin veto, some evidence of which we have seen in today's debate.”
“I commend Mr Beattie for tabling the motion. It is an issue that has long been deserving of attention, because it is a scandal that this part of the United Kingdom is the only area that does not have representation in respect of those who have served in the armed forces. Of course, there is a very clear reason for that, which is that Sinn Féin has exercised a veto on Northern Ireland having such representation; indeed, by the looks of it, Sinn Féin has also exercised a veto on there even being a Minister from the First Minister's office here today to deal with the issue, such is its antipathy on the matter.”
“Has the Member not come to the heart of the matter? In all that we heard from the Minister, who did not want to take interventions, he never addressed the key issue: why was the scheme designed to exclude competition in respect of the lead partners? The answer is clear: it was always intended to be a vehicle for cronyism, but it could not be that if they dared to have open competition.”
“For the very reason of the stench of hypocrisy that arises from the source of this motion, I will vote against it.”
“<BR /> <BR />Yet some, who, to this day, have no apology to make for their actions or the actions of their comrades in delivering murder and denying the fundamental right to life, have the audacity to come to the House and cloak themselves in the language of human rights and talk about defending international Human Rights Day. Where were the human rights of Kenneth Smyth, Daniel McCormick, Joseph Parker, Stewart Middlemass and James Hesketh on international Human Rights Day? They were denied them, primarily by the IRA, and, in April 1986, the proposer of the motion would have denied the same human right had he not been stopped in his tracks by the SAS.”
“On 10 December 1971, two UDR soldiers, a Protestant and a Catholic, Kenneth Smyth and Daniel McCormick, were murdered by the IRA on international Human Rights Day at Claudy. The very next year, on 10 December 1972, Stewart Middlemass, a soldier, was murdered by an IRA booby trap at Fort Monagh barracks. The very next year, on international Human Rights Day, James Hesketh, a 21-year-old soldier, was shot by an IRA sniper in Leeson Street. In 1980, on international Human Rights Day, 10 December, Colin Quinn was shot by the IRA when leaving his work.”
“<BR /> <BR />Only in Stormont could someone have the audacity to stand unrepentant about their own attempts to deny human rights while proposing a motion on human rights and clutching to themselves the clothing of human rights when they stand convicted of possessing explosives and a rifle with intent to endanger life. If he had had his way that day, he would have delivered murder to a passing patrol of soldiers. <BR /> <BR />Of course, it is interesting to reflect that, on international Human Rights Day — 10 December — the same IRA robbed many individuals of that most absolute human right, for which we hear no apology today.”
“There are many fundamental human rights, but there is the absolute human right of the right to life; it is written in the universal declaration at article 3. Some have referred to the irony of the source of the motion; I refer to the hypocrisy of the source of the motion today. It comes from a party that has gone out of its way over many years to justify and stand over the denial of that absolute human right: the right to life. Take the proposer of the motion, Mr Lynch: an unrepentant convicted terrorist. He was caught by the SAS in April 1986 while seeking to plant a landmine with murder in his heart to kill soldiers on the road to Rosslea, for which he got 25 years but, sadly, served only half of that.”
“— subject of attack had been of a different colour, I think that the Minister would have made it her business. Is that not correct?”
“Does the Minister agree that deterrent sentences are essential to stamp out this sectarian hate crime? Is not the Department's commitment undermined by the fact that, although there have been 132 attacks, the Minister is not interested enough to know how many prosecutions there have been? As Mr Beggs said, if the —”
“I welcome the First Minister's indication that no internal UK borders is a red-line issue. Amidst all the nonsense that is being talked about special status for Northern Ireland, is it also a red-line issue for the First Minister that Northern Ireland's leaving of the EU must, and must be seen to be, as emphatic and as evident as that of the rest of the kingdom?”
“Are they going today to walk in their first ways like Jehoshaphat? Are they going to follow the fashionable crowd? Are they going to take the hard road or the easy road? Are they going to do what is right or what is wrong? Very soon we will know, Mr Speaker.”
“<BR /> <BR />As I said in my opening remarks, we are told that there are many in the ranks of the DUP who have a strong religious view and who are ruling elders in a Church that still proclaims homosexuality a sin and believes that buggery is wrong. Yet, today those elders like Mr Storey, Lord Morrow and Mr Tom Buchanan will sit on their hands, and, if it comes to it, put party before principle. Mr Buchanan, just a couple of years ago, addressing schoolchildren, was quoted in the 'Ulster Herald' as saying that homosexuality "isn't right" and is "an abomination". Which Mr Buchanan is here today? Where is he hiding? Where is Mr Storey hiding? Where is Lord Morrow hiding? Where are the others who sat in pews yesterday in a Church that still holds that homosexuality is a sin? That is the real challenge for those people.”
“Not end of. What that means is that there is a party policy to vote against the amendment. Of course, both the Ulster Unionists and the DUP are hoping that there will be no vote. Some of them do not want the embarrassment of having to go through the No Lobby on the amendment, in favour of the retrospective gay pardon. They are hoping that Allister might shout out for his amendment but that no one else will, and that, even if he gets a Division, there will be no Teller. They can then go around the country and pretend and say, "There was no vote" and "Oh, we did not vote for that". That is the stratagem that is being deployed, particularly by the party that made a central plank of saving Ulster from sodomy. It is now going to validate that very thing.”
“Yes, certainly. Where is the freedom of conscience on that side of the House on the issue? Why is it being suppressed?”
“This is the party that told us, properly, during the Asher's case what a shameful assault it was on freedom of conscience, yet, when it comes to this issue, its Members are not allowed to have a conscience, even though I know that there are those on those Benches who do not agree, they say, with the retrospective pardon. They are not allowed a conscience on it. <BR /> <BR />I must say to the Ulster Unionists that I have often heard Mike Nesbitt boast of the fact that his party takes pride in having free votes on issues of conscience. Not today. Mr Nesbitt too has Members who are unhappy about the matter, so where is the freedom of conscience?”
“The DUP has those in its ranks who carried the placards saying, "Save Ulster from Sodomy", and they know that the action that the House is taking is validating that very thing by saying that it was wrong for it to have been an offence. That is the inescapable import of the retrospective pardon. It is a collective, societal contrition for the fact that it was ever an offence. That, of course, embarrasses the party that is the DUP, because it was so lined up with that campaign. <BR /> <BR />I am disappointed that the DUP's instruction to its Members is a three-line whip against the amendment. Of course, they are hoping that it will not come to a vote. They have been strangely silent on the issue — not so strangely but totally silent.”
“I said that I respected those who disagreed with me, and I understand entirely the logic of their position. I indicated that I have more respect for them than those who have kept silent in the debate. We have not had a DUP speech in the debate. We had a speech by the Chairman of the Committee, but he did not at any point, as is normal, speak on behalf of his party. Why? Because his party does not want to have anything on the record about the matter. That is why. The party of "Save Ulster from Sodomy" does not want to have it on the record that it said anything about the matter, which is why it is so anxious that there should be no vote in the House on it. It is because of its embarrassment.”
“Yet that is the purpose of this added amendment.”
“With respect, the Member is wrong. The offences that I referred to were sex offences. Unlawful carnal knowledge with a 16-year-old, committed by heterosexuals, was a significant criminal offence that is now obsolete. Buggery committed by a homosexual has been chosen specially for pardon. Why? It is because, as I suggested, the fashionable fad is to be on that bandwagon. This House betrays its true intent by the fact that it has glossed over and rushed past all those other offences in order to get to the point of offering these pardons. That is the point about the principle of it being wrong. <BR /> <BR />We foolishly think that we can rewrite the law retrospectively and that we, the legislators of 2016, should take upon ourselves the burden of being the legislators of the 1950s or whenever. We have enough to do looking after 2016.”
“There are multiple obsolete offences in every sphere of the criminal law, but only one recommends itself to this House for retrospective pardon. That is the point that I am making. The selectivity of that is wrong; the discrimination of it is wrong. I illustrated that with the many heterosexual offences that have now become obsolete.”
“I will pick up on one of Mr Agnew's latter points. He said that there have been many wrongs in the past. The point I was making is that that may be right, but why is it that we are being selective in the pardoning process? Why is it that we are choosing only obsolete offences within the realm of sexual crimes committed by homosexuals? Why is it, indeed, that in the wider criminal calendar — he referred to witches; we had the Islandmagee witches, but there has been no pardon for them, so to speak — we are being so selective in deciding that we are going to push aside all the due process and rush forward with this single proposition relating to gay pardons and everything else does not matter? That is the message that this House is sending out.”
“I do not, for one moment, question the sincerity of those who have spoken against my amendment; they have done so honestly and with integrity. In a way, I respect their contributions more than those who chose to have nothing to say about this subject. I will return to that in a moment.”
“The Member referred to me refusing to answer questions. I think that I gave way to any and every Member who asked me to give way, as is my wont. What did I fail to deal with?”
“That is how it should be for everyone, and this is a totally unnecessary and fruitless exercise that only exposes the inequality that this House is prepared to embrace as well as some embracing that which in their past they said was wrong but apparently today is going to be right.”
“They did not take it arrogantly upon themselves to rewrite the law. They said, "Those offences serve no purpose. Let's remove them". Our own Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland) 1968 took away in this old House many old criminal offences but no one ever said that you must pardon those because they really never should have been offences. Why the difference today? Why are we so overrun and overwhelmed by this fashionable fad that we have to do something for the single community of LGBT? The attitude seems to be that we have to cleanse ourselves, but, for everyone else: tough. That is how the law was. You chose to break it: tough.”
“Across the water, in recent years, they took 300 old criminal offences off the statute book, but they did not offer pardons.”
“They were discriminated against by the fact that the criminal law said that the act that they were engaging in was unlawful; that is the common denominator. That which the criminal law decreed as unlawful was unlawful in respect of heterosexual and homosexual offences. That is the common denominator. <BR /> <BR />What this really points up is the enthusiasm of this House to turn its back on that gross inequality. I make it plain again that I am not urging in that this House go through our statute book and offer pardons for every now obsolete offence. My goodness, where would you stop? It used to be an offence to be an incorrigible vagrant. An incorrigible rogue was the criminal offence. Some might think that it is a good job that it is not an offence now, but it used to be a criminal offence.”
“What a stain on our collective history that we must perform this act of collective contrition and give pardons to all the young men convicted of unlawful carnal knowledge when, today, it would not be a crime". Is that not the hypocrisy of this situation? We are prepared to embrace the active discrimination that is wrapped up in this proposal; we only show interest in, concern for and act for the homosexual community, but, in our rush to get this through, we turn our backs and do nothing for the heterosexual community. <BR /> <BR />There are parties in this House — the SDLP is one of them — that loudly proclaim their undying devotion to equality. Where is the equality here? It is absent. Yet, today, the SDLP will enthusiastically engage in this act of societal redemption.”
“Let me make my position clear: I do not think that it is right to give pardons retrospectively for homosexuals or heterosexuals. The law was the law whatever it was, and if you chose to break the law, you chose to break the law, so I do not believe in rewriting history, but the discrimination involved here is self-evident. <BR /> <BR />In my time professionally I appeared for a number of 17- or 18-year-old men who maybe had consensual sexual relations with a 16-year-old girl. They committed the crime of unlawful carnal knowledge, and many were prosecuted for it. Today, having sexual relations with a 16-year-old girl is not a crime because the age of consent is now 16, but for decades in this Province it was 17. So, why is no one up on their indignant high horse saying, "What a shame.”
“I remember a debate not so long ago when Members on the DUP Benches told us how they could not and would not leave their beliefs outside the door. That is what they are going to do today, because they are not prepared to stand against the fashionable pandering to an interest. <BR /> <BR />That brings me to my third point. That fashionable pandering reeks of active discrimination, because it is only for homosexual crimes that we are embracing the idea of pardons. There are many heterosexuals who still, to this day, carry the stain, if you want, of being convicted of a criminal offence that is no longer a criminal offence, but no one is proffering pardons to them. As an afterthought, the Minister today said, "Oh, yes. We could look at that".”
“No, I do not think that chemical castration was ever a suitable punishment, but that does not mean that the law should not have been as it was in terms of what was legal and what was illegal. Just as we cannot undo that, it is not for us, 50 or 60 years later, to proclaim sanctimoniously, from these Benches or elsewhere, that that is how the law should have been. Fellow Members, it is not for us to do that. The law was as it was, and it is not our responsibility. If it was wrong, it was the responsibility of those who made that law, not this House's. <BR /> <BR />What this is clearly all about is a fashionable pandering to a particular interest. It is now so fashionable to jump on board the LGBT bandwagon that you simply abandon all principles and leave your beliefs outside the door.”
“In a moment. They are hiding in their room because they do not want to be faced with that. There will come a day — it will not be here — when they will account for all that they have said and done. I will give way.”
“Will they sit on their hands today and validate the view that it is not, as some of them hide in their room, running away from the debate —”
“Listen well: all who will endorse this pardon, by their silence or their vote, is accepting that homosexuality is a "normal sexual activity". Many of their Churches teach that homosexuality is still a sin and that buggery is still wrong. That is the teaching that many of them have. This is the challenge to the House and to everyone as an individual with his or her own conscience. Are they prepared, by their inaction or action today, to embrace and endorse the validation of homosexuality as "normal sexual activity"? There is no ducking and there is no diving: that is the question. That is particularly the question for those who are ruling elders in certain Churches that still take that stand. Some will have sat in the pews yesterday of Churches that still teach that homosexuality is a sin.”
“Indeed, it has been put very specifically by the Minister in answer to another question for written answer that I tabled to her. She said — she has said it again today — that it is about addressing:”
“Are they now validating sodomy? Are they now saying, "Let us rewrite that" or "Let us rub that out"? That is what you are doing the moment that you assent, either by acquiescence or active voting, to a pardon for this obsolete criminal offence. You can twist, turn or try to run away from it, but that is the reality.”
“Yes, on this side of the House, that is probably so, but what about those who were going to save Ulster from sodomy?”
“That is not the issue. The issue is whether the House in 2016, in its arrogance, thinks that it can take it upon itself to rewrite the law of 40 years ago. It cannot, and it should not. The law was the law. If those who chose to break the law, knowing what the law was, paid a penalty, that was the law taking its course, whether they were homosexual or heterosexual. I will say more about that in a moment. <BR /> <BR />It is not for the House to impose its standards retrospectively, because the inescapable effect of pardoning posthumously and creating a path to pardon for those still alive is to validate that which was a crime and to say that it should never have been a crime. That is what the Minister says, but is it what everyone who will allow this through today says?”
“It is certainly a matter of what is right and what is wrong, but it is not for the Assembly to rewrite the statute book. That is the effect of this pardon: to validate as non-criminal that which was criminal. To wish, pretend, sweep it away —”
“<BR /> <BR />Of course, for some, it is a matter of rewriting their party history. For the DUP, it is a matter of rewriting the party history on Save Ulster from Sodomy. What we are involved in here today has all the appearance of some contrived, collective act of contrition whereby, in the words of the Minister, we will:”
“The process is, I suggest, flawed. <BR /> <BR />What about the principle? What about the notion that we as legislators in 2016 can rewrite the statute book retrospectively and decide not what the law was in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s or 1970s but what it should have been? My goodness, we as a House have difficulty enough legislating for 2016. The arrogance of it — we are going to now decree what the law should have been 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago. The principle is wrong. It is not for the House — it has never done it in the past, and there is good reason for that — to rewrite history. If something was a criminal offence, it was a criminal offence. For the House to think that it should impose its moral standards or immoral standards retrospectively is plain wrong.”