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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“spoke to complacency and a lack of alertness to what was coming down the tracks? Is there a contingency plan for Bombardier if the CSeries does not achieve its hoped-for level of sales? Will he remind Mr Rogers that the bulk of our aerospace trade is outside the EU?”
“Despite the Minister's anxiety to assure us about how much he is doing, I am not minded to blame him for the global losses at Bombardier. However, does he not accept that his party conference speech just three months ago, at which he said:”
“This Member agrees, but I doubt that the Minister will agree. <BR /> <BR />It is one of the worst manifestations that we have seen of the mismanagement and bungling of a scheme at departmental level. Those who took up the scheme did so in good faith, believing that they were working with responsible government and that they could trust what was said in the small print, which was that the scheme would be open until 31 March. They now find that they cannot do that and that it will cost them hugely. I trust that they will well remember whom to blame for that. The people to blame for that are those in the two parties that will, evidently, ram through this proposal tonight.”
“<BR /> <BR />The very least that the Minister can do to make some amends for that which has been mishandled to date is to have transitional arrangements in place so that those who have not contributed to this but will suffer greatly in consequence of it have their situation ameliorated. He really needs to put in place transitional arrangements and funding to cover that.”
“I suspect that he may learn more about that as matters unfold. <BR /> <BR />I think of a supplier in the Ballymena area who, in forward planning, as businesses are meant to do, looked at the orders he had and ordered in the stoves, and he will be left sitting with them. That is a huge outlay because of the incompetence of a Department and a Minister. All the stock that that supplier will have to pay for is lost to him. We then wonder why small and medium-sized businesses find it so tough. We hear all the platitudes and sound bites from DETI about how it is the friend of business and is there to help SMEs. It is crucifying SMEs with that measure. That is what is happening.”
“The work has started and expenditure has been committed, but the custom-built stoves cannot be provided until the middle of March. Courtesy of a unilateral drawing of a pen across a page and saying, "Nothing from the end of February", they are simply expected to bear all that loss. <BR /> <BR />When government conducts itself in the manner in which this scheme evolved, it creates a reasonable expectation for those who come to avail themselves of the scheme that it will be there to be availed of. When the Minister reaffirmed the deadline of 31 March, he created such a reasonable expectation. Now he wants to pull it away unilaterally. I suspect that some of this will end up before the courts because, in public law, the creation of reasonable expectation is a very important principle.”
“It was not some third party in some distant place that failed to control this; it was a supposedly hands-on local Minister. Whatever he was doing, he did not have his eye on this ball. Wherever he was — China or wherever — he was not looking after the shop as far as the scheme is concerned. Now he comes along, almost as if it has nothing to do with him, but it has everything to do with him. Sadly, as far as the consequences are concerned, it has everything to do with many of our constituents, who will pay the price for the incompetence that has been manifested. <BR /> <BR />I am sure that we have all been inundated with difficulties from constituents. I think of two families who, because of the peculiar nature of their scheme, have to wait for custom-built stoves, which will not be available until the middle of March.”
“Then someone wakes up and decides, "Oh, this cannot go on," as if it had nothing to do with them; as if they were not the ones in charge of this scheme; as if they were not the ones who were told last July that it was running in the wrong direction with demand; and as if they were not the ones who, in November, with tariffs reducing, issued an indication that it would run to the end of March.”
“It is under that regime of supposedly caring, local, responsible devolution that this shambles has come to fruition. <BR /> <BR />This was a scheme that, in many ways, was a win-win. The Westminster authorities were paying for it. It was coming out of the AME funding. However, it was so mismanaged that, instead of following the provisions wisely taken elsewhere in GB where you adjusted the tariffs with demand, it was simply allowed to run out of control.”
“What a shambles. It is hard to look at this matter otherwise than to acknowledge the gross departmental, and thus ministerial, mismanagement. If this situation had evolved under direct rule, can you imagine the outcry and allegations from those, namely the DUP and Sinn Féin, who will seek tonight to brush it all under the carpet by voting through what the Minister wants? Can you imagine the outcry about Ministers being asleep at the wheel, taking their eye off the ball, having no interest in the job, being more interested in something else, allowing things to get out of control and having no thought for the people or the economy of Northern Ireland? Can you not hear it all? Yet every one of those things could be said in a situation where we are supposed to have caring, local, responsive devolution.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You said, if I heard you correctly, that the Rural Needs Bill stands referred to the Speaker. Surely there is a Further Consideration Stage of the Rural Needs Bill.”
“Does the First Minister still think that one of the signatories to 'A Fresh Start', namely her partner, Sinn Féin, is inextricably linked to the still-active IRA, as she said in September? If she does still think that, does that amount to an acknowledgement that she is in government with the IRA, Army Council and all?”
“Can the Member explain why the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, which can be very intrusive in rural life, is not included in the list? Is it not the case that amendment No 2 removes, at line 9, the catch-all capacity to add further bodies to the list?”
“Although it was not mentioned in the statement, I note that, in the communiqué, there was discussion about the European Court of Justice's decision to strike down the Scottish Government's attempts at minimum pricing for alcohol. Does that mean that the Department's proposals in that regard are now dead in the water? Does the Minister agree with me that, if the people of the United Kingdom were wise enough to exit the EU, we would be freed from the shackles and restraints of the European Court of Justice and could pass our own legislation on these issues without interference?”
“Interesting as it is that it is the DUP that rides to the rescue of Sinn Féin on the issue, given the nature of the matter and the abuse of public money, is it not time that the Assembly Commission came to the House with a statement explaining how it conducted itself and how it carried on making payments after the independent panel apparently told it to stop? When will we get a statement from the Commission?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.”
“The Member referred to the evolution of the law. Of course, in the Bourne case — we did not quite get that discussion finished — the defence was not based on the fact that it was rape; in fact, it was a gang rape. The defence was based on the abortion being justified because of the resulting impact on the health of the mother, which, of course, fits very neatly with our existing law, which states that it is not an offence if the life or the long-term health of the mother is at severe risk. That is what Bourne was about. It was not because it was a rape; it was about the effect on the health of the mother.”
“With respect, the confusion that is evident comes in the contradictory sentences: if there is rape, but we cannot prove it, we still call it rape. Either it is rape or it is not, and how do you know that it is rape but by due process. There is no other way of knowing that it is rape other than by due process. Otherwise, you are reduced, as Ms Lo's amendment is, to setting the bar at an allegation of rape. So, really the only viable way forward for those of that point of view is to do what Ms Lo suggests and have an allegation of rape as being sufficient. I think that that is preposterous, but that is where your undefined amendments are taking you.”
“The Member suggested to me that 47 other countries in Europe — I am not sure about the accuracy of that — allow abortion on the basis of rape. Of course, there are many countries in Europe that allow abortion on demand, and, no doubt they are included in that figure. However, what other countries do is a matter for them. The question tonight is, "What is this Assembly going to do?". What does the conscience of this Assembly inform us that we should do? And I trust that the conscience of this Assembly collectively informs us that we should not follow the path laid out by Ms Lo, Mr Dixon, Mr Lunn, Mr Agnew or Mr McCrea.”
“— and you are entitled, on the nod of a medical practitioner, to an abortion. Yes, I will give way.”
“What a charter for abortion on demand, effectively. All you have to do is to allege indecent assault, it seems, or rape —”
“Then, to crown it all, this allegation can never be used in bringing someone to justice, because the amendment adds that:”
“How do you determine that there was rape, within the window of abortion, where you have no recourse to the due process of the law? How do you possibly determine that the label that you need to put on this as the passport to abortion is rape? <BR /> <BR />Ms Lo's amazing answer in her amendment is that all you need to hear is an allegation and that an allegation, whatever the motive, is enough to sign you off on an abortion. The tests in Ms Lo's amendment are that:”
“If legislators have done that in other circumstances in other places and have opened the floodgates as they did, that is a matter for them, but that is a road that this Assembly, particularly bound as we are by the UN Convention, should not begin to tread. I urge the Assembly to reject this amendment. <BR /> <BR />I want to turn to those other amendments that are based on rape and incest. The remarkable thing about these amendments is that not one of them addresses this rather fundamental question: how do you satisfy yourself that it was rape? Probably more than most, I have been involved in my time in a lot of rape trials, and 95% of the time, the question for the jury is whether the sexual intercourse was consensual or not.”
“No doubt there are many hard cases and many heart-rending cases on all sides of this argument but, as someone said at the beginning of this debate, you do not make good law on the basis of hard cases. You make the law according to principles, and, particularly in circumstances where we are told this is all a conscience matter for ourselves, we as legislators are told to make the law according to our conscience. If our conscience says, as mine says to me, that I should not lend any support to circumstances of terminating a pregnancy because the child could be born severely disabled and may only live a short time, I am not going to do that, and I do not think that any legislator should do that.”
“I only regret that Mr McCrea obviously did not take the opportunity in the Long Gallery some months ago to come and hear the testimony of parents who had given birth to children of that description who did live for minutes or hours and to hear, despite the obvious and, ultimately, life-taking condition that they had, of the preciousness, valued by those parents, of being able to hold that child and to part with it from this world in their arms. I only wish that Mr McCrea had taken the opportunity to come and listen to such parents. If he had, I suspect that he would not have sought to make the point that he has just made to unilaterally declare that none of those children can ever live at all. They can; they have; and this amendment says that they should not.”
“That is another way of saying that that severely disabled child does not really matter — it does. That child should matter to us. I think that it is appalling that there should be a proposition that a child of that nature, because it is severely disabled, should not be allowed to live. That is the core issue.”
“We do not have infallible doctors; we will never have infallible doctors. We only have doctors who are capable of giving an opinion, and the ambit of that opinion can go to the extent that the child may be born alive, but, ultimately, it will not live.”
“Well, I think Mr Justice Horner was injudicious when he talked about a foetus being "doomed". That was inappropriate. He was wrong in his conclusion in failing to carry through the import of the United Nations convention, and I am sure that that will be a key part of the appeal in the unfinished business of that case. <BR /> <BR />The amendment could not be clearer; it is emphatic. It is contemplating abortion in circumstances where there could be a live birth. It is contemplating that a live child could be born and could live for some unspecified time, yet, according to this amendment, it could be terminated. That is what the amendment says. The language is couched in those terms. <BR /> <BR />For Mr McCrea's scenario to be valid, you would have to have infallible doctors who are able to say that a child is incapable of being born alive.”
“You would have the difficulty of a Bill being passed — If I recall correctly, there would be four weeks for the Attorney General to make the reference, which would probably stymie Royal Assent. We are coming to the end of the legislative programme, and it may not be possible within the time frame. By one means or another, it is conceivable that more than this amendment would be jeopardised as far as the Bill's content is concerned. <BR /> <BR />I turn to some of the other —”
“I am trying to recall the exact wording. I think that it is section 11. I stand to be corrected, but I think that it refers to a provision of a Bill being referred. You would certainly have the dichotomy of a Bill —”
“The Member is spot on; that is exactly what Mr Justice Horner said. He reminded us of our limitations in our legislative powers. The Attorney General puts that on record in his letter. It says:”
“I do not know how far the Minister has shopped around for his legal advice, but it sounds as if he kept going until he got something that suited him. It is the Attorney General who is saying this. The two proposers of the amendment had as much access to the Attorney General as I did to ask him these fundamental questions. It appears that they chose not to ask, maybe because they did not want to hear the answer. The answer is here now, and it is a very severe warning of a belief that this is heading in the direction of incompatibility, for the very understandable —”
“For the total avoidance of doubt, I have made and make no criticism of the acceptance of the amendment for debate. I am fully aware that, if the Assembly were to pass the amendment and it becomes part of the Justice (No. 2) Bill, then, under the 1998 Act, the Attorney General has the power — one would expect that he would exercise it — to refer that provision to the Supreme Court. However, if the Minister has been in touch with the Attorney General on this issue, is it not rather surprising that he has not taken the point that the Attorney General is making to him, namely that this amendment appears to be beyond that which we can do because of its infringement of the UN convention?”
“He says that those articles operate, as far as we are concerned, in respect of our domestic law.”
“Let me disabuse Mr Agnew of any idea that I harbour any support for this amendment: none whatsoever. I am pointing out the audacity of this amendment in the brazen way in which it would discriminate against people on the basis of their severe disability. That, I think, goes to the very heart of this matter. That is why the Attorney General in this country has gone on record to make this very point. When asked whether there were compatibility issues with this amendment and our statutory obligations, the Attorney General has, in a five-page letter, spelled it out. Yes, we are subject to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; yes, that convention sets out principles of which the focus is on the equal protection of the right to life for those with disabilities and those without.”
“One of those is the requirement set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). That is part of our law that we have to respect as a devolved institution. The convention says that the disabled must not be discriminated against and must have the same rights, liberties and attentions as the able-bodied. Therefore, this amendment, premised upon distinguishing a human being on the basis of their disability is, I believe, totally outwith the legislative capacity of the Assembly.”
“In a moment. <BR /> <BR />Here is the key in relation to this amendment: it does not anticipate abortion for an able-bodied child but anticipates abortion for a severely disabled child. In doing that, it crosses the line as to what I believe this Assembly lawfully can do, because it takes us into territory where, because the child is severely or likely to be severely disabled and only have a very short life, it, unlike the able-bodied child, can be aborted. What is that doing in terms of the disabled? That is saying that a child likely to be severely disabled has fewer rights, is less important and can be killed through abortion. That flies wholly in the face of international obligations that this Assembly has. <BR /> <BR />Section 6 of the 1998 Act says that we cannot legislate in breach of certain, specified international laws.”
“So what this amendment is saying is that if two doctors are persuaded that the condition of the foetus, as the amendment wants to call it, is such that the abnormality is of such an extent that the child born is unlikely to survive for some unspecified period — it may well be born alive, but if its chances of survival are not adequate — it can be aborted.”
“So, here we have this amendment anticipating termination in circumstances where a live birth may well occur. It says:”
“— and here we come to a critical part of the amendment:”
“— and we are not told how that is to be tested; and:”
“So, straight away, it sets the bar at the lowest possible level in decision-making. All it has to persuade is the two doctors, and we do not know whether they are the first two doctors asked or the twenty-first or twenty-second doctors asked. All it has to do is to persuade two doctors that the abnormality is likely — not that it will and not that it is beyond reasonable doubt, but that it is likely — to prove fatal. The language of the amendment then goes on to say that the diagnosis has to be made:”
“This is, undoubtedly, a sensitive and emotive issue, and, as I rise to speak, I caution myself in the circumspect language that I should use. These amendments require to be addressed with some rigour because, behind the emotional appeal, there is a fairly fundamental change to our criminal law. That requires to be examined, as I said, with rigour. <BR /> <BR />When we take Mr Lunn and Mr Dickson's amendment, there are one or two things that are quite striking about it. It says that a pregnancy can be terminated:”
“for dairy farmers. Has the Minister a view of what the possibilities are there? Is that task force also looking at the legal possibilities of organising farmers' collectives? Has the Minister a view on that?”
“I refer the Minister to paragraph 5. I assume that the agricultural markets task force that is referred to is that established by the EU Commission. When is that task force due to report? The statement refers to”
“I hear what the Member says. He is ever to be relied on to ride to the defence of the Executive. Time will tell whether the voluntary exit scheme turns out to be so beneficial. We certainly know that it is costing a huge amount of money; whether it makes those savings remains to be seen. In the short term, the outlay is very considerable. However, that is only a portion. Long before the voluntary exit scheme or anything else, the graph of the borrowings of this Executive was on a huge upward drive. It has now reached the point where no one seems to care that we are now the most heavily indebted region of the United Kingdom. That is not something to be proud of, and nor is this Budget.”
“That speaks to me of profligacy and mismanagement in the financial affairs of Northern Ireland.”
“<BR /> <BR />Then, of course, it is a Budget built upon higher borrowing than ever before in the history of these institutions, to the point where we now have indebtedness of £2·1 billion for this small part of the United Kingdom — a debt burden, not just for this generation, but future generations, growing, and presently at £2·1 billion.”
“What is the Maze /Long Kesh Development Corporation actually doing to warrant more money than it was ever intended to have in that year? <BR /> <BR />I notice that InterTradeIreland needed a 23·7% uplift. Yet, the resources for skills were reduced, effectively. Of course, in the rush to devolve corporation tax, we have had tunnel vision, as if reducing corporation tax was the answer to all our economic woes. However, very little parallel attention has been given to the very important matter of skills — not just skills for the economically inactive, but skills, generally, for our workforce. This, to me, is a Budget with no vision in that regard.”