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 found it interesting, for example, that the North/South Ministerial Council required an uplift of 21·5% over the original money set aside for it. I looked for, but of course did not find, what the British-Irish Council, the poor relation, might have required. It seems to run on fresh air; but not the North/South Ministerial Council. Here is another 21·5% over what we were going to give it. <BR /> <BR />Then, I looked at the Maze/Long Kesh Development Corporation. If ever there was a quango that seemingly does nothing because of the dysfunctional logjam in OFMDFM — where Sinn Féin blocks any development of the opportunity that is the Maze site — this is it. Yet, this year it required a 21·5% uplift in its allocation. Why? What is it doing? More of the economically inactive or the gainfully unemployed, perhaps.”
“I do not know how gainfully unemployed they are, because I am not quite sure what they are gaining — or, certainly, what the community is gaining — in consequence of their contribution, but, yes, there may be many strands to that. It is a flaw that there is this lack of focus on dealing with economic inactivity and that it is not thought important enough to resource in this Budget. That is a major failing, and it maybe tells us quite a lot. <BR /> <BR />We all understand that Budgets set down figures and that, as the year progresses, those figures become quite flexible and are adjusted as we go through various phases. However, it is instructive, towards the end of the financial year, after the exercise that was done yesterday on the spring Supplementary Estimates, to look at how some funding has been supplemented.”
“So we are finding money to prop up, sustain and supplement welfare benefits, but when it comes to the idea of dealing with our high level of economic inactivity and encouraging more people from being economically inactive to being economically active, there is not a penny piece in this Budget for the strategy to address economic inactivity. That, I think, is a gross failing.”
“He is not unknown for his singing talents and, indeed, he has, I understand, an O level in music. That is more than I have, I have to say, but he is well equipped to sing off the same hymn sheet on this particular issue. <BR /> <BR />Where it really strikes me as bizarre is that there is money for that, but when you look at the issue of economic inactivity in Northern Ireland, as we heard earlier today — I think it was from Mr McCrea — we are the worst performing region. We have the highest level of economic inactivity. Last March, the Employment and Learning Minister, Dr Farry, brought forward a strategy to tackle economic inactivity. Here we are, 12 months on and looking forward to another 12 months, and that strategy remains unresourced in this Budget.”
“Other things that are obvious in this Budget include the extra money poured into welfare and to attain the so-called Fresh Start Agreement. Yes, of course, it was indeed a very significant climbdown by Sinn Féin from its promise that no one, whether a new or existing claimant, would ever suffer under welfare, but also a very significant diversion of funds that would otherwise have been available for health, education and other necessary expenditures. It was a very significant diversion from other aspects of the block grant into supporting welfare supplements, so that the Minister could sing off the same hymn sheet as Sinn Féin on welfare. Not everyone will know this, but the Minister has some claim to accomplishment in the singing stakes himself.”
“Is it the hand of politics in this Budget? Could it be that, now that courtesy of IRA murder the DRD is held by the DUP, the idea of starving another Minister of funding is no longer appropriate and that, suddenly, largesse is the order of the day? Could it be that an upcoming election could also be a contributor to that? I find it rather striking; when you compare last year's Bill with this year's, that is something that jumps out at one quite significantly.”
“<BR /> <BR />I carried out a little exercise by looking at last year's Budget Bill because I wanted to see just where the variations were; where the uplifts were; and whether there were any telltale signs of why the uplifts were in respect of different Departments. The one that particularly caught my eye was DRD. In schedule 3 of this Budget, we have the sums granted for the upcoming year, 2016-17. If we go back and compare that to the comparable figure in last year's schedule 3, we discover that the Department for Regional Development has had a whopping 33% increase — £134 million extra. If you go to schedule 4, you will discover that resources for this year are an extra £107 million. How, or why, would that be?”
“It always causes me to pause and to ask: where does that money come from? Of course, the answer to that question, that some would rather not hear or face up to, is that that £17 billion comes as a direct consequence of our membership of the United Kingdom. It is because we are an integral part of the United Kingdom, entitled to share in its burdens and its riches, that we have that quantity of money at our disposal. For those who chase various constitutional moonbeams about alternative constitutional arrangements, one fact that they never like to face is where the money would come from. It is patently obvious that the benefits to Northern Ireland of being part of the United Kingdom, as reflected in the monetary settlement year-on-year, are colossal. I think that all citizens in Northern Ireland should reflect on that and be grateful.”
“I begin by congratulating Mr McCrossan on his maiden speech, not just because it is the proper tradition to do so but because it was a particularly well-crafted and equally well-delivered speech, and he spoke with very tenacious affection for his constituency. I think that many of us recall the service of his predecessor, Mr Joe Byrne, in his unassuming way. I think that many of us would like to join in wishing him well in his retirement. <BR /> <BR />Turning to this Budget, when I pick up a Budget Bill and read through it and look for some of the headline figures, there are always some things that strike me. One of the figures that struck me again was in clause 2(2) of this Budget, where we read that, in this current financial year, Northern Ireland has the benefit of resources of over £17 billion.”
“The Minister describes the reduction that is pending in corporation tax as a game changer. Can he explain why it did not change the game in my constituency for either JTI or Michelin, which are leaving our shores, sadly, approximately at the time when the reduction in corporation tax will come? Clearly, it did not impress them as something causing them to make it worthwhile to stay, so is it really the game changer that the Minister proclaims it to be? Experience to date in my constituency does not suggest so.”
“I am sure the Member has considered all the ramifications. Could he advise the House what difference accepting 8%, which, I think, would equate to nine MLAs, is likely to make to the qualifying threshold for a place in government under d'Hondt?”
“You had a chance with this Bill to be seen to do some tinkering to help, but it seems that the attitude of that vested interest is "not even that will we allow." Hence the conspiracy and desire to kill the Bill and to use petitions of concern where necessary. In itself, that is all a commentary on this House.”
“That is why the barometer of public opinion is at an all-time low, and will continue to be there so long as the structures continue as they are. <BR /> <BR />Mr McCallister's Bill is not all that I would have wanted to see, but, my goodness, he has bent over backwards to get as much support as he can. All that he has got is a knife in the back from those who are going to try to kill his Bill. Even the modest component parts of the Bill are, it seems, too much for those with a vested interest, who are quite happy to carry on propping up the most dysfunctional, undemocratic, unworkable system of government anywhere in the western world.”
“— sucking the blood out of normal democratic practices by denying the people who are meant to matter — the voters — the very fundamental democratic right to vote a party out of government, to change the Government and now to even have an opposition? The party that would do all that and does all that raises the spectre of creating a Frankenstein model. What do you think you have got? You have got a model that is held in increasing disdain by the general public because the consequence of its dysfunctional, unworkable nature is that it cannot, and will never, deliver good government in Northern Ireland.”
“The DUP thinks that, if it can table a petition of concern, it will help to delude itself and conceal from the public the reality that it is a joint office when, every day of the week, it operates it as such. <BR /> <BR />Ms Ruane said that Sinn Féin was opposed to the Bill because it would allow the creation of a Frankenstein model. Has she ever looked at this House? Has she ever looked at what this House does, sucking the blood out of basic democratic principles by denying the —”
“<BR /> <BR />To return to the DUP petition of concern, it is interesting and informative that it was used about the clause that would blow away the pretence that there really are two separate offices of First Minister and deputy First Minister. It was ordered to maintain their own self-delusion that, somehow, the First Minister is different from and better than, and has more powers than, the deputy First Minister. The DUP has tabled that petition of concern because it knows, but does not want the public to know, that, in law and in practice, it is one office politically joined at the hip — one unable to even sign a letter without the other. Of course it is a joint office, and it is a joint office by design.”
“Obviously it is something sufficient to cause them to be prepared to suppress the very idea of a technical group in a House where the attitude seems to be that, if you are not in the Government, you do not count. <BR /> <BR />In fact, as Mr Maskey almost told us one day in this House, if you are not supporting the Government, you should not really be here. That seemed to be the attitude. I am sorry, but technical group or no technical group, there will be voices raised in opposition in this House. It is a matter for the greater number as to how they facilitate that. They can seek to suppress it as much as they like, but that voice will be heard. They should do the decent thing and allow a technical group. They should allow equality of opportunity, and they should allow parity of esteem in that regard.”
“Some of the practical consequences are that you cannot, in this corner of this Chamber, ever get an Adjournment debate in this House unless some of the bigger parties give away one of their places, because they are allocated only to those parties on the Business Committee. I might have the most pressing of constituency issues that would lend itself readily to an Adjournment debate, but it is not possible because Members in this corner are treated as the second-class Members of this House. That is the way that the rest want it. That is why they do not want to afford the opportunity of a technical group that might be empowering for the collective influence of the six or whatever number it would be in the future who occupy these Benches. I really wonder what it is they fear.”
“That is the attitude, and it is one that speaks more about those who hold that attitude than it does about those they hold it about.”
“My goodness, are Steven Agnew, John McCallister and the rest of us who sit here so terrifying that you cannot even have a technical group to give us the opportunity to dare, as six Members of the House — think of it — to have any input into the business of the House and to dare to have a representative sit on the Business Committee? To think of it: that these jumped-up individuals who are members of some technical group should dare to have a basis of equality with the rest of us — very important Members of very important parties. Who do these people think they are that we would allow them to have a technical group so that we would have to listen to them in the Business Committee — the Business Committee? Who do they think they are?”
“Such seems to be the paranoia about this short corner Bench that it is determined that it will cut off any oxygen that enables this Bench, lest it should be more effective. So there is gathering of vested interests to make sure that the idea of a technical group in the House is killed off. <BR /> <BR />I raised this as a member of the Committee on Procedures a couple of years ago. I pushed the proposal, and every one of the other Members from all the parties of the Executive voted it down. So it is quite clear that there is a calculated determination to extinguish the very idea of a technical group, which some parties take advantage of elsewhere. What are they scared of? What are the big parties of this House scared of from a technical group?”
“His party's current MEP can speak in the European Parliament only by virtue of being a member of a technical group. <BR /> <BR />It does something more: it gives you an input into the business committee of the legislature. In the European Parliament, they call it the Conference of Presidents. Mrs Dodds, by virtue of being a member of the technical group called the Non-Inscrits or the Non-Attached, was the technical group's representative on that business committee for a couple of years. Yet, the very thing that the DUP has been prepared to take advantage of — and is right to take advantage of, because it is right that it is there — is the very thing that it would now deny to the House.”
“I hear someone, from a sedentary position, who is still with us, apparently. I think that his party would like to know whether he is going or staying, but he seems to be with us still. He says that it is more than I did. I may not be very proud of it, but I would remind the Member that, for three years, I was that MEP in the technical group from the DUP. Yes, I did take advantage, and in the hundreds of times that I spoke in the European Parliament, I spoke on the basis of being a member of a technical group.”
“Yet, when it comes to this House, what is good for the DUP in Strasbourg is to be denounced in Stormont. It is not do as I do, it is do as I say, as far as the DUP is concerned. For 34 years, it has been the beneficiary of sitting in a technical group. Some of the benefits of that are, of course, that members of a technical group get a proportionate share of speaking time. Its MEP has only ever got to speak because she is a member of a technical group and gets a share of that speaking time.”
“I seriously question the bona fides of those who tell us that, under Fresh Start, all these things will evolve and happen when, on the very day that it is first put to the test for petitions of concern, it distinguishes itself by defying those very tenets that are set forth. <BR /> <BR />We then have the idea that technical groups must be killed off. Sinn Féin is obviously determined to kill off the idea of technical groups. The DUP is determined to kill off the idea of technical groups, which is really rich coming from the DUP, given that, for 34 years — more than one third of a century — its MEP has sat as a member of a technical group in the European Parliament.”
“That is the Fresh Start pledge. What did the people who made that pledge do today? They produced three petitions of concern. Not one of them sets out the grounds as to why a petition of concern is necessary. Not one of them says what the nature of the detriment is that the petition is seeking to prevent. Even the signatories and those who laud Fresh Start, by their actions, depart from and ignore their Fresh Start commitments and give us three petitions of concern that defy the very content of Fresh Start on that subject. They give us three petitions that simply name the clause, with no explanation that they are going to petition and oppose.”
“They will be used only in — wait for it — "exceptional circumstances". When they are used, page 53 of 'A Fresh Start' solemnly states:”
“Here we are within weeks of the end of this mandate, and there is not a cheep to the Committee on Procedures about drafting Standing Orders — not a cheep. The threshold that Fresh Start sets for opposition is pitched as high as they can pitch it: you get into opposition only if you have made the sacrifice of declining the offer to sit in government with those who will deign to give you the right to be in opposition. Only if you meet that threshold will they even contemplate for you lesser mortals the possibility of recognising an opposition. <BR /> <BR />Fresh Start is a poor and pitiful proffering in respect of opposition. What about 'A Fresh Start' and the sincerity of that document? Fresh Start has something to say about petitions of concern: it tells us that there is a new dawn for petitions of concern.”
“<BR /> <BR />It took this Consideration Stage debate on the Bill to get the Executive into gear — yesterday — to produce a motion. It took two and a half months after Fresh Start supposedly embraced opposition for the Executive even to bring something to the House on that concept. I sit on the Committee on Procedures, and, at every meeting since Fresh Start, I have asked, "Is there any suggestion that maybe we, the Procedures Committee, should be looking at Standing Orders to facilitate the supposed commitment to Fresh Start?". No — nothing. <BR /> <BR />I seriously question the sincerity of the commitment in Fresh Start to an opposition, and, of course, no steps have been taken to lay the groundwork and prepare.”
“The Member deludes himself if he thinks that the Conservatives, for example, in Edinburgh are not in opposition, or that the Labour Party is not in opposition to the SNP Government. Of course they are, and of course they are facilitated and provided with time, proper respect and positions in order to facilitate that opposition. Of course all the other devolved institutions have an opposition. <BR /> <BR />The Member might aspire to a system that would operate in somewhere like North Korea, but, really, it is Northern Ireland, and quibbling over whether we should have an opposition is quite astounding. The answer of some — the answer of Sinn Féin and the rather more cloaked but probably similar answer of the DUP — is that we have the Fresh Start Agreement. Let us think about Fresh Start and its approach to opposition.”
“What an indictment of this place that the matter still has to be debated and decided upon. It is so self-evidently an indictment of the House that, really, I find it staggering that it takes this debate to allow the subject even to be ventilated, never mind the intent of some to kill it off. <BR /> <BR />Of course, Mr McCallister, who has done a huge amount of work on this, has had all these supercilious compliments today from the very people who are about to kill his Bill, insofar as they can kill it. The reeking insincerity of some speaks for itself.”
“Ask any class of 12-year-olds to identify three or four key components of a democratic legislature, and I guarantee that in the top three every time will be the existence of an opposition — it is so elementary. Yet, here, that basic proposition is provoking all the contortions of so many to try to deny the import of that. <BR /> <BR />We have one party that would just block, if it could, the entire Bill. Of course, we know that there is a tradition with some that the way to deal with opposition was a bullet in the back of the head, but this is supposed to be a democratic institution, and it beggars belief that within a democratic institution there should even be debate about whether you need, and should permit, an opposition. Yet that is the pitiful situation that the House, after all these years, is still in.”
“Given that this institution parades itself as a democratic legislative Assembly, I still find it amazing that we are at the point of talking and dithering over whether this democratic institution should have an opposition.”
“Patently, it is a joint office. Even the deputy First Minister contradicted the opposition that his party has tabled by his utterances on television not so long ago, unless they were simply for the optics, when he said that he would offer to change the title of the positions to Joint First Minister. From one side of their mouth, Sinn Féin says that they are happy with the title of the office as it is in law and in fact — joint First Ministers — while, on the other hand, they come to the House to block that.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you clarify, in relation to the delay in the vote, which I understand is specified, whether 24 hours have to pass from the lodging of the petition until the vote takes place, or can it happen the next day, even though that is less than a 24-hour gap?”
“If the Minister's blind enthusiasm for the EU permits her, will she undertake to publish a schedule of all the administrative burdens and regulations placed upon the farming community and identify which originate in the EU and which originate in her Department? Will she undertake to do that or would that come too close to exposing the hideous burden that the EU puts upon our farmers?”
“With eight miles of this stage having to be constructed through a floodplain, why is her Department not able to say how much that will add to the cost of this project? Does cost not matter when it comes to this project? Is cost only an inhibitor when it comes to fixing our potholes?”
“He was wrong about that, and he is wrong about this.”
“Why does the Minister pretend to the House that we do not know the question, when the law of the land states what it is? A couple of weeks ago, he did not know what the unemployment rate was. He told us that it was at a third of European and Republic of Ireland levels.”
“On a point of order, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker. Should the Minister mislead the House to suggest that we do not know what the question in the referendum is? Section 1 of the European Union (Referendum Act) 2015, which already has Royal Assent, sets out the question:”
“Briefly reverting to Mr Dickson's question, may I say that I look forward to the Minister coming off the fence on the issue of the EU and joining the ranks of those who want to liberate our great trading nation from its shackles? <BR /> <BR />His statement is clear that the 2016 business plan for InterTradeIreland has not yet been approved. Will he explain to the House how ongoing expenditure is lawful when the business plan has not been approved?”
“On the Magilligan case, does the Minister accept that, at a time when funding was still available, it was feet-dragging by a departmental official that caused the deadline to be missed and, therefore, the Department itself has responsibility for the state of neglect into which that property is fast falling?”
“Two months ago, the Minister made a useful statement halting the consultation on the closure of statutory care homes. Can he indicate whether he will totally lift the cloud from over those homes by announcing that there will be no closures?”
“I do think, "Yes, fine; let us reduce the number of MLAs", but that is not the core issue. That is not what makes this place dysfunctional. It is not because we have 108 MLAs rather than 90 that this is the most dysfunctional Assembly and Government in western Europe. It is not the numbers that make it dysfunctional: it is the system. That is the point that I am making: that this is but a distraction from addressing that core issue — the system issue — of how the Belfast Agreement devolution works. That is the issue that is not being addressed, and it will not be addressed, because there is too much self-interest in not addressing it.”
“I will draw my remarks to a close and thereby dissipate the chances of being led astray again by those who would intervene.”
“— that there are three issues and that they are all joined together. Those are the number of Departments, the number of MLAs and voluntary coalition. That is the pledge that you made. You are not one inch nearer to producing voluntary coalition. You — sorry, not you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the Members who raised the point — have not got the vision, means or desire to advance that and end mandatory coalition. They have no plan as to how to end mandatory coalition. Certainly, by perpetually propping it up and going into it, even to the stage of being willing to sweep murder under the carpet — that is what they did: swept murder under the carpet — they have no manifestation of interest in ending mandatory coalition.”
“I started my speech by saying that I had no issue with reducing the number from six to five. I went on to say, in fact, that I would love to see the number reduced even further. I have no issue with reducing the number of Departments. What I previously said, if what you read out is correct, was —”
“So long as you sit back in the comfort of your ministerial limo, recognising that it is mandatory coalition that puts you there, it will never change. It is a question of not having the will to change it. That is the Member's party's problem; it does not have the will to change it. They are too comfortable with it, too happy with it. Yes, they can go on with the hyperbole: "Oh yes, we would love to change it. Oh yes, we will change it", but they are very content and are never prepared to take the stand that would force the change by drawing a line and saying, "We're not going back to mandatory coalition. We want to keep devolution, but it's going to be on a voluntary basis". Let devolution come about then. It would come about in those circumstances. <BR /> <BR />I think the unelected Member for East Antrim wanted to be heard.”
“The DUP should have the courage to say at that point that, having tried mandatory coalition for more than long enough and seen it not working, it still wants devolution but devolution that works and that, if it is to be there, it will be on the basis of voluntary coalition. I invite them to take that stance. If they did, they would soon discover that, if the alternative was losing all the niceties and the baubles of the House, the chauffeur-driven cars, the Chair of this, the Chair of that and the Minister of this, the people would recognise that, if they wanted devolution that was going to last and work, they would have to pay the price that people pay anywhere across the democratic world of voluntary coalition. <BR /> <BR />That is how you get it — by forcing the issues.”
“It is not happening. We are not one inch closer to voluntary coalition than we were in 2007, when his party signed up to mandatory coalition with the promise to the party's rank and file that they would only have to stomach it for eight years and then there would be voluntary coalition — a false promise, they knew from the start. <BR /> <BR />How would you achieve it? It is simple: by the DUP having courage and integrity — fading recollections, no doubt. It would be achieved by saying, after the next election, "We've tried mandatory coalition. We've tried it for two long mandates. It has failed and failed miserably. It has been an experience of lurching from crisis to crisis, because government that is based on not having to agree anything in order to be in government inevitably results in no agreement when you are in government".”