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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“There they go again. I will take the risk, once more.”
“You see, Mr Deputy Speaker, there are those in the House who set out to mislead me, and I fall into that trap from time to time.”
“It is the Sinn Féin veto that has pushed this to 2021 —”
“When I have dealt with your point. <BR /> <BR />That keeps them safely ensconced in government, as of right and for ever. That is the glaring democratic deficit of these institutions. That is the thing that marks these institutions out as unique across the world: the open defiance of basic democratic norms. You can have an election, but you cannot change your Government. They have a view like that in North Korea, but, sadly, that is the view in Northern Ireland under these institutions. The Member said that I said they would never get these changes. I doubt if I said very much about these trivial changes, about changing the number of MLAs; my focus has always been on the main issue. He said that I spoke of a Sinn Féin veto: the Sinn Féin veto is the reason why it is not happening in May.”
“It is abundantly clear that there are vested interests for parties that guarantee that, despite having the trivial distraction of having to fight an election, no matter what the election throws up, they will stay, as of right, in government. The attraction of that has overcome parties in the House, particularly the two big parties, which have taken that to themselves as a cushion against democracy. In spite of what the people might do if they were afforded the opportunity, as they are everywhere else, you simply deny them the opportunity, safe in the knowledge that that keeps you safely ensconced —”
“In a moment. We are wholly denied the right to change our Government and vote a party out of government. The Bill is, in part, an attempted distraction from the failure to face up to and address that huge, glaring democratic deficit in the operation of these institutions.”
“In Northern Ireland, because of the iniquity of mandatory coalition, you just have to hold on to a handful of MLAs and you are guaranteed, as of right, a place in perpetuity in government. We are —”
“<BR /> <BR />It is also a distraction from the fact that when we discuss the institutions — we have tinkered with the number of Departments and are now tinkering with the number of MLAs — we have run away, with no intention of ever addressing it, from the huge issue of the democratic deficit that centres on the subject of mandatory coalition. On 5 May — just over 100 days' time — people in devolved regions across the United Kingdom will go forward to elect their next Assembly. As is the case anywhere else in the democratic world, the people of Scotland and Wales will be allowed to change their Government. Whether they choose to do so is a matter for them, but they have the option, perish the thought in a place like this, of voting a party out of government.”
“We had my proposal before Christmas to reduce the number of special advisers so that it was in line with other parts of the United Kingdom. Of course, the DUP and Sinn Féin joined together to protect their own interests and retain the ludicrous situation where we have the same number of special advisers in OFMDFM as services the entire Welsh Government. Embarrassed and caught out on issues like that, with the squander that it represents, there is anxiety to be seen to be embracing this Bill as a token of doing something that can divert and distract attention from the obvious squander that is sustained in respect of the institutions.”
“It would not be healthy to end up determining our own number of parliamentary constituencies for the purposes of the Assembly and it then getting out of kilter with the actual parliamentary constituencies of Westminster. That would be, to use the colloquialism, a bit of a dog's dinner that we should avoid. <BR /> <BR />I made the point — I will repeat it because it is valid — that the Bill is a fig leaf to enable its primary proponents to say, "We have done the right thing; we have reduced the number of MLAs" in the context where they know that the public appreciation of this place is at a very low level indeed. Therefore, there is an anxiety to be seen to do the right thing. That comes off the back of having very much been seen as doing the wrong thing.”
“You would arrive at a very incongruous position where you had 11 councils, a fluctuating number of parliamentary constituencies — it is probably going down to 16 — and a different number of Assembly constituencies. I would have thought you would want to minimise the overlap and the contradiction of that. You might have people who are in one parliamentary constituency, a different Assembly constituency and a different council constituency. If you blended them with the council boundaries, I would have thought that you would have the natural continuity, touching on the subject matters that we mostly deal with in the House, with the affinity with the councils.”
“Therefore, there is an external operation beyond our control that can adjust the membership of the Assembly, whereas, if the alignment were with local government, that would have brought stability and continuity and would have brought control within these institutions. But that is not the perceived wisdom of those who matter, so we are where we are.”
“If you had done that, you could have had six for each and doubled up the number for Belfast. That would mean in or about 72, with maybe some mathematical adjustment required to ensure balance so that no constituency was undersubscribed or oversubscribed with MLAs. You could have kept six for each council area, had twice that for Belfast and ended up with 72, which would be more than enough. Aligning them with the parliamentary boundaries makes it a matter beyond your control. They will change. I heard Mr Nesbitt musing about whether, when they change to 16, we, too, will go down. Section 33 of the 1998 Act is pretty clear: we will.”
“I have no issue at all with reducing the number in each Assembly constituency from six to five. I think that 108 always was and still is a preposterous number of MLAs for a small place like Northern Ireland. Even reducing it to 90 leaves us grossly oversubscribed with relatively highly paid MLAs in proportion to the size of our population and in contrast with the other devolved regions. I have no issue with reduction. <BR /> <BR />I have always thought it would be better to align the constituencies with the local government boundaries. Local government, too, deals with devolved issues. We control those boundaries in the sense of legislation, so it always struck me as being logical and rational that, given the interplay between local government and the devolved institution here, the correct alignment was with the council boundaries.”
“Surely the successive delay is adding to the scandal of the manner in which these civil servants have been treated. Your predecessor told this House that, in June 2014 — just coming up on two years — a paper had been submitted to the Executive with a view to plotting a way forward. Did that paper never reach the Executive? Given that there are now supposed to be mechanisms whereby you can force an issue onto the Executive table, has that device not been used? If it has not, will the Minister, today, commit to using it?”
“Does the Member not think that it is merely a fig leaf for those who are embarrassed by the greed and squander of the House, who want to be able to go to the electorate and say, "Oh, we have reduced the number of Departments and MLAs, aren't we doing well?"? Is it not just a fig leaf for that?”
“Tell us what Brussels has done to our fisheries.”
“Six weeks after the event, the statement is rather stale, so I will follow up on Mr Wells's point. Surely, even as an avowed Europhile, the Minister can now see that our 40 years in the EU has been a disaster for the fisheries sector? It is but a shadow of its former self. We are told where we can fish, when we can fish and what we can fish with in our own waters by Brussels, and we are handed down quotas. Surely the Minister can see, whatever she might think of other sectors, that the fishing sector would benefit tremendously from being freed of the shackles of the EU? Is she going to deny that simple fact?”
“No one is allowed to know, and the Education Minister gets away with a blanket budget line of £1·9 billion. <BR /> <BR />Mr McGlone is worried about Brexit. He is worried about our getting back some of our own money. Brexit would be a liberation for this part of the United Kingdom, like the rest.”
“It is a burden for this and future generations that has been imposed by the failing Executive. <BR /> <BR />There are parts of the Budget that totally defy any attempt at transparency. I raised one of them with Mr Weir. Is it not a marvel that we can produce a budget line of £1·9 billion for education and even the Finance Minister does not know what the breakdown is, never mind the House? We are not told the composition of the £1·9 billion budget that is going into schools. How much is going into the primary sector, the post-primary sector, the controlled sector, the maintained sector, the Irish-medium sector and so on? No one knows. No one is allowed to know.”
“The unelected Member for East Antrim might be very blasé about the level of debt in this part of the United Kingdom, but, just before the Executive took office in 2011, our National Loans Fund borrowing was £36·9 million. In this Budget, it is projected to be £357 million — an almost tenfold multiplication. Borrowing by this small country is to be £2·1 billion, giving us the highest level of borrowing per head of the population in all the devolved regions. That is on top of our part of the national borrowing. That £2·1 billion is up from £1·9 billion last year, and we are paying interest. Mr Ó Muilleoir tells us that that is a good thing. I will take no lectures from the party of squander, which has every interest in bankrupting Northern Ireland, about how it is a good thing to be in that amount of debt.”
“A staggering 27·7% of the working-age population were inactive in 2015 — that under an Executive whose priority was to rebuild and rebalance the economy and despite a specific Programme for Government commitment to reduce economic inactivity. Yes, a strategy to address economic inactivity was announced by Dr Farry in, I think, April last year, but it seems to be unfunded. Where is the money for it in the Budget? It is in that context that, this year, we will take £100 million out of the block grant to meet the demands of some of those on welfare. Welfare reform might have had the edge of incentivising more people into work, but what we will do here in Northern Ireland is blunt that incentivisation by propping up benefit levels above those of the rest of the United Kingdom. <BR /> <BR />Then we come to the level of debt.”
“After five years, our GDP growth is the lowest in the United Kingdom. In 2015, it was1·6%, against a 2·4% UK average. We have less than half the percentage growth in gross value added of Scotland. In fact, since 2012, our gross value added per head of population has fallen. In productivity, we have underachieved compared with the UK average. The Executive have presided over a Northern Ireland that is the least productive part of the whole of the United Kingdom, at only 82% of the UK average. Of course, it is by investing in infrastructure and skills, as, I think, Professor Johnston had the temerity to observe, that we can address those issues. <BR /> <BR />Maybe the biggest indictment of all is the ignominy of having the highest level of economic inactivity in the United Kingdom.”
“Thank you. Is it not a commentary in itself that the Minister and his partners trumpet as a success the fact that they have been able to produce a Budget? That is supposed to be the work of government. It is standard. If, last year, they were playing with fantasy budgets, I suppose that where we have got to this year might seem to them like success,. However, it is a commentary on the situation. <BR /> <BR />We are fast approaching the end of this period of the current Executive. It is therefore an appropriate time to reflect on some of the promises that they made and some of the things that they said at the start of their period in office in 2011. Then, they made the economy the top priority. They pledged to rebuild and rebalance the Northern Ireland economy. Now is an apt time to ask, "How's it been going?".”
“Is he, as Chairman of the Committee, not dismayed that, in the Budget line for Education, of all Departments, we get a global figure for schools of £1·9 billion with no breakdown or indication of where it will be spent, what sector it will be spent in or anything else? Is that not something that should exercise the Committee?”
“Surely the Minister can see that the intended bias towards recently qualified teachers — those who have qualified in the last three years — will have the impact of discriminating against experienced teachers who have not yet found a permanent post. It amounts to writing off those teachers with more experience and those, perhaps, at a stage of life with more responsibilities, who need a job even more. Surely the Minister needs to review that situation and ensure that replacement teachers come from that quota of teachers who have not found permanent jobs, rather than discriminating within that quota.”
“Compared with the last communiqué, where is the difference in this? Where is the substance of the work being done, supposedly, in this work stream?”
“The Minister patently is not culpable, but it is worth noting that it has taken two and a half months to make this statement. The Minister says that is because there are processes to be gone through, but this statement is in identical terms to the communiqué that has been on the BIC website for two months. So I do not understand the explanation that it takes processes to approve a statement that is in identical terms to one that has been on the record for two months. Is the truth of the matter that the BIC is seen as unimportant, given that, on this issue, in nine years there have been only four ministerial meetings? Is that because the BIC is the poor relation in intergovernmental relations for the House? Where is the substance in this statement? It took almost as long to read out who was there as what was done.”
“May I say to Mr Flanagan that, if he represented North Antrim, he would know that there is no preferential treatment for east of the Bann? On the basis of the figures that the Minister gave him, Mr Flanagan should perhaps reflect on the population sizes of east and west. <BR /> <BR />Does the Minister have any sense of the disproportionality that arises from the fact that, in the past five years, according to his Department's figures, there have been 976 foreign direct investment (FDI) visits to Northern Ireland but only eight to North Antrim? Does he recognise the disproportionality that that speaks to?”
“Bearing in mind the very protracted nature of the inspection process for pork in regard to the Chinese market, in respect of the hope to get poultry meat and beef into that market, is it going to be the same tortuous inspection process or is anything done to date going to shorten it?”
“The Minister is very active in encouraging economic growth and foreign direct investment. Does he not identify a negative in those terms in creating in Northern Ireland a shorter period of qualification for unfair dismissal claims and the absence of a cap in respect of awards? Does he not think that that creates a disincentive towards investment and puts us at a disadvantage compared with other parts of the United Kingdom where there are different approaches?”
“I return to paragraph 7 and its reference to paramilitarism. Can the deputy First Minister, without his usual recourse to obfuscation, tell us if he now accepts that the IRA still exists, still has access to arms and is still involved in criminality, as the government panel found? Does he now accept that, or is he still in denial?”
“If ever there was an industry that cried out for that, it is the fishing industry. I trust that the British people, in their wisdom, will have the strength, courage, conviction and foresight to do that in the referendum, whether it comes this June or whenever. Then, this Bill will be largely redundant, like EU regulation itself.”
“I trust that the day will soon come when this Bill, in its folly of tightening the noose, will not be necessary and that we will no longer have our industry devastated by and controlled from Brussels. I trust that we will have an industry that is liberated to rediscover, and be reinvigorated in plotting its own future rather than be mercilessly controlled by the bureaucrats of Brussels who divide up the fishing rights of these United Kingdom waters among nations far, far away. <BR /> <BR />There is hope that this Bill will be rendered unnecessary in terms of sea fisheries and there is hope for the sea fishing industry, and it lies in this nation, the United Kingdom, reasserting control over its own affairs.”
“It is EU regulation that has strangled it and which decides when you can fish, where you can fish, how you can fish and how much you can fish. All of that comes from the diktats of Brussels. It is that which has strangled and squeezed the lifeblood out of our fishing industry. Now, clause 6 in this Bill wants to tighten the noose a bit further. It wants to put it beyond doubt that all EU provisions that pertain to fishing are directly applicable and can and will be enforced directly on the already devastated industry in Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />I have heard some people say that we should wait. Yes, we should, because there may well be salvation coming for the fishing industry of Northern Ireland, and that would be Britain's exit from the EU.”
“I wish to speak on the clauses of the Bill that relate to sea fisheries. Sea fisheries in Northern Ireland sadly, in recent decades, have been devastated when you compare them with the bustling growth industries that manifested themselves in Portavogie, Kilkeel and Ardglass. It really is a depressing and sad story. There was a time when, in the huge harbour in Kilkeel, you could walk from one harbour wall to the other simply by going from deck to deck on all the boats. Today, the harbour is a mere shadow of itself. <BR /> <BR />The elephant in the room, which virtually no one has referred to, is, of course, the EU. It is because of our membership of the European Union that our fishing industry has been devastated.”
“Can the Minister comment and shed some light on this conundrum? The paramilitary groups, as the Minister patently knows and the previous three-person panel confirmed, include the existence of the IRA. Yet, one of the parties to this so-called agreement is a party, namely Sinn Féin, which denies the existence of the IRA. So, what credibility is there in the supposed political support for a task force to deal with the issues of disbanding paramilitary organisations that engage in crime when one of the support actors denies even the existence of such an organisation?”
“The Minister's statement said that a major programme of work for the task force will be:”
“Historically, our farmers and river agencies engaged in a regular programme of dredging. Then the EU water framework directive came along, which, in its terms, says that rivers must be undisturbed in their natural condition. This means that to dredge now you have to get permission and, if you dredge, that which you dredge is regarded as controlled waste that must be disposed of at great expense, hence the severe drop-off in dredging across our watercourses. Is it not patently obvious that that is a contributor to the flooding of rivers and floodplains and the growth of those floodplains? Is it not time that this was acknowledged and efforts made to reduce the inhibitions of the water framework directive?”
“The Minister referred to the number of demolitions. In fact, there were 539 demolitions. Hearing that there have been only 136 replacements is discouraging, given that we are in the latter part of the 10-year programme. The original commitment was to build 273 houses in addition to refurbishments. Has that commitment been abandoned or will it be kept?”
“The message of that speech is very clear: it conveys the grasp that Peter Robinson has of Martin McGuinness and that he knows the real Martin McGuinness, all he stands for and all he did. I recommend that anyone who wants to contrast the earlier career of Mr Robinson with his latter actions read that speech, in which he talks, amongst other things, about the "unseemly and immoral sham" that is Belfast Agreement devolution. I could not put it better myself. My only regret is that he ended his career by embracing Belfast Agreement devolution and inflicting it upon us. However, that apart, I wish him and his family many years of happy retirement, and of healthy retirement, because I think that, as he has realised, health is very important. In that, —”
“No one expects me, I would have thought — if they do, they will be disappointed — to endorse or embrace the legacy that the retiring First Minister leaves us: a legacy of terrorists in government; a dysfunctional system that, just last year, he described as "not fit for purpose"; a system that gives year after year of failure and disappointment, as it has; and a system that denies the most elementary of democratic rights — the right of a people to change their Government and the right to vote a party out of government. None of that I embrace, but continue to oppose. <BR /> <BR />Pinned to my noticeboard in my office, it may surprise some people to hear, I have a speech of Peter Robinson's. It is a speech of 8 May 2001, and, from time to time, I take it down and read it. I read it again this morning.”
“In holding that view of each other, I suppose that that is something about which we still agree.”
“I certainly wish the retiring First Minister a long and healthy retirement. Forty years of a political career, in Peter Robinson's case, has been a quite remarkable event. He has scaled many heights and attained much in his ambition. He undoubtedly is, was and, I suspect, under another guise, will continue to be a very formidable parliamentarian. His contributions have been very notable. His debating skills are in a class of their own, and anyone who has encountered him knows that. <BR /> <BR />Our paths and policies in our early political years coincided significantly. In latter years, you could say that they have diverged emphatically. However, the retiring First Minister and I, from our different perspectives, would probably have the view that the other took the wrong road.”
“Maybe he will look at that as something that could and should be done on the back of this Bill, because there is not much point in talking about a duty to keep records of an incident of bullying if failure to keep them results in no action being possible by the Department. So I trust that that will be looked at in light of the experience in the incident that I cited. Otherwise, I see the sense, subject to seeking an explanation, as to why this has not been done by amending the 1998 Order, as already amended, or by guidance. <BR /> <BR />Certainly, I am very supportive of anything that can help to clamp down on the pernicious practice and the far-reaching consequences of bullying, which, sadly, does happen in the school environment.”
“My question to the Minister tonight is about clause 3, where he imposes an obligation, understandably, to keep records. Will it continue to be the position that, if those records are destroyed and not kept, he is powerless and that, as in the case that I cited, the Department will simply shrug and say, "We have no powers to do anything about it"? Will these records be subject to the same schedule that deals with the disposal of school records? If they are, it is pretty meaningless if records are destroyed, as in the case that I cited. <BR /> <BR />Maybe the Minister needs to look at putting into the Bill something to stiffen the law on implementing the disposal of records provisions.”
“The parent went to the Information Commissioner, who, having completed his investigation, found that there were breaches of the Data Protection Act regarding delay in responses and failure to supply disclosable information but advised that he had no power to act in relation to the acknowledged destruction of the records, contrary to the disposal of school records schedule. Not surprisingly, I wrote back to the Department and said, "The Information Commissioner says that he cannot do anything about the destruction of the records. What are you, the Department, going to do?" The Minister replied by letter and also put on record in an answer to AQW 47941:”
“This was a special needs child, and the disposal requirements are that you keep the records for five years, but, in this case, they were destroyed after a few months. In fact, it is a criminal offence, it says, for schools to destroy or to conceal information for the purpose of preventing disclosure. The Minister's reply on that case was that it was really a matter for the Information Commissioner's office and that it would be inappropriate, therefore, for the Department of Education to investigate the issues that I wrote to it about. It would be inappropriate.”
“I ask those questions in the context of a case that the Minister will be familiar with, because I have been in correspondence with his Department about it. It is a case from Ballymoney, in my constituency, where bullying was part of the matrix of complaints by parents. A particular primary school there was asked by the parents for all the material relating to the complaint that they made. Under legislation dating back to 1923, there is an obligation to maintain public records, and the Department has issued a disposal of records schedule to schools detailing how they should handle, keep and destroy, when relevant, records. In this case, when the parent asked to see the records that were kept relating to this complaint, they got back a reply from the chair of the board of governors that said:”
“I must say that I found that it made me very angry that such a situation could arise. Which box would you tick on this tick-box exercise for that? I think there is a need, if we are going to stipulate motivations, to have a catch-all that obviously allows for a more expansive attributing of motives than what is in this Bill. Jealousy can often be a motivation for bullying or the type of example that I gave. I think that is a deficiency that needs to be addressed in the Bill. <BR /> <BR />On the question of keeping records, I understand that, yes, it is important to keep records, but I will ask this: how long are they to be kept for? Can the Department do anything if they are not kept? Can the Department do anything if they are destroyed?”