Steven Agnew
North Down · Green Party · Northern Ireland
“We need an independent, open and transparent process for investigating Ministers. I have always failed to understand the opposition to that from some in the House. Given recent events, if the Assembly was to oppose it again today, there would be public anger.”
“This process would involve one commissioner and one independent investigation, rather than a political investigation that, I have no doubt, some at the time called a witch-hunt, as is often said when people are defending their Minister.”
“I am delighted to make a winding-up speech on this debate, which has been the first-ever sole Green Party private Member's motion. Thanks to the election of my colleague, Clare Bailey, we have two Green MLAs, which has increased our ability to use the Assembly privileges to put such suggestions forward.”
“I absolutely agree, Mr Beggs. <BR /> <BR />Another point I will make is about the idea of the distinction between the Minister and the Department. When I was drafting my private Member's Bill, I asked, "Should that say 'Minister' or 'Department'?". The legal advice that I was given was that they are one and the same.”
“If an MLA is alleged to have breached the code, a member of the public can write to the standards commissioner and have their complaint investigated in an independent manner. The result of any investigation is published and can, if required, lead to a debate in the Assembly so that all the issues can be aired.”
“I would argue that it serves neither the Minister nor the public well that we do not have such a process. An individual who seeks to complain will be left frustrated if they feel that their concerns are ignored by those in office, who are supposed to act on their behalf.”
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“I will in a second. If we are to keep our hospital open and to keep those beds, if we are to keep our public services and if we are not to cut the numbers of teachers in our schools, those who can afford to pay more should pay more.”
“I will be honest with the electorate and say that, if we are to keep our hospital open —”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. This is a point that I was going to come to later in my speech. One of the reasons why we are opposed to this Budget is that it is based 100% on cuts. The Green Party has not been shy to say that it would seek revenue-raising measures. We have been honest. I know that the Member would go out to our constituents and say that we should save the beds at Bangor Community Hospital, and we have said, "Well, that costs." There should be revenue-raising measures. I made the point about the cap on rates — I know that the Minister made light of it, and it is only part of that revenue raising. I have said, and I have been very up front, that my constituents in Kilcooley should not subsidise the rates of my constituents in Cultra.”
“It is not the case that we cannot afford to protect those on welfare; it is that the Alliance Party would choose not to afford it, which is why they supported welfare reform at Second Stage, before any top-up had ever been agreed, and why they said that they could not afford what they say is £200 million but what DSD would say is £115 million to top up the benefit system. However, they must afford — we must afford — £300 million per year to give a corporate tax break.”
“He estimated the cost to be around £200 million, although that is in dispute. Straight after that, he said that we must be able to afford the reduction in corporation tax. That, for me, highlights the priorities of the Alliance Party and how it contrasts with the Green Party.”
“Indeed, during the Budget debate last week, Judith Cochrane tried to argue that, in fact, people would be better off if we simply implemented welfare reform quoting, as she said, DSD statistics, which, I suspect, were carbon copies of DWP statistics. I continue to argue that you cannot cut £115 million a year from welfare and expect the recipients of welfare to still be better off. It does not take a mathematician to realise that you cannot take money away from people and say that they have more money at the same time. <BR /> <BR />I am often asked what the difference is between the Green Party and the Alliance Party, and this issue has highlighted it better than any other issue could. In his conference speech, David Ford said — I paraphrase him — that we cannot afford the cost of protecting those on welfare.”
“I always find it "bizarre", which seemed to be the term used by Mr Farry and Mr Attwood in their exchanges, when the Government blame the Opposition — the people who implement the policies blame those who challenge them for the failure of their own policies. I find it hard to take lectures from the Alliance Party on these issues. The allusion was to my party's position on welfare reform, but, when we go back to the Second Stage debate on welfare reform, we see that Alliance supported it. That was welfare reform unfettered; that was the Tory cuts implemented in full in Northern Ireland before the Stormont House Agreement and before a top-up budget. Alliance signed up then.”
“If that is not the reason why we have not only the lowest household incomes of any region of the UK but, in fact, an increasing gap in income between this region and other regions of the UK and if it is not that part of the Executive's economic strategy that is failing, I call for those who endorsed it, promoted it and rolled in behind it to explain what the failure is. It is clear that, despite the commitment in the 2007 Programme for Government to reduce the gap between household incomes in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, that gap has widened under the last two Executives, and Northern Ireland households continue to perform poorly in relation to their GB counterparts. <BR /> <BR />He is no longer in the Chamber, but Mr Farry, as he did last week, sought to blame the Green Party for the mess of the Budget.”
“It has been assumed throughout the life of the Executive — I suppose that is one of the problems when you have a five-party Executive — that FDI, the great saviour of our economy, would solve poverty and all the other issues facing our society. Those of us who have consistently opposed the planned reduction in corporation tax, underpinned as it is by the search for ever more FDI to save our economy and to save our people, have long argued — we have the evidence now that shows it — that often the jobs that are spoken of are low-paid and, in some cases, may even displace better-paid local jobs.”
“I do not intend to repeat my speech from a week ago, but the principles will be the same. It may be a case of reiterating rather than repeating everything. I made the point a week ago that Northern Ireland has the lowest average household income of any region of the UK. Just this week, the Office for National Statistics confirmed that, in the most recent calculations, that continues to be the case. That is despite the Executive and the Finance Minister, when she was ETI Minister, continually trumpeting the fact that we are outperforming all other regions of the UK when it comes to foreign direct investment.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Does he agree that the level of disagreement that we have seen in the debate, given that only Executive parties have spoken so far, shows how dysfunctional the Executive have become?”
“I come back to my original point because, in the consultation paper, the trust talked about 125 intermediate beds and then 105 beds, with the beds in Bangor Hospital being permanently closed. Why was the trust treating those beds as like for like in its consultation paper?”
“I would like to thank Councillor Ross Brown for starting the petition, and I am honoured to present it to you, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the 1,775 signatories. I urge the Environment Minister to take action. He has gone out to consultation on the licensing regime, and 1,775 people have spoken and made it very clear that they no longer wish our society to give legitimacy to circuses that perpetuate cruelty on animals. To quote one of the signatories:”
“The five freedoms include the need for a suitable environment; the need to exhibit normal behaviour patterns; and the need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease. We have protected the five freedoms through the code of practice issued by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, and we should ensure that the five freedoms are met in all aspects of our society. Even with the best of intentions, a travelling circus cannot meet the five freedoms of an animal, and, for that reason, I believe that circuses that use animal acts should be prohibited in our society. Animals should be afforded dignity and respect, and they are denied that in circuses where the five freedoms are not met.”
“The petition I present today calls for a change in the law to effectively ban the use of animals in circuses by denying them access to an entertainment licence. Let me be clear: animals do not exist for our entertainment. We know what an animal needs to ensure its welfare.”
“It is important that we condemn terrorism, wherever it originates. Unfortunately, it continues to be a scourge in our society and that is something that we must continue to grapple with. <BR /> <BR />On behalf of the Green Party in Northern Ireland, I extend my sympathy to the families of this most recent atrocity. Violence begets violence, and we must lead by example through standing strong on the principle of non-violence. That is the only way we can defeat those who perpetrate such heinous crimes.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to condemn these most recent atrocities, including Friday's events in Tunisia. The principle of non-violence is at the heart of what the Green Party in Northern Ireland stands for. Global terrorism is a scourge. It is not often that I agree with Mr Sammy Wilson, but it is one of the greatest challenges facing us. Globally, this type of event happens much too often — seemingly on a daily basis, as Mr Farry pointed out. This particular event in Tunisia over the weekend affected people from these shores, but the suffering, pain and anguish of those involved in the often daily atrocities across the world are no less just because we do not know them. Of course, in Northern Ireland we know only too well the impact of terrorism — how it tears families and societies apart.”
“I thank the Minister for taking an intervention. If she looks at Hansard, she will see that I took, I think, around 10 interventions during my speech. <BR /> <BR />The point I made to the Minister, and I will make it again, is that the gap in income between Northern Ireland and other regions of the UK has increased during this Executive's term. Whilst figures on job creation etc are usually trotted out to demonstrate how well our economy is doing, the reality is that people in Northern Ireland are worse off compared to their GB counterparts. Does she accept that?”
“It is unfortunate that that is not in place.”
“It appears that they take no responsibility for upholding the ministerial code or for its oversight. As has been pointed out, it has been left to the courts. It is a less than ideal situation that that is the only recourse. We should have a form of self-governance but, of course, the courts should be there as a final resort. As we do with the code for Members, we should have an independent investigation and a process that is clear and coherent to the public.”
“That is right, because the line is often used that there is one rule for some and another rule for others. We have a situation where there are 21 rules for Members and none for Ministers because the ministerial code could be perceived to have been breached on a number of occasions without an independent investigation or a process. <BR /> <BR />Members of the public and, indeed, some MLAs have written to the Committee about breaches of the ministerial code, but we have had to write back to say that we cannot act and can only treat them as inadmissible complaints. In many cases, there are good reasons behind the complaints but we cannot refer them to another process. We have heard mixed views as to whether writing to the First Minister or the deputy First Minister is, in itself, a process.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. That is a point that I make sometimes when I am being interviewed. If I am asked what I personally think, I reply that, if I was not speaking as a representative of a party or as an MLA, the interviewer would not be asking for my views. The views that I give are my political ones. It is important that Members who attend political events should conduct themselves with the levels of integrity and respect that are outlined in the code. <BR /> <BR />Mr Allister mentioned the ministerial code. The Committee was limited in what it could do. We have written to the First Minister and the deputy First Minister and included in our report the recommendation that there should be a process of investigation.”
“However, there is a third category, which I urged the Committee to include; it is referred to in the report as "reasonably presumed". I would be even more explicit and say that it should apply when a Member is acting in a political capacity. In our discussions, I used the example of attending or speaking at a political rally. I think it is reasonable that the public can expect the high standards that we have placed in the code of any MLA who speaks in public in a political capacity. It might be as a party representative, but I believe that those are areas that should be covered by the scope of the code.”
“Hopefully, this clearer code, with its guide, can discourage some of the erroneous complaints that other Members referred to, and, hopefully, we can reduce the number of inadmissible complaints. Sometimes, genuine complaints are made that are inadmissible, but I feel that, too often, complaints are made for political purposes, and I hope that we will move away from that. <BR /> <BR />The one issue on which I will place on record my discontent is the scope of the code. We have heard about the importance of the separation between our role as an MLA and our private life, which is a proper distinction to make. In our discussions, we talked about being out for a family meal etc, which should be treated as private time and should not be covered by the scope of the code.”
“At the outset, I thank the Chair and the Committee staff for their diligent work on this, as well as the former Chair, Alastair Ross, who I know approached the review with a genuine commitment and desire to improve the working of the code and the standards of Members. I believe that the outcome is that we have a better, clearer code. <BR /> <BR />An issue that I raised about a number of investigations is the need for help for complainants to understand the code better. I often felt that the complainant was required to be an expert to make a complaint, and that should not be the case. A clearer code can only assist the public and, indeed, those politicians who are bound by it.”
“When you produce a Budget predicated on welfare reform, despite the fact that the Assembly did not agree welfare reform, that is clearly putting your head in the sand. The elements of the Stormont House Agreement need to be decoupled, and negotiations need to take place. We cannot continue on the trajectory that we are on. <BR /> <BR />I started my speech by talking about child poverty. It is clear from its history since 2007 that the Assembly has done nothing to redistribute wealth to the poorest. To support the Budget would be to support the continuation of a policy of robbing the poor to give to the rich. For that reason, my party cannot endorse it.”
“If people want a single example of what separates the Green Party from the Alliance Party — it is a question that I am often asked — that sums it up quite simply: when it comes to a choice between protecting the most vulnerable or giving tax breaks to big businesses, the Green Party will always put people first. <BR /> <BR />In the Stormont House Agreement, many unrelated elements were put into a single pot: welfare, corporation tax, public sector employment, victims and historical issues. They need to be decoupled. It is clear that the agreement has unravelled, and those who signed up to it can answer for that. It was never an agreement that my party signed up to. We did not endorse it, nor did we ever support it. It is clear that it is unsustainable. Parties talk about other parties putting their head in the sand.”
“It is extreme optimism to believe that a single policy will do that. As Mr McCrea and others pointed out, believing that a single policy intervention, at the same time as cutting investment in skills, will increase our economy by a third is optimistic to say the least. <BR /> <BR />The parties that prioritise that sort of economics have, in my view, got their priorities wrong. Indeed, David Ford, in attacking me and my party in his Alliance Party conference speech, said that we could not afford to protect welfare claimants. In the same speech, he said that we must make the cut in corporation tax.”
“There are 10 minutes before we are due to wind up. <BR /> <BR />We heard previously from Mr Ross that we will pay the cost of reducing corporation tax through cuts to public-sector employment. His party may find that palatable, but I do not accept that it is the way to boost our economy and the well-being of our society. It is not just about GDP, which we know measures many negative, as well as positive, attributes of our economy. The proposal is to guarantee job losses in the public sector in the hope of job increases in the private sector. The projection from the economic advisory group is that we are supposed to break even on jobs after 11 years. That is 11 years of decreased employment as a direct result of that policy. To make up the tax shortfall from reducing corporation tax, we would need to grow our economy by a third.”
“I get that. <BR /> <BR />The modest growth in recent times is as much to do with a global recovery as anything in the policies of the current Executive. <BR /> <BR />We heard previously from Mr Ross —”
“— and the modest growth that we have had is —”
“Our economy is not benefiting the people of Northern Ireland —”
“That is the typical response when, if you disagree with someone's economic philosophy, you do not want to see productivity. I have promoted the living wage, and all evidence shows that that boosts productivity. The Minister said that we have no vision for growth. She has been in the role of Enterprise Minister and Finance Minister and has served on the Government since 2007, and, to date, the income gap between Northern Ireland and other regions of the UK has increased. We have become poorer compared with other regions of the UK under the last two Executives in Northern Ireland. The Minister can talk about vision, but her record is one of failure.”
“I will give way, but I have to finish at some point.”
“The same people advocating that policy bemoan the fact that we cannot afford £2 million a week on welfare payments to the most vulnerable in our society. They call them penalties, but the reality is that it is money that still comes to Northern Ireland. They wish to impose a corporation tax reduction that would cost us £6 million a week.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. I will certainly not defend the Conservative Government on their deficit reduction plans. I do not know the exact details of the figures that he refers to, but I believe that I understand the figures for Northern Ireland. We outlined them in advance when we initially opposed the Welfare Reform Bill and said that we did not see how the £90 million top-up could meet the minimum £115 million cut. Latterly, others came alongside us on that. <BR /> <BR />All along, our position has been that, if we implement the Tory party welfare reform agenda, what is the great reward for the people of Northern Ireland? The great boon that was achieved in the Stormont House Agreement was that we could devolve corporation tax and reduce it if we so chose.”
“I thank the Member for her intervention. We sought to amend the Welfare Reform Bill, but those proposals were rejected. During the period of negotiations, whilst I was not involved in the cross-party negotiations, I met the First Minister and put forward my party's proposals and, yes, we could have had a Northern Ireland solution, but it fell short. Despite assurances from parties in this House, it still would have meant the implementation of the bedroom tax, despite promises that it would not be implemented. It still would have seen cuts to child disability benefit. It still would have seen an increase in the maximum penalties in welfare sanctions. Those were issues that we sought to have addressed but they were not, and therefore we could not support the Bill as it came forward.”
“I will give way to Ms Cochrane. I will finish making my point. <BR /> <BR />It is a good use of public money because the priority of government should be to protect the poorest and most vulnerable in society. In making the decision not to implement welfare reform, we allowed that money to go directly to welfare recipients, to be spent in our economy and to stay in Northern Ireland.”
“I will give way in a second. <BR /> <BR />It is money that is still going to the poorest in our society. I and my party, the Green Party in Northern Ireland, suggest that that is a good use of public money.”
“I thank the Minister for her intervention. She knows fine well that we have not lost that money. Northern Ireland has not lost that money; it may have been lost to the block grant but that money has gone directly to people on welfare. Instead of cutting their benefits, the decision was made not to do that and the payments continue to go through the annually managed expenditure. It is money moved from one pot to another in the way that the Stormont House Agreement, incidentally, proposes to move it in the opposite direction.”
“I put it to the Member and her party: whether it is £115 million at the lower end or £250 million at the higher, how can you take that out of welfare? How can you cut welfare spend, and the welfare recipients be better off? It does not take a mathematical genius to see that those numbers do not, and cannot, add up. Those are the cuts that would have been imposed had we implemented the Welfare Reform Bill.”
“I thank the Member for her intervention. Mr Attwood often asks whether or not Mervyn Storey is working on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. I will not get drawn into that debate, but it sounded like it was replicating what has come from the UK Government.”
“It is something that we can and should seek to mitigate through the powers that we have in Northern Ireland. Judith Cochrane listed what seem to be Tory figures of how welfare would benefit the poorest in our society.”
“I absolutely agree with the Member. The slogan has always been "We must make work pay": for that reason, I cannot understand why the current Government want to punish those in work, who are on low pay through no fault of their own but through their employer's unwillingness to pay. Indeed, we hear nothing from a party that proposes to make work pay about promoting and expanding provision of the living wage. <BR /> <BR />We must put more resources towards families in poverty and improve their income. Indeed, the welfare reform proposals on which the Bill is predicated, despite the fact that they were not agreed by the Assembly, would take money away from the poorest. That would undoubtedly impact negatively on levels of child poverty, which are predicted to rise considerably by 2020. We should not accept that as an inevitability.”
“I will in one second. Let me make the point. <BR /> <BR />We now have a Tory Government who seek to cut in-work benefits to further hit those who are on low pay. Another category of the poor in our society is those who are in work but suffer from poor pay. I give way to Mr McGlone.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. It is clear that the target of the Tories is not just those who are out of work but those who are in work. We know that there are now more people living in poverty who are in work than who are out of work. We have a Tory Government —”
“At the event today, Professor Hillyard made the point — I paraphrase — that, to lift children out of poverty, we must increase the resources provided to and the incomes of the poorest in our society.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. This House does, of course, have rate-varying powers, which is a form of property taxation. We have chosen not to introduce water charges, which could be done on a progressive basis if that were the way that we decided to implement them. We had a freeze on rates. We now have a real-terms freeze in that we have only inflationary rises. These are choices that we have made and that predominantly benefit those who are better off. Those choices have been made by the Assembly. I accept that we do not have full fiscal responsibility, but, even when we seek extra powers, such as on corporation tax, we seek to give further benefits to, in that case, large businesses, again at the expense of public services, which disproportionately affects the poorest in our society.”
“<BR /> <BR />We are told that, because of the difficult finances, we must make cuts to welfare, but the people who make those arguments abhor any proposal that we might ask those who have wealth to pay more. Members must accept that we have to ask for more from those who can afford it. Members make much of the fact that we are in the sixth-largest economy in the world. This is still a wealthy country; there is wealth in this country. Until those who tell me that I must accept cuts to the welfare of the poorest in our society accept that we have to ask for more from those who can afford it — the wealthiest in our society — I will not take lectures on fiscal responsibility or sound economics. It is clear that that rhetoric is used simply to protect the better-off and punish the poor for the excesses of the rich.”
“In other words, it acts, effectively, as a tax rebate for the most wealthy in our society — roughly 2,500 households. It has been pointed out to me that, as a representative of North Down — the so-called gold coast — many of those people may be in my constituency and that I should not raise the issue as it might affect my vote. To anyone who makes that point, I would say, "Why should my constituents in the Kilcooley estate subsidise the rates of those in Cultra?". I will say that to someone in Cultra as much as someone in Kilcooley. It is not right; it is not fair. All the points have been made about difficult financial circumstances. It is regrettable and unacceptable that we continue such policies in the Assembly.”