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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“<BR /> <BR />We need to make sure that our houses are suitable; that we make the adaptations and improve the standards. We need to do it at a strategic level across the board, but we need to do it, where possible, for those individuals, whether it is disability adaptations or just improving the quality of the building they are in. <BR /> <BR />The housing selection scheme itself needs to be reformed. We have conflated two connected but separate issues: housing need and personal circumstances. Until we separate those, see them as separate and come back to the principle of housing need first, we will continue with the problems that Members have highlighted today.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention, and what he highlights is the slow privatisation of our public housing sector. We are allowing that to continue, and it is time to suspend to look at this again and decide if it is the way that we want to go forward. <BR /> <BR />We also need to bring our existing stock up to standard. We need to take as a basic principle that, where possible, we keep people in their homes. Currently, by and large, if somebody comes to us and says that their accommodation is unsuitable, we move them. There is obviously expense in that, and reference has been made to some of the grants for resettlement, but we just shift the problem. In some cases, we will put somebody else into that house who will later claim that it is unsuitable.”
“There will be those who do not come to our offices and who are maybe not getting that support. It is those who are more proactive and know their way round the system who will get the extra points and support and get themselves up the housing list. The motion calls for a fair system. That is not a fair system. <BR /> <BR />We need to build new houses and more social houses. We need to suspend and review the right-to-buy scheme because we are chasing our tails. Whilst sales are down from the peak of the right-to-buy scheme, we are still selling off when we have insufficient stock.”
“We need to build more houses, as has been pointed out. We have 40,000 people on our waiting list. Jonathan Bell was the first to raise honesty when people are seeking a home and trying to get as high as they can up the points list. The reality is that people will do what they need to do to get housed and to get appropriate and suitable accommodation for them and, in some cases, their families. When constituents come to us, we are, by necessity, complicit in the system that exists, in ensuring that they get the maximum points available to them. <BR /> <BR />I am certainly not suggesting that anyone in this House is encouraging people to get intimidated, but we ensure that they get the points that they are entitled to, and, hopefully, we do no more.”
“The Minister mentioned that 99·9% of children get places, but he is aware of a particular problem for those with special educational needs. What is he doing to increase provision for them, particularly in the north Down and Strangford area?”
“The Minister mentioned discussions at the meeting about Northern Ireland being a "special case". In those discussions, was the border discussed, particularly the proposal that somehow we would have a soft Irish border but a hard border with GB? Has there been any detail of how that would work in practice?”
“The Minister gave the figure of 1% as an estimate of the number of claims that he and his Department believe are down to fraud. Can he confirm that 99% of those who claim benefits are needing, deserving and entitled?”
“I have said that I will not give way at this point. <BR /> <BR />I think that it is part of the indication of the instability that this vote has thrown up. <BR /> <BR />We need to act with clarity, calmness and caution. We are going to have a new Prime Minister, and there is a possibility that we could have a new general election. We need our First Minister acting on our behalf. What we do not need is a First Minister for unionism or a First Minister who puts first being leader of the DUP. What we need is a First Minister who will represent the people of Northern Ireland, who said that they wish to remain, and we need her to take that argument in the negotiations going forward in the days, weeks, months and, indeed, possibly years that are ahead of us.”
“Members may laugh, and it is shocking that people are saying that, but it is what I am hearing. We have seen the evidence, and we have seen Ian Paisley MP talking about people coming to him for an Irish passport. I have certainly seen people come to me for Irish passports. That may be a practical measure rather than an emotional one, but I think that it is part of the indication of the instability —”
“One of the startling things for me about the response was the number of people who said to me they had sentiments along the lines of, "I went to bed on Thursday as a constitutional unionist. I woke up on Friday as a nationalist". I think that the degree of instability that this vote has thrown up —”
“I have given way, and my time is running out. We are going to have negotiations about how this will affect Northern Ireland. Will she represent the 56% in Northern Ireland who voted to remain? Will she ensure that her colleagues in the "Leave" campaign meet their commitments that there will be more spending on public services in Northern Ireland as a result, and that there will not be stricter controls on the Irish border?”
“I thank the Member for her intervention. I completely agree with her that it was a deception. When we have such a close result, there are questions to be asked about how much people, already and still today, stand over the vote to leave. It is clear in Northern Ireland that we did not vote to leave. I think that presents a challenge to our First Minister, because, whilst the Prime Minister announced his resignation because he did not get the vote he campaigned for, it is clear that our First Minister did not get the vote she campaigned for. Going forward, we need to ask whether the First Minister will represent the people in Northern Ireland. We are going to have negotiations —”
“In one second I will. Then they talked of control of our borders. There was the idea of a fortress UK, and at the same time they told us here in Northern Ireland that we did not need to worry about border controls.”
“The £350 million a week that we were supposed to save by leaving the EU was a blatant lie, and those in the "Leave" campaign admit now that that was the case. They said we could spend that money on the NHS. They were clever in their choice of words; they said "could", not "will", but it was a clear and intentional deception.”
“I went to bed at around midnight on Thursday night listening to Nigel Farage effectively give up the ghost and accept that the vote was going against him. I woke up at 4.00 am to see Nigel Farage on the TV again making his victory speech. I have to say that it has been one of the most sickening experiences I have had since I got involved and interested in politics. That is a very emotional response. It is not what is important, but I think it speaks to a lot of this campaign. It has been emotional; it has been emotive. <BR /> <BR />I also think it has put together strange bedfellows. The "Leave" campaign consisted of what was, on the one hand, the far right, and on the other hand, the far left, united in a campaign to leave the EU. Already we have seen the numerous claims tumble.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Does he agree that, like many of the arguments of the "Leave" campaign, "Take control" was an English argument? As we have seen, with the majority of people in Northern Ireland having voted to remain, we are not actually in control.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. She mentioned so-called sports: does she agree that we need to remove the provision in the animal welfare Act that exempts hunting from the protection of animals against unnecessary cruelty?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He is highlighting that we should ask the question, "What is the problem with our current system?". We do not have enough young people registering. A solution is online registration, but to switch wholly to that, and solving one problem, do we not risk creating a new one for older people and rural people?”
“Will the Minister provide an update on the proposed transfer of Cairn Wood to Forest Service? Is she today in a position to guarantee that public access will be retained?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. She made the point about energy performance certificates. I simply wanted to ask her — I think, from what she said, that she will agree — whether, now that we know the level of energy inefficiency in our housing stock, we should require minimum energy efficiency standards for letting.”
“I am sure that it will be of interest to the Member that the £30 million in question was itself raided from welfare mitigation measures during the last Assembly mandate.”
“I am sure the Member will recall as well the statement from the then Finance Minister that she had to remain in post while other Ministers vacated theirs for fear of "rogue Ministers" taking over. Does the Member interpret that as a suggestion that, in the First Minister's view, we now have a "rogue Minister" in place for the next five years?”
“— just in case he is moving on from his point on housing. He is a former Minister, and I remember asking his predecessor Margaret Ritchie — if I have got the order right — about the developer's contribution back at the time. Does he remember that, and is he aware of any progress on that issue?”
“I encourage the Minister to look at areas of waste, including those I highlighted, to consider ways of raising revenue for investment and always with a mind to doing so in a progressive manner, ensuring that those who can afford to pay more do so. We do not need a three-month consultation, Minister, to tell us that cutting public services will be detrimental to our well-being and contradict the approach outlined in the draft Programme for Government framework.”
“Previously, when I spoke on this, I sort of said that the one advantage shared education has is that it will reduce costs but it won't reduce divisions in our society. I am alarmed to hear that it might not even reduce costs. <BR /> <BR />We have the opportunity to move towards greater integration and children sharing not just classrooms but experiences. I think we should, in this mandate, make much more progress on that, from a financial point of view and also for societal benefit. <BR /> <BR />If we are serious about improving well-being, we must invest in our public services and we must invest in our children.”
“At the top end, it could be up to almost £100 million to maintain our segregated system — money that is being wasted in keeping our children apart, rather than educating them together. Stephen Farry highlighted the inefficiency of empty desks. There were opportunities to address that through area-based planning, had we taken an integrated approach. Instead, when we saw two schools in an area that were under capacity, rather than bringing them together as one school, we said, "Let's maintain two schools, perhaps in one building or even on two campuses, with some sharing of facilities". <BR /> <BR />I note that Professor Alan Smith from the UNESCO Centre at Ulster University estimated that the cost of a shared education system is greater than that of our current system.”
“We need to pool those budgets, we need to stop those wrangles and we need to govern as one. I hope that the new outcomes approach will lead to more of that type of working. <BR /> <BR />I appreciate that we are not yet debating a longer-term Budget, but in meeting the indicators, I ask that we look longer-term at investing in early years. All the evidence shows that doing so will help us to meet a number of indicators in a much more cost-efficient way but, more importantly, in a way that will have a much more beneficial impact on children and families who receive the supports. <BR /> <BR />The cost of maintaining our current education system was highlighted in the recent review on the cost of division.”
“At the request of the Minister's predecessor, an amendment was made to the Bill to give the Department of Finance the power to put in the guidance for Departments to pool budgets. Take special educational needs and some of the wrangles we have seen in previous years about who should pay for services. For example, if somebody needs help with a health condition in a school setting, is it the Department of Health or the Department of Education that pays for it? We then get the wrangling back and forth. I know of one case that took two years to resolve with the intervention of the Children's Law Centre and legal action having to be taken. They were fighting over which pot of public money the service would come out of, while a child waited for two years to have full opportunity to access education.”
“It calls for Departments to work collaboratively in delivering children's services.”
“Given that it is all public money, why can it not be administered under one roof, saving money that could go into the scheme and into those households, rather than be wasted on systems, administrations and bureaucracy. Bring them together. If this is a fresh start, and we have this great new cooperative Government of two parties working in unison, let us bring our systems together, increase energy efficiency in our housing and increase the financial efficiency of those schemes. <BR /> <BR />Members will know of my interests around children's services and, in particular, early years provision. I make a similar plea regarding the budgets and investing in children's services. I was grateful to the last Assembly for passing the now Children's Services Co-operation Act.”
“It is one of a plethora of piecemeal measures to tackle energy inefficiency in our society. <BR /> <BR />In the last mandate, we had an opportunity, another wasted opportunity, to seek to bring these things together under a one-stop shop under the green new deal. As somebody who gives advice to constituents who want to improve energy efficiency in their homes, I know that I have to ask them about their income, their tenancy, and I have to ask a plethora of questions to get to the bottom of which particular scheme they should be applying for. There is not a single number or a single operator for all these schemes. The one thing they have in common is that they are all publicly funded, but each Department has to do its own bit separately, and I question why that is.”
“Why are they so willing to support a policy that is going to see such a devastating cut to our public services? <BR /> <BR />The only cut we should be looking for is a cut in the waste in our system. I give, as an example, the recent EnergyWise consultation initiated by the Department for the Economy. That is looking at energy efficiency, something that I am very passionate about. On the surface, it is about cutting the wasted energy in houses by seeking to bring in income to invest in energy-efficiency schemes. The problem is that the EnergyWise scheme, if it goes ahead, will be added to the affordable warmth scheme, the boiler replacement scheme, winter fuel payments and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive energy-efficiency schemes, including the double glazing replacements.”
“When I was a member of the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee, I raised this point — I am not sure whether the Minister was at that meeting — and the economic advisory group pointed out, and was very clear, that we are not seeking to recoup that money. This is a permanent shift from public to private. Effectively, the group was saying that this is a permanent cut in our public services. I come back to the draft Programme for Government framework and ask this question: how will a permanent cut in our public services improve well-being? <BR /> <BR />Earlier, Patsy McGlone chided the Minister somewhat for the apparent discontent within Sinn Féin at the policy, the apparent challenge from within that was undermining the policy. There should be discontent. What worries me more is that there is not discontent within the SDLP.”
“We went to the Chancellor, collectively. The old five-party Executive asked, in unison, "Please can we have some more? Can we have more cuts, Mr Osborne? Can you give us power so that we can further slash our budgets because, clearly, you have not gone far enough?". <BR /> <BR />We still have a health service and more can be done. This is where, if we are going to talk about A Fresh Start, I would like to see a fresh start from this new Executive. We cannot afford to take a further £200 million a year out of our public services. It is estimated that we need our economy to grow by a third to make up for the tax receipts lost through such a cut, but that is not the agenda.”
“<BR /> <BR />The other tax-varying power, of course, is corporation tax, which has been negotiated by the DUP and Sinn Féin in particular. It amazes me that we were the one region that was not content with the level of cuts handed down to us by the Tories.”
“<BR /> <BR />As I said, the Budget is without any revenue-raising measures. We are unique on these islands in not seeking to at least mitigate the cuts by asking those who can afford to pay more to pay more. The other benefit of raising or lifting the cap on rates would be to make our rating system somewhat more progressive. It is a property tax and a tax on wealth, but the cap ensures that it is regressive and, as I pointed out, that those at the lower end subsidise those in wealthy areas. It would at least give us a platform from which we could look at possible further measures for raising revenue. It would make the system progressive and give us options that we could debate sensibly and maturely on how we could bring in extra finances to invest in public services.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Member for her intervention. I am in the position of not having a time limit on my speech, so I have no problems with her intervention. She raised a serious point. <BR /> <BR />I mentioned the health and education crises, and housing is also a huge issue. As somebody who used to work in the homeless sector, I am aware of that. I worked in a hostel in west Belfast, and I remember people — most were young women with children — waiting for at least two years for housing. Those were people on the priority list, so, if you were seen as non-urgent or a non-priority, you could effectively forget about it. It is an area that we need to invest in, and we need to look at measures such as financial transactions capital and other ways of being creative and getting money into the system.”
“<BR /> <BR />As a revenue-raising measure, this would be a modest step, but it would at least be symbolic that, first, this is an Executive prepared to ask those who can afford to pay more to pay more —”
“The Member may well be aware — and should be aware, making that point — that before the rates cap we did have a deferral system for rates payment for people in exactly that position. It was rarely used, which suggests that the numbers of people in the situation he describes are low. Even if we accept it, there are also those in my constituency who are asset-poor and cash-poor, and they are subsidising the rates of those in homes worth over £400,000. <BR /> <BR />We have the bizarre situation — the unjustifiable situation — in which those in million-pound mansions have their rates subsidised by those in modest housing, and those living in the Kilcooley estate in my constituency subsidise the rates of those who own estates in Cultra. We cannot maintain a rates cap at a time when finances are so tight and cuts to public services so severe.”
“They must then take pride in the crisis within our education system, where school principals are struggling to provide teachers for all classes. Indeed, the additional pressures on resources of providing proper additional support for those with special educational needs is a consequence of our low-tax economy. Again, I question how that reconciles itself with indicator 13, "Improve the quality of education". <BR /> <BR />As a coalition partner, the Minister and Sinn Féin have to share in that pride and have to share in the blame. The maintenance of the cap on rates is effectively a rate relief for the wealthiest in our society.”
“To cut them; to give a subsidy to large businesses at a cost of £200 million per year to our public services. <BR /> <BR />Now the DUP, and I recall a response to something I raised with Mrs Foster in particular, take pride and say, "We are proud that Northern Ireland is a low-tax economy". And that is OK — that is their politics — but in doing so they must take pride in the fact that Northern Ireland has the longest waiting lists in the whole of the UK. I wonder how that approach measures up to indicator five:”
“Mr O'Dowd earlier made a case for greater fiscal autonomy for Northern Ireland, and I am not opposed to that in principle, but look at the practice of those parties in power. What have they done when we have had tax-varying powers? <BR /> <BR />First we lobbied for air passenger duty. To do what? To cut it; to abolish it on long-haul flights, with an impact in terms of cuts to public services. Our greatest tool is the rates; they were frozen for a number of years, and then frozen in real terms, again resulting in cuts to public services and seeing a freeze on the taxation of property at the expense of investment in public services. The champion cause of the last Executive was the gaining of powers to vary corporation tax. Again, to do what?”
“Whilst the Minister will rightly point to the impact of Tory cuts on our finances here in Northern Ireland — and he would receive my support in calling out the Tory Government — he cannot hide from the fact that the record of the last two successive Executives in Northern Ireland has been to use the limited powers we have to take money out of public services rather than to invest in them.”
“This was always a DUP/Sinn Féin Budget, and those parties and their Ministers must take responsibility for it.”
“We have to ask ourselves this: how does the Budget measure up against the promised outcomes and the new outcomes-based approach in the draft Programme for Government framework? How does what is effectively a 100%-cuts Budget lead to improvements in well-being? That is what we have. We are unique in these islands in that we put all the weight of austerity on cuts to public services. Despite the Minister's remarks earlier in concluding his speech on the June monitoring round, when he said that he would fight austerity at all levels, he comes to the House today asking us to pass legislation for an austerity Budget. I accept that the Minister is new to the post, and I welcome him to his new role. However, although the parties in government may have changed somewhat, the parties in power remain the same.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He refers to tax-varying powers, and, of course, to date any powers we have or have sought have been to reduce taxation and reduce the income for public services. Is the Member looking for more tax-varying powers to introduce more cuts to public services?”
“The Minister previously made reference to the benefits of the social investment fund, as he sees them. Does he share my concern, however, that there are those receiving SIF funding who wear the air of respectability by day but direct criminality by night — people who, by night, cause community tensions and, by day, seek funding to resolve them? What will the Minister do to ensure that public funding is withdrawn where evidence of such practice exists?”
“I thank the deputy First Minister for his answer. A lot of work has gone into looking at how to make the Assembly operate better. Members are only too well aware of the flurry of legislation towards the end of the last mandate, meaning perhaps that some very complex Bills did not get the time and attention that they deserved. What guarantee can the deputy First Minister give that we will produce legislation in a more managed, strategic way, rather than in a rush at the end of the mandate?”
“The deputy First Minister mentioned the possibility of border checks. Does he agree that the "Leave" campaign cannot have it both ways? They argue, on the one hand, that they will control the borders and reduce immigration and, on the other, say that we will not have a border checkpoint. Does he agree that we should protect the free movement of people and that the "Leave" campaign should be honest and admit that, if they want to control the borders, that will mean having checkpoints?”
“— a case of, "Well, you haven't done well academically; you could consider childcare". We need to value childcare providers.”