Kellie Armstrong
Strangford · Alliance Party · Northern Ireland
“I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of the Fisheries, Aquaculture and Water Environment Bill. It is timely and important. Miss McIlveen, a fellow MLA for the Strangford constituency, has just spoken.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Bill reflects the realities of the post-Brexit landscape by aligning protections here with those in other UK jurisdictions and the UK Fisheries Act. That consistency is important for standards, enforcement and international confidence in our products.”
“Last year, I met the Department and we discussed that. The opportunities for seaweed farming in Strangford lough are wonderful, and the opportunities from seaweed that Queen's University has identified are incredible. We are lucky to have those opportunities on our doorstep, as long as there is licensing and it is properly looked after.”
“Moving beyond managing individual fisheries, the Bill recognises the interconnected nature of our rivers, loughs and seas — an approach that is very much in line with Alliance's commitment to evidence-based environmental policy. The inclusion of a national benefit objective is also significant.”
“A while ago, we saw that commercial bottom trawling had all but decimated the horse mussel population in Strangford lough. It has since been changed to a special area of conservation. That limits a lot of activity in the lough, which is not a bad thing considering that horse mussels are coming back.”
“They allow for timely action on lower-level offences without over-burdening the courts while still acting as a meaningful deterrent. If only everybody were acting properly, we would not need to have those deterrents, but we are where we are, and the Bill hopes to improve upon that.”
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“A lot of money will be spent to make this happen, and I am grateful to the Assembly Commission for enabling it, but it is not lost work. The reason that I am absolutely delighted — to be honest, I am quite emotional about it — is because the modernisation of our communications system is an absolute step forward. Very soon, the Disability Discrimination Act will require communications to provide subtitles, and, in addition to that, we have a commitment in this place to allow people to use Irish as their spoken language in the Chamber. This may be a testing point when we can at last, perhaps, add on subtitles to allow people, whatever language they choose to use here, to do that. <BR /> <BR />I thank the Committee on Procedures, the Speaker's Office and all the staff who have been involved. I ask us all to give this a go.”
“The new Standing Orders that will be tabled by the Committee are very welcome. I appreciate that it will be no easy job to try to deal with interventions and points of order, so I welcome the Committee's thoughts on that. We can, of course, review the process as time goes on and we see how it works. <BR /> <BR />I appreciate that the role of the Speaker and Deputy Speakers will be made even more difficult as a result of watching people who are in the Chamber as part of the quorum and watching a display screen. My thoughts are with the Speaker and all the Deputy Speakers on that, and I hope that we will all work together to ensure that that job is not made too onerous for you.”
“This debate has given me heart. When you write to a Committee, it is not often that it responds to your letter and makes changes as drastic as those that are required during this terrible pandemic. I absolutely, on behalf of the Alliance Party, welcome the proposed amendments to Standing Order 110. Virtual attendance in the Chamber will not only protect MLAs and enable us to carry out our democratic duties if we have to self-isolate, it will help to protect the staff who work in this place. <BR /> <BR />I really hope that people out there understand that, when we are self-isolating or working from home, we are working. As many in this Building can confirm, our job is not a nine-to-five one; it is probably closer to 14 to 15 hours a day. People will be able to see that we are at home and concentrating.”
“Thank you very much, Minister. I thank you and all of your colleagues in the health service for taking that forward. Thank you very much for the risk assessments, as we know that will be key. Can you outline how you have sought to communicate and promote that to potential care partners to ensure they are all following guidelines, are all aware of them and can let people know so that visiting can happen safely?”
“I thank the Minister for that. I find his answer somewhat disappointing, given that 20% of children who want to attend integrated schools have that opportunity turned down because there are not enough places. Will he confirm that his job is to ensure that all children have equal educational opportunities and that, therefore, all schools should be pushed in the direction of providing all opportunities?”
“It is for a new future and for what that new dawn will be like when people can finally go out of their houses again. Some of those isolated older people — the people who were closed down over Christmas because of those regulations — are very scared about going outside, and we need to help them to access services, especially when it comes to improving their mental health.”
“I even had a church pastor write to me saying that I was a disgrace because people were not going to that person's church. Most churches have kept within the regulations. <BR /> <BR />All I ask is: can we please have a little bit more clarification in future regulations? Please go back and talk to the Executive and say to them that, while we have almost caught up with the regulations that have been issued to date, we need to stop the tit for tat, and we need to give people hope. We need to start to bring people with us, and we need a COVID recovery strategy — not, as Mr Chambers said, that we need it to be back to what we were used to a year ago. Who would have thought that a year ago we would not have known what the R number meant?”
“The silent majority out there are complying with the regulations and have complied with amendment Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. They have complied with them the whole way through, and they will continue to comply. Perhaps it is time that, in those regulations, we start to think about introducing regulations that say to those who do not comply that the fines will get worse. <BR /> <BR />On the fake news providers, I do not know about the rest of you in this House, but, as an MLA, I am sick to the back teeth of getting emails from people saying, "You must read this book about COVID that says that it is a load of rubbish", and, "COVID is not the cause of everything. COVID is just made up by government to control us all".”
“We need to be able to speak on behalf of businesses, people with mental health problems and people trying to find out about vaccines. I know that they are not to phone their GP, and I would never ask anyone to do that, but we need those contact details, and perhaps the public need clear information as well.”
“Key to this is our children. They are starting to struggle. They have lost their motivation, as others have said. We need to give them something positive to look forward to. Telling them that they do not have exams coming up is not something positive. They miss all of that, so we need to give them something a bit clearer. A clear COVID recovery strategy would help. <BR /> <BR />I ask the junior Ministers please to take this back, because I am fed up asking the Executive for it. Can we get a point of contact for the Departments so that we can get through to them? I am sick to the back teeth of writing to a Minister asking for a point of contact, only to be given the same point of contact as everybody else, and the phones are never answered.”
“I do not know when it will be, and I do not think that anybody out there in the community would thank us for putting a date on it that is then broken, but we do need to start planning ahead. <BR /> <BR />Unlike Mr Chambers, I believe that preparation is key. We can help bring people with us if we give them a plan and show them that there is something for the future. The vaccine does that but only in part, because it is about mental health. What are we going to say to those mothers who have not had any support? For instance, do Members know that Cruse Bereavement Care does not receive funding for the mental health of mothers? The other day, the Minister of Health mentioned that there will be perinatal mental health money available, but it is not there now. It is being thought about for the future. We need to think about this.”
“<BR /> <BR />When I say that we need a clear COVID recovery strategy — we need to see that being built through the regulations — I do not mean that we go back to what was before but go forward to help people come out of this. Money is still not getting through to businesses. A lot of Members talk about the independent retailers, but large retailers have closed, costing us 700 jobs. When Debenhams went, it was not just a few people: a lot of people lost jobs. As Ms Hunter mentioned, events companies, the arts and sports all need help. The regulations have impacted on them all. We need to start to think our way out of this. It will not be today, tomorrow, Easter or the summer.”
“<BR /> <BR />They need clarification on the vaccine. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has said that they are in group 6 of the people who will get a vaccine, but our GP surgeries do not know that. When carers phone up to make sure that they are registered on their medical records as being a carer, some GPs are saying that carers are not getting the vaccine then. That is not true. The JCVI has already confirmed it. In fact, I am delighted to say that, today, the update is that over 182,000 people have had their first vaccine. That is fantastic. When it comes to mental health, I ask the junior Ministers to take back to the Executive that we have teenagers, isolated older people, pregnant women and their partners, and carers who are at breaking point, and the key thread running through this is their mental health.”
“<BR /> <BR />A lot of Members today have talked about front-line carers, and I thank them for that. I thank each and every carer who has been out there knocking their pan in and helping people, to the detriment of their own mental health. I want to make a point today. When we talk about front-line carers, there is one group of carers completely left out. They are not mentioned in the regulations and never considered when it comes to giving out money. They are the home carers: the people looking after the elderly and disabled at home and who have not had a break in a year. Those people are not getting any money thrown at them, they did not have a carer's allowance increase and they have not had the £500 that has been thrown at people in Scotland. Those people are at breaking point and have no respite.”
“Others have talked about schools. I have teenagers who are now saying to me that they want to repeat a school year. Have you ever heard of young people saying that they want to do another year at school? That is how bad it is. We need to give them something to look forward to. Over Christmas, we know that it really got to isolated older people. As others have said, it was a very quiet Christmas. Their mental health is a problem. For maternity services, we are creating a wee bomb ready to go off in about six months or a year for all those women going through birth without their birthing partner being there, and for those who, unfortunately, like me, have been through miscarriage or stillbirth. We cannot do this any more. A lot of people are at breaking point with their mental health.”
“Amendment No. 25, the last one on the list today, is to do with the closure of close-contact services. Do you know what? I need my hair cut, and Mr Middleton needs his 12 red roses for Valentine's Day. We talked about a lot of points of contact that we are missing.”
“I know that we are already into the 2021 regulations, but we are not too far behind, so I thank the junior Ministers for bringing them forward. <BR /> <BR />I know that it is hard for Members to sit and listen to quite a lot of stuff. I know that I am a member of a party that is part of the five-party Executive. I think that it was Mr Buckley who talked about being motivated. I do not know how the Executive are staying motivated because this has been the toughest time in politics. We need to take a wee moment to catch ourselves on here. We have an Executive who are exhausted. I do not know about the rest of you, but I am exhausted. My family is exhausted. The public are exhausted. We need to bring people with us; they do not need to hear negativity coming out of this Chamber. <BR /> <BR />I am massively concerned about mental health.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Do you know what? If the public are listening to this debate, they would be more depressed than ever. It has been hard to listen to some of you tonight. I do not know how you can make a pandemic a green and orange issue, but can we please just knock it on the head? <BR /> <BR />A lot of the regulations that we are talking about here, as many Members said, take us up to the end of December. I thank the junior Ministers, the Health Minister and the whole Executive for bringing them forward because I had been giving out about the extraordinary length of time that it was taking for the regulations to get to the House. That is not bad going; we are only back after the Christmas recess, even though we were here quite a lot during recess, and we are up to amendment No. 25.”
“Thank you, Minister, for your statement. It is not very often that we get good news on a Monday afternoon, and this is certainly good news. I will always support any actions that help people to do their job and that support their mental health. <BR /> <BR />Does the Minister agree that this should all be based on need, given the glaring omission that retired prison officers have not been able to avail themselves of the support of the Police Rehabilitation and Retraining Trust (PRRT), with many suffering in silence as they are unsure where to seek the support that they need in an appropriate environment?”
“I thank the Minister for bringing this depressing document to us. It is quite tough. I want to ask for clarification on a detail. <BR /> <BR />Included in annex A, table 2, there is a planned capital DEL of £28·4 million for Fresh Start for integrated shared education and shared housing. Given the comments made throughout the document about how disappointing the Secretary of State has been in coming forward, is there a risk that those 17 schools will not proceed if the planned money is not finally decided by the Secretary of State?”
“For those of us who are not unionist or nationalist, I look forward to the day in the House when my vote and my political opinion are no longer treated as secondary. <BR /> <BR />The process is being taken forward today to finalise the Bill, and, even though the process is disappointing, the Bill is not. This is comprehensive legislation that sends out a clear message that domestic abuse in all its forms, physical and non-physical, is wrong. This is the Final Stage, and I hope that we get Royal Assent as soon as possible. Thank you to everyone who worked on the Bill.”
“<BR /> <BR />I hope that the Bill will give heart to victims and help them to have the confidence and courage to know that the system has been improved and will work. Miss Woods mentioned that other Departments have responsibilities when considering support for domestic abuse victims. The Department for Communities, for instance, in its review of housing allocations, is already considering how housing can be made available to those victims. <BR /> <BR />However, I am somewhat saddened that the Final Stage of the Bill will fall to a cross-community vote. As someone who is designated as "other", my vote, and the votes of the Minister, Miss Woods and Mr Carroll, will not be counted in the same way as other votes.”
“As Members highlighted, it includes training, reporting and oversight of the new offence, protective measures for victims and preventing perpetrators cross-examining victims in criminal and family proceedings. The Bill will make an impact. It will support victims. I wish that no one were a victim of domestic abuse, but, until abusers stop, we will have victims and we will need to support them. The Bill should serve as a clear warning to perpetrators. The House has put in measures to protect victims. Perpetrators will face penalties for physical or emotional cruelty. I say to anyone who is being abused: you are not alone. The Minister and the House are here to support you. As the Minister said, there is no shame in being a victim of domestic abuse; the shame lies with the abuser — the bully.”
“While I recognise the role of the Minister of Justice in developing and bringing the Bill to its Final Stage, I want to note the work of the previous Justice Ministers, Claire Sugden MLA and David Ford, a former MLA, and the work of the Committee, departmental staff, Assembly staff, all the stakeholder and partner organisations, and especially the brave individuals who fed into the process. <BR /> <BR />Sadly, in recent times, as we heard from Members today, we have seen that this legislation is more important than ever. The rise in reports to the police of domestic abuse incidents during COVID-19 has been horrendous. <BR /> <BR />There is a lot of information in the Bill.”
“The Bill includes provisions on the effect that domestic abuse can have on children, with enhanced sentences possible in cases where a victim in a relationship is aged under 18; where a child sees, hears or is present during an instance of abuse; or where a child is used to abuse a victim. There is nothing as cruel as having a child used against you or their being coerced into behaving badly against a parent. So-called parental alienation needed to be addressed, and I am glad that it has been brought into the Bill. <BR /> <BR />As the Minister confirmed in her opening speech, a previous attempt at the legislation fell when this place collapsed in 2017.”
“I remind everyone that this is the first sitting of 2021, and we are passing legislation to create a new domestic abuse offence. That is largely due to the determination of the Minister, who has made this her priority. Thank you for that, Minister. <BR /> <BR />This long-awaited Bill means that domestic abuse offences in Northern Ireland will no longer be limited to physically violent behaviour. It will make a form of bullying known as coercive control an offence in Northern Ireland for the first time. Convictions for the most serious domestic abuse offences will carry a penalty of up to 14 years in jail.”
“I will be quick, because I appreciate the time. What consultation has taken place with the wildlife and conservation sector? Will the Minister clarify whether the sampling of badgers that have been killed on the roads is carrying on through COVID?”
“I will not waste my time talking about the fact that I voted against Brexit and that my party voted against the protocol. As the Minister outlined, Northern Irish boats are excluded from all but two ports in the South. As someone who lives extremely close to Portavogie, I am keen to find out what you are doing and what conversations you are having with the UK and Irish Governments to sort out that outstanding issue.”
“I ask anyone who has any information about the people — if they can be called that — who carried out that attack to go to the police with that information so that we can get those people off our streets.”
“Unfortunately, there has been experience of it in my constituency, where people dressed up in KKK outfits or left pigs' heads outside the doors of some centres. It is disgusting and disgraceful. An attack on a centre like that is an attack on us all. We are one society. We are working our way past being a divided society. <BR /> <BR />I must acknowledge the overwhelming support that shows that our society does not want that type of behaviour. As others have mentioned, the funds that have been raised voluntarily by the community have reached almost £60,000. Islamophobia, racism and hate crimes are disgusting. They are a blight not only in South Belfast but across Northern Ireland. I condemn the attack wholeheartedly.”
“Normally, my colleague Paula Bradshaw would speak about matters such as this, but she has, unfortunately, had to go to a funeral today. However, she confirmed that she has worked with the volunteers who have worked extremely hard to establish their premises and who do amazing work for many sectors of the South Belfast community. No one was hurt in this attack, but this was not the only attack. Cars have been damaged, and there have been spates of attacks around this centre and many other multicultural centres across Northern Ireland.”
“I thank Mr Carroll for bringing forward this Matter of the Day. I also thank all the other Members who have spoken, because they have shown that there is unanimous support in the House for people in our society who have been attacked in this vicious and vile way. <BR /> <BR />On behalf of the Alliance Party, I wish to express my sadness at the blaze at the Belfast Multicultural Association, which damaged the building extremely badly. My sadness is because I am so disappointed that it happened. More than 50 of our firefighters were needed to bring the fire in Donegal Pass under control. Investigations are, of course, ongoing to identify those who carried out the attack. My thoughts are with the Belfast Multicultural Association.”
“<BR /> <BR />So, there are a lot of questions, which is why I am glad that we are debating the motion, although I am sad that we had to bring the Minister to the House in this way. It is a difficult time for everyone, but it is time that we recognised that our teachers have just been put under some of the most intense levels of stress that we could ever have put them under. We did not have to do that; we could have said before Christmas that we knew rightly that this was going to happen because we knew that there were going to be problems. Minister, I ask you today to please give us some clarity, please explain exactly what that medical advice was and please be fair to our pupils.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. <BR /> <BR />To be honest, it gets my geek up when you start talking about transport. When somebody has their head right at the knee of a person in order to attach their wheelchair to the floor of a bus, of course they are coming into close contact so why would they not receive a vaccine? <BR /> <BR />As has been mentioned by others, GSCEs are starting from 11 January, and we still do not know what the COVID tariff will be. Minister, has the CCEA provided you with any contingency plans? That is one thing that would finally help some of those teenagers who are driving their parents to distraction. What is happening with that COVID tariff? We have a week now in which those pupils may or may not be in school; whether there will be any classes for those children depends on their school as there will be remote learning.”
“However, I speak day in and day out, including weekends, with parents of children who cannot get educational psychologist support to have a statement made, so those children are being denied access to schools. They are not being classified as vulnerable children. They do not have the opportunity because they are not getting access to educational psychologists. We know that you are recruiting more, but, my goodness, this is just so frustrating. Our special educational needs schools are some of our most oversubscribed. In particular, I will mention Killard House School, a fabulous school that could be filled four times over. Where do those children go? They go into mainstream and if they cannot get a statement, that is it — they are left out.”
“Some of those pupils have both physical and mental health issues and some of those children can be very ill. To catch COVID is life ending. Why has the vaccination programme not included them? To those who talk about the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), — if I have got that right — Northern Ireland is not included on that list. We are taking note of it and we are following that advice. Northern Ireland can actually change its vaccination priorities to include special educational needs teachers and classroom assistants. <BR /> <BR />The other thing, Minister, is that you talk about vulnerable children. I am very glad to see that there will be support for vulnerable children.”
“<BR /> <BR />Our pupils are looking for mental health support and we cannot even get it through schools because the family support networks that were put in place for those people are not there, because of COVID. I ask you to clarify what the medical and scientific advice is. <BR /> <BR />Can I also ask you about the vaccination programme? Mr Nesbitt mentioned it earlier. I consider teachers to be key workers, in particular teachers of children with special educational needs. They are key workers. They are the very people who are working with some of the most vulnerable children across society. Where are they on the lists? Where are they on the vaccination programme? Will you please clarify what work has been done with Health to discuss those teachers, because those pupils are going back next week and will be in school?”
“Scotland and Wales were able to plan ahead but we had to wait until Westminster finally gave the go-ahead before we did something here. <BR /> <BR />I will take everyone back to the scientific advice or the information that has been called for in the motion. I ask you, Minister, to give us an outline of the scientific and medical advice that you have been provided with, including what SAGE said in December. I also ask you to clarify the work that you have been doing with the Minister of Health, and I thank you for that. Mr Bradley referred to CAMHS. Where are they, because, to be honest, I cannot get a hold of them for love nor money? I appreciate that CAMHS is underfunded. It is up to the Executive to ensure that it has enough funding.”
“COVID is at the core of all of this, but Minister, honestly, it is time to take leadership and be clear and honest with our pupils and our teachers. <BR /> <BR />Today is the last working day before schools are returning and today is the day that our heads and teachers get the announcement. I think that we owe them an apology. As an Assembly we should be saying sorry for putting that pressure on our teachers because tomorrow will not be a bank holiday for them and it will not be a celebration of New Year's Day. They will be planning what the heck is going to happen next week. <BR /> <BR />I am quite happy to say sorry to our teachers, to our classroom assistants and to those pupils. It was left far too late for this decision.”
“I have not written a speech because, to be honest, I have received so many emails from parents over the last few days that my head was spinning, so all I can do is declare an interest as the parent of a pupil in an exam year and as a member of the boards of governors of Strangford College and of Portaferry Integrated Primary School. <BR /> <BR />What I can say as a parent of an exam year student is that mental health is a problem for our young people. I absolutely agree that they should be in school when they are safe to be in school, but the mental health of teenagers is being fundamentally harmed by the dithering and the not knowing and the trying to guess what the heck is going to come next.”
“— without EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks. At least that is one piece of clarity, but we need to provide an awful lot more. We need to build bridges, not borders.”
“I think that some regret the decision not to accept the backstop and the outcome of decision. For the good of our councils, this place and citizens across Northern Ireland, we need stronger councils. We need to support them more and fund them better in our next Budget period. I am very grateful to the councils that fed into the report. They provided confirmation of what we were all concerned about. <BR /> <BR />Ards and North Down Borough Council, which covers part of my constituency, highlighted the uncertainty about the fishing industry. I am grateful for today's decision that Northern Ireland vessels can land fish at Northern Ireland ports —”
“Why, in Northern Ireland, do we have no details about it? Are we the poor relative who will get the scraps off the table? Worse still, it might not replace the funding that our councils will lose out on. The complexity of reams of red tape and costs will harm businesses, so we need our councils to support them. It will cost jobs. We need light-touch regulation and clear information campaigns with answers. We need goodwill between the EU and the UK to iron out any issues. It is also vital that good communication exists between the Executive and councils to help to get messages out and engage on the problems that may arise. <BR /> <BR />The protocol is not perfect. It is the result of the UK seeking the hardest Brexit possible, which brings friction. The backstop was a much better situation.”
“I asked the First Minister earlier this week about the common framework and how much businesses knew about it. Our councils do not even know about how to give local businesses information. <BR /> <BR />Our councils are in financial difficulty. On the Committee for Communities, we are extremely concerned about the impact that COVID has had on our councils and their ability to deliver economic regeneration and employer support and to help our community to come back from COVID. If they are to build back better, we need to consider how our councils can work as an effective partner with this Government. On top of that, the Brexit impact is hitting them, and they have made their concerns very clear. As others mentioned, they are worried about funding. The shared prosperity fund is extremely concerning.”
“My time is short, so I will just hit the themes. For instance, Northern Ireland's agri-food sector is a credit to us, but ensuring that we have access to the same markets and compliance will be a challenge. Much of that will fall to our local government and environmental health departments. One particular concern relates to food labelling and whether Northern Ireland producers can meet the requirements post the transition period. All of that needs to be ironed out, and what we need for that are good local partners in local government. <BR /> <BR />The transition period is definitely coming to an end on 1 January. That will hit businesses like a sledgehammer, and we need our local government to be there to provide the support. Will they be able to cope with that? I do not know.”
“From dealing with SOLACE and NILGA through the Committee for Communities, I say that the outlook for our councils is extremely severe. The pandemic has put financial pressures on them that they did not expect, and, added to the Brexit problems, we are looking at a catastrophe. It will not just be our councils that pay for that; it will be our ratepayers. <BR /> <BR />We can take a bit of comfort from the fact that the UK and the EU are still talking. At least they appear to have worked out some of the details with the protocol, for instance, with the grace period for supermarkets that we have heard about, and thankfully the law-breaking elements of the Internal Market Bill were dropped. <BR /> <BR />The report highlights a plethora of issues with Brexit and what it brings to local government.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I thank the Committee staff and the representatives of the local councils who contributed to the report and thank the Committee itself. I do not sit on the Committee, but I sit on the Committee for Communities, and we look regularly at the impacts on councils, which is why I wanted to contribute this evening. <BR /> <BR />The report will help to inform us on the reality that faces our councils as a result of Brexit. I think that we can all agree at this point, whether you are a Brexiteer or a Remainer, that Brexit is a mess. No one is getting what they want, and the outcome will leave us worse off and more peripheral with fewer rights and less influence. <BR /> <BR />Things were already looking tough for our councils, and then bang: COVID came along in 2020.”
“Parents are not aware of how to report this, because children will be out of school at that stage. As a parent of a pupil, I ask whether any work will be done by the PHA and yourselves to make sure that that goes through the education system before children finish for Christmas.”
“When will those criteria be published, and will the Executive feed into them?”
“Minister, I will not ask what is contained in the document. As the person who wrote the definition of what was going into it, I am quite happy with what is there. However, I am disappointed that only your Department is looking at this review. 'New Decade, New Approach' clearly stated that there was to be a cross-departmental consideration of an independent review of education. You mentioned that you will work with the Economy Department. However, as mentioned earlier, all Departments need to be involved, including Infrastructure, Communities and Health. <BR /> <BR />Who will be on the recruitment panel? Paragraphs 34 and 35 of the terms of reference state that the Department of Education will come up with a panel and that the criteria for that independent panel, including "experience, skills and personal qualities", will be specified.”