Gerry Carroll
West Belfast · People Before Profit Alliance · Northern Ireland
“Yesterday morning, as others did, I stood alongside our resident doctors as they commenced a 24-hour period of industrial action. We often praise our healthcare workers in the House and more generally, saying things such as that they are invaluable and that we wish them well.”
“If we have learnt anything from the political events of the past week, it is that powerful people — powerful men, in particular — and institutions should always be held to maximum account when it comes to abuse, neglect and victims, and that victims and survivors should be believed and supported on every occasion.”
“Agency spend has, again, gone through the roof and is sky-high; locum spend has gone up and continues to go up — it has gone up by in the region of £0·5 billion over the past few years; and, almost every single year out of the past five to 10 years, hundreds of millions of pounds of public money have been pumped into the for-profit privat…”
“With bills increasing month-on-month and year-on-year, that is true, and those workers need a proper settlement that meets their needs and the ever-increasing cost of living. One striking doctor put it to me starkly yesterday. They said that they left Scotland and took a more senior position in the health sector in Belfast.”
“I commend Stephen and his colleagues in the Bill Office and the Executive Office officials, who worked closely with me to try to support, amend or help along my amendments — whatever way you want to look at it. I also want to commend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone who spoke out during the last few stages.”
“I commend people for speaking out on the issue, especially Sharon Burke. I think that she might be in the Gallery. She has been emailing Members on that issue.”
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“It seems that their voices are being ignored as every stage of the Budget is rushed through the House with a disgraceful lack of scrutiny and a wilful ignorance of those who try to defend their communities from potential cuts. <BR /> <BR />So, even though mine is a lone voice, my party will not accept the Budget. Nor will we accept the excuses that we hear every time a Sinn Féin Minister delivers an austerity Budget. Those excuses include, "Our hands are tied". There has been no attempt to implement the radical policies that would address need in our communities. While far too many have suffered because of the mismanagement of the pandemic, the wealth of the 1% has soared. The fallout that we have seen for working-class people and those on the margins of society was certainly not inevitable.”
“I begin by speaking up for all those who have spoken out against the Budget, the draft budgets and the general perspective and strategy of the Executive: the anti-poverty campaigners, welfare advice groups, people who study inequality, people involved in community groups and trade unions. I hosted a meeting last week, and I wish that the Minister had been in attendance, because the testimonies that I heard were powerful and scathing. Indeed, many of those who were alarmed by the Budget used their voice in the media to condemn the Minister's plans. They submitted responses to draft budgets that contain deeply concerning reductions in core funding for front-line workers, welfare support, homeless services, mental health provision and job training for young people.”
“I offer it to all the women have been working throughout the pandemic as healthcare workers, nurses and people in ICU but also, as Members have said, to those in caring responsibilities, which fall overwhelmingly on the shoulders of women. Women have always been at the forefront — you do not need me to tell you — of the struggle to change the world and in fighting for a better world. International Women's Day has its origins in radical, socialist and feminist women fighting to change the world. It is worth remembering that. <BR /> <BR />I just wanted to offer my support for the motion and solidarity to everybody, here and beyond, on International Women's Day.”
“I did not intend to speak at all. It is important that these debates be led by women, and they have been led very strongly today. Being a sole MLA, however, I have to speak to offer my party's support to all the women here and everybody on International Women's Day. <BR /> <BR />If I may paraphrase Kellie Armstrong, the problem is not in the Chamber. We saw previously an MLA signify the problem exactly. When women are speaking, they should be listened to, even if there is disagreement. Talking about men's equality, or alluding to it, is very offensive on any level, but especially today. I think that that is worth saying. <BR /> <BR />I offer my solidarity to everybody in our community.”
“There should be a full reimbursement of students and those who have been forced to pay tuition fees, and there should be a new economic strategy to tackle wealth inequality. You may say that that is a wish list, but we have been through a very tough and difficult year, and people demand nothing less.”
“The vulnerable should be protected by fully funding advice services and replacing failed Tory welfare reforms with a more humane system. A public jobs programme should be created to help deal with the rise in unemployment, the environmental crisis and the housing crisis. There should be increased funding and capacity for the NHS, including a massive recruitment campaign to deal with the ever-mounting waiting lists. There should be an urgent increase in funding for mental health services and a strengthening and extension of COVID support measures to protect workers and the vulnerable in our communities. There should be a significant pay rise across the board for workers and a strengthening of workers' rights, as well better financial support for the low-paid and those in precarious employment who need to self-isolate.”
“The failure to protect and help young people represents, in our opinion and that of many others, a gross failure in the Government's duty. <BR /> <BR />Taken as a whole, the Budget represents a further attack following the decision to inflict Tory welfare reforms on the low-paid and the most vulnerable in our communities. We can and must do better, and the Executive must break from a strategy that fails to put the interests of the vast majority of people first. Everyone in our society deserves dignity, respect and equal treatment, and the Budget, as even some MLAs from Executive parties have admitted, fails to do that. For that reason, I will oppose it. <BR /> <BR />Our party will continue to be a voice for working people and communities. There are some ideas that should be considered in the Government's strategy but have not been.”
“<BR /> <BR />The settlement does not seem to provide any COVID-19 allocation to address the need for labour market interventions to support people to return to employment and thereby help with the economic recovery. In the past year, 10,720 redundancies were proposed, with the manufacturing, retail and wholesale sectors hit particularly badly, and unemployment among young people aged between 16 and 24 has been running at 11·7%. <BR /> <BR />The absence of employment support will compound the problems that have intensified as a result of the pandemic and its economic fallout. A lack of planning on employment programmes for young people, the advisory discretionary fund expansion and payments of upfront childcare costs, which has been referred to, as well as work experience programmes, is another area of deep concern.”
“We all saw the headlines on proposals, but no additional resource funding has been allocated to the Department for the independent advice sector to support welfare change in the draft Budget 2021-22, and that equates, in real terms, to a £1·5 million reduction in funding. Utterly shameful stuff. Proposals to slash funding for advice services, especially at present, are an attack on workers' rights and on those who find themselves in the position of looking for help from the Government. <BR /> <BR />There have been no significant moves to address the need to increase staff numbers to process and pay the working-age benefits, and there have been question marks over plans to recruit additional staff to process and pay working-age benefits in light of the increased demand for social security, which will bring about more hardship and delay.”
“We are concerned that the Budget does not meet its section 75 obligations and will have a broadly detrimental impact across society. <BR /> <BR />We are in the midst of an unprecedented global health pandemic that has thrown people's lives into chaos and put many more people in an increasingly precarious situation. The number of people on universal credit has exploded. The number of people who are unemployed, or who may become unemployed when furlough ends, has increased dramatically. Now is the time to expect the Government to do everything necessary and everything that they are capable of to protect people, especially the most vulnerable. That is not what the Budget proposes to do. In fact, it does the opposite. <BR /> <BR />The treatment of the welfare advice organisations through this process has been disgraceful.”
“We are concerned about the impact that that could have on couples who have no time to wait whilst trying for a family. <BR /> <BR />Last year, healthcare workers took industrial action, in part to highlight the lack of safe staffing in our health service. It is of grave concern that the Budget has not allocated the necessary resources to allow for safe staffing in our healthcare settings. That puts further pressure on our healthcare workers, who have given their blood, sweat and tears over the past year, and it potentially places patients in unsafe conditions. <BR /> <BR />The other alarming area of the Budget proposals is in the Department for Communities. We will never forget that the parties presiding over the Budget are the same ones that disgracefully pushed through Tory welfare reform.”
“That means that the Department is unlikely to be able to deal with the extra mental health stresses and pressures brought on by the pandemic. We need to increase our provision of counselling, including in GP centres and elsewhere. I note that 50% of GP centres in my constituency are unable to provide in-house mental health services. That is a shocking figure. This proposal takes us in the opposite direction and signifies no real commitment to improving mental health services for those who desperately need them. We are disappointed that the money set aside to rebuild cancer, oncology, haematology, and services for palliative and end-of-life care have not been included or detailed in the Budget. <BR /> <BR />NDNA promised increased provision for those in need of IVF treatment, but the Budget does not account for it.”
“<BR /> <BR />Despite our health service and its staff being completely overwhelmed by work this year due to the pandemic, there seems to be absolutely no acknowledgement of the need to bolster staff and those able to work in our health service. The £6·5 million for 900 extra nursing and midwifery students over three years has not been included in the Budget. That means that our health service will continue to be understaffed and under-resourced. As many Members said, the pandemic has presented untold mental health stress and pressure for communities that already suffer disproportionately from depression, suicide and mental health stress. <BR /> <BR />The £10·6 million for the mental health action plan has not been included in the Budget.”
“The Budget fails to provide funding for a range of health issues previously deemed priorities by the Department and the Executive. They include a commitment last year of £75 million to action a transformation of the health service, and that is not included in the Budget. Its absence will likely add significant pressure to our health service. <BR /> <BR />Despite the crisis facing our care homes, and the repeated commitments from the Minister and the Department to address it, the money set aside to review adult care via 'Power to People' has not been allocated. That signifies no fundamental change in the operating of our care system and represents a continuation of the crisis-driven for-profit system.”
“The updated Budget proposals from last night are presented in a way that spending figures are so general and broad-sweeping that it is next to impossible to detail where exactly money will go, but measuring these documents against the draft proposals is alarming. <BR /> <BR />In DOH health spending, we see significant reductions in schedule 2 relating to spending ending this month. Over much of the past year, we have seen a decrease of almost £600 million in resources authorised for use and a reduction of £40 million in accruing resources. However, when we look at the Department of Health spending for schedules 3 and 4, which relate to the upcoming period, it gives no real indication of spending detail or breakdown, and we are to assume that it is a flat Budget. That is most alarming, considering that we are still in a pandemic.”
“<BR /> <BR />True to form, the Executive are again rushing through policy with little oversight. That has already alarmed many anti-poverty campaigners.”
“before opening up a short window of consultation. Trade unions, anti-poverty campaigners and welfare advice organisations were alarmed by this Budget, as anyone following the media will have seen. The consultation process ended at the end of last week, yet we have had a situation in which the First and Second Stages of the Budget Bill are being rushed through once again, after Standing Orders were suspended to do so, in order to force through an unpopular Budget. Are we seriously to accept that the Executive even looked at the responses to the Budget consultation in that period? I doubt it. They had, in my view, already agreed to change Standing Orders to push ahead with the Budget proposals in advance of the consultation submissions being looked at.”
“When we consider that nefarious record of public spending or the fact that, when the Budget drafts were released, the Executive revealed that they were unable to spend £300 million of COVID support money, it is simply unacceptable for Stormont Ministers to tell us that their hands are tied and that they cannot further fund services any better. <BR /> <BR />This Budget also clearly repeats the same failures of the past through the Executive's inability to provide the important mechanisms of scrutiny and accountability. Let us be clear about the process here. When this Budget was put out for consultation, the Finance Minister admitted that there was little time to:”
“Our party has always opposed that neoliberal vision and believes that, in this decade, Stormont needs urgently to fight for widespread and progressive taxation on the rich and the wealthy as a way in which to tackle inequality and expand investment towards human need, and to act in the interests of working-class people more generally. The legacy of previous decisions by Stormont Executives is well illustrated by the fact that we are still paying millions of pounds in interest to fund various PFI initiatives that represent a colossal waste of public money. Those were brought about by the parties that were also responsible for the renewable heat incentive and other scandals.”
“For example, in preparation for this Budget, much is being made of the high rate of unemployment here, which stands at 26·6%. That is 5·9% higher than the British average. That worrying figure has not simply fallen from the sky, nor can it be attributed solely to the damaging impact of the COVID pandemic. Unemployment has been a long-standing problem across our society because successive Stormont Administrations have presided over years of reductions in public spending, leaving our economy subject to the whims of free-market forces. <BR /> <BR />Moreover, the parties that currently comprise the Executive spent the past decade lobbying the British Government for powers to cut corporation tax and to reduce taxes on the rich.”
“That its proposals, even in draft form, were circulated is an insult to the people on the ground on whom they will have a direct impact. The Executive have sought to present it broadly as a standstill Budget, but, considering the serious increase in need due to the pandemic in the area of health and the economic implications, not to mention rising costs, the draft Budget is, in many areas, one that harks back to politics characterised by neoliberal economics and insufficient public spending. Nowhere does it offer seriously to eradicate poverty or challenge the growing threat of unemployment across society. In that context, we cannot and will not support it. <BR /> <BR />If anything, the current Executive seem to take a head-in-the-sand approach towards those issues.”
“People Before Profit will be opposing the Budget and is deeply concerned by it. We are concerned about how it has spectacularly failed to deliver on key commitments made last year in the New Decade, New Approach agreement and about its inability to achieve the expansion of the services needed in the face of the pandemic and to tackle wealth inequality across our society. For weeks, even in its draft form, the Budget consulted on by the Executive was utterly unacceptable. Potential reductions are proposed to core funding for front-line workers, welfare support, homeless services and mental health provision, while job training for young people has been ripped out. That is no way in which to treat people who have sacrificed and struggled through the challenges of the pandemic.”
“whereas, serious restrictions remain on households and private life at stage 2 of "Home and Community". <BR /> <BR />To me, that repeats the mistakes of the past. There are huge restrictions on households and private life, yet people are being forced into unsafe workplace conditions. What assurances can the Minister give that there will not be a repeat of the mistakes of the past and that people will not be pushed into working conditions when it is not safe?”
“With these announcements, more questions tend to arise. I hope that more time can be set aside to discuss and scrutinise this document. Minister, the section on work in the leaked document said that stage 2 will see:”
“I put on record my opposition to the suspension of this Standing Order. Once again, I am probably unlikely to divide the House. This is probably the second of many times today that I will say this, but we need as much debate and scrutiny time as possible for everything in the House, including the Budget Bill. We need maximum time for scrutiny, for questions to be asked and answered and for new ideas to be looked at, developed and worked into it. Therefore, I put on record my opposition to this change to Standing Orders.”
“The Member talks about supporting workers' rights and, indeed, Jim Larkin is a good reference point. Will the Member and his party support my trade union freedom Bill, which aims to increase the rights of workers across society in the North?”
“No, I will not give way; you will have plenty of time to speak. <BR /> <BR />History will not be kind to those who argued for and will pass a Budget today that will tighten the belts of workers, people on benefits and public services, but at the same time looking after their own offices and staff. This motion will allow for that while many workers are struggling and have lost wages. It is a shame that people cannot see the double standards at play today and in the past year. I put on record my opposition to this part of the budget. However, as with many cases in the House, I will probably be unable to force a Division because of the rules in place.”
“As I said last year to the Member, one of the first things that the Assembly did when it reconvened was look after its staff and offices by increasing expenses.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. As I said —.”
“I will not speak for long. The main discussion on the Budget will be later, so I will speak in detail to that. I raise one point in relation to the Assembly Commission budget. People have struggled left, right and centre in the pandemic in the past year. Workers have lost their jobs. Many have lost wages through being furloughed. Small businesses have fallen through the cracks; many are still unable to get any support or financial assistance. It is clear that the politicians in the Executive could not find money to support people in that situation, yet they can increase money for office staff and expenses.”
“Otherwise, we will continue to have Budgets and policy decisions that fail the vast majority of people here.”
“There is a substantial increase, but what it is for does not appear anywhere in the documentation. I would appreciate an answer and clarity on that. <BR /> <BR />We need clarity on those questions. It is quite a frustrating process, I am sure, for everybody, but especially for a sole MLA from a small party — perhaps purposefully so, to blunt the Executive from the real criticism of the impact of their financial decisions. We need answers to all those questions today. Ultimately, what we need is a fundamental shift in the political and economic narrative. The rich have done very well throughout the crisis. They have been immunised from the pandemic. It is now time for the Executive and Finance Minister to not just state it publicly and loudly but to fight to shift that imbalance.”
“It is also very concerning that, when the net provision is compared with the new net provision for trusts, there is a gap of £676 million. Despite the pressures that trusts and services are under, the fact that we heard, only this morning, the chief executives of the trusts say that the health budget is nowhere near sufficient to meet the needs of people here, and the fact that everyone clapped for the NHS, the Executive continue to underfund the health service. There has been a reduction in the figure for the Northern Ireland Medical and Dental Training Agency, with no explanation as to why. Given the many dental health issues that there are, I question that and ask for an explanation. <BR /> <BR />My final question relates to "A-6: Provisions" under the TEO headline.”
“<BR /> <BR />I am also very concerned that, in the Estimates for Education, there is a reduction in the provision for the Youth Service and other children's services, which appears, from my reading, to be around £200,000. We will need to see greater provision in the Youth Service as we come out of lockdown. How does that figure sit with the need to meet that demand? There is also a reduction to the net cash requirement of almost £40 million for the pensions of people who are covered by the teachers' superannuation scheme. It does not say why that is the case. I would appreciate an answer on that, if possible. <BR /> <BR />There also appears to be a reduction for hospital, paramedic and ambulance services. Again, I ask why that is the case. The NIAS needs greater assistance, so why is there a reduction in its funding?”
“The current system is well below what is required. <BR /> <BR />We also see a reduction in housing benefit. We need an explanation as to why that is the case, given the financial pressures that people face during the current period to be able to afford their rent at all. There also appears to be a reduction in the money that is set aside for JSA and income support. I would appreciate some clarity on that as well. The Estimates state that housing grants to the Housing Executive are to increase. That is to be welcomed, but only if they are to be used to roll out public housing rather than being a cash injection to roll out a scheme to privatise and rip up the Housing Executive as a public institution.”
“When one looks further through the Estimates, one cannot help but be convinced that the requirement to increase public spending across every single Department and, in particular, those areas that are designed specifically to help those who rely on public services, the welfare system etc is not really there. In the budgetary Estimates, there appears to be a reduction in the provision for the child maintenance service. Why is that? Further digging shows a significant reduction to the discretionary support scheme. That is my reading of it; I am happy to be corrected. How can that be sufficient, given the massive increase in the number of universal credit claimants and the number of people who have struggled to get access to proper financial support in order to self-isolate during the pandemic?”
“Why is that money — and further money — not being set aside to pay to train more counsellors and ensure that every GP surgery has an in-house mental health service? Shockingly, in my constituency, 50% of GPs do not have those facilities in place. I join others who are scratching their heads, furious about that move and asking questions about it. Old ways of doing things must be discarded. Every single penny and pound must be used to protect people and support their health, especially those who have been impacted by the pandemic and its consequences.”
“You can use whatever technical language you want to explain that, but, at a time when we have increasing waiting lists for elective surgery, a growing mental health crisis and huge demand because of COVID, the Health Minister saying that he cannot spend about half a billion pounds leaves a lot of questions to be answered.”
“<BR /> <BR />With a society emerging from a pandemic, a standstill Budget is, in real terms, one that fails to support ordinary people and, in many cases, exacerbates the deep problems faced before, throughout and after the pandemic. Going along as normal while ruling out a systemic and fundamental policy shift is shocking but true to form for the Executive. <BR /> <BR />The documentation provided before the debate includes many figures and numbers, and I want to ask for clarity on them. Some require explanation and further scrutiny. Table 1, the summary of estimates for health resource, shows a proposed reduction of £588 million in the amount that the Department of Health said that it needed and the amount that it is now able to spend.”
“The Vote on Account is required to allow the Budget to proceed and money to be allocated accordingly. However, these Estimates and the Budget that is likely to come reflect an unfair and unambitious Budget at a time of severe economic uncertainty and societal upheaval in the midst of huge turmoil. <BR /> <BR />People have sacrificed a lot. They have lost jobs and income, and, tragically, too many have lost their lives. The response from the Executive is that we will have a standstill Budget, as it is being described. On further digging, given that many services have been paused or halted, that is not an accurate description of what this Budget will represent.”
“Over 1,000 magistrates' defendants were received through the court process for the non-payment of TV licences from March to December last year. How fair is that, when so many people are waiting for court cases for instances of serious crime, which you referred to?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are obviously having an important discussion, but we are reaching the point at which we will have had debate for about an hour and a half and not had a contribution from a Member who is from a party that is not in the Executive. I ask that your office considers that for future debates to ensure that the parties that are not in the Executive are not excluded.”
“It appears that the Minister's decision is at odds with that position. How can he commit to addressing the over-reliance on agency workers by announcing another lucrative contract for the further use of agency workers?”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. He will be aware that there has been a big overspend on previous contracts with agency firms. I appreciate that he mentioned estimates, but I hope that he can outline measures that have been put in place to avoid future overspends. The Comptroller and Auditor General has expressed concern that there is an over-reliance on agency staff and:”
“Given the fact that only 2% of people who have received the discretionary self-isolation grant have been able to get the figure of £500 or more, will the Minister look, as part of the review, at implementing an automatic payment of at least £500, so that people, especially low-earners, can self-isolate safely?”
“We need to utilise every single private bed, capacity, resources and facilities to tackle the pandemic rather than what is happening now, which is that some people are boasting about the profits that they are making and the patients whom they are seeing in the middle of a pandemic. That approach has to change. I urge the Minister to come up with a strategy, alongside his Executive colleagues, to discuss how we can take control of those facilities to ensure that they are used to fight the pandemic and deal with our health issues.”
“I again bring to the Minister's attention the fact that, last week, someone in my constituency was fined £200 for attempting to give out bingo cards, which was intended to give some light entertainment and a distraction to people in the middle of a pandemic. However, it was met with the full rigour of the law while others are openly flouting the regulations and getting away with it. It is really disgraceful and shameful stuff. <BR /> <BR />Capacity in the health service has been raised a number of times. We need to look seriously at private healthcare capacity. Two weeks ago, I asked a question of the Minister's Department, but, unfortunately, the response that I got was that it was too big a job — costly and time-consuming, presumably — to find out the size and scale of private healthcare capacity.”
“We have a situation where politicians in the Chamber can break regulations and not receive a heavy-handed response from the police, and MPs can repeatedly — and repeatedly and repeatedly — break the regulations and not face fines, warrants or visits, or knocks on their door from the police. Such an approach is not only unfair but will and does breed cynicism amongst a community that has faced and sacrificed so much in a very difficult year. <BR /> <BR />I have raised this before, but where is the police investigation of, or door knocks on, the big care home providers? Last week, we discussed the serious number of deaths that there has been there in response to the pandemic.”
“It is important and worth considering that, today, and at the Executive. <BR /> <BR />We need measures in place to protect people's health, but it is my assertion that the Executive have been slow to implement and quick to lift the measures that have been protecting people. Again, I hope that lessons have been learned, but I do not know if they have. <BR /> <BR />The Executive's approach has, continually, targeted the wrong people, and more so in the past few weeks. In my view, we have had a disproportionate targeting of working-class people, including people in my constituency, where in recent weeks a number of families have been targeted by police as they have attempted to mourn their loved ones who have passed away.”
“I repeat, again, that the only way out of the pandemic, to protect people and to avoid lockdown yo-yo is to adopt a zero-COVID approach that aggressively targets the virus and aims for the total elimination of community transmission; otherwise, it will be lockdown/surge, lockdown/surge, lockdown/surge, for some time. I do not know whether lessons have been learned, but I hope that there will not be a repeat of the past failed strategy of the Executive. <BR /> <BR />It is worth quoting something that Susan Michie, from University College London, said about zero COVID. She said:”