Steve Aiken
South Antrim · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I thank the Minister for his statement. Minister, as well as the move to reduce the cost to the Assembly of vacant non-domestic properties and to increase liability so that we will not have so many vacant properties, you will be aware of the Dilapidation Bill and of the conversations that have been taking place in Wales and Scotland about…”
“Instead, that most dysfunctional Department, under the most inept Sinn Féin Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly and a series of grossly over-superannuated permanent secretaries, gave the money back.”
“We know that her Department spends more on legal cases, fighting judicial reviews and being chastised by judges for legal ineptitude and on vesting land and ripping out hedges and fencing and then trying to unvest it and paying even more money to put back the fences and hedges that it took out.”
“We can hardly blame the current permanent secretary, as she has just taken up her post, but, surely, her predecessors must bear some accountability or responsibility, especially considering the senior civil servants' salary scale of between £146,000 and £163,000, with, of course, their taxpayer-funded pension contribution of 34·2% — £218,…”
“It must be said that £181·3 million is a lot of taxpayers' hard-earned money. It is money that is raised from local commuters, vehicle owners, farmers, local businesses, logistics companies and, above all, our constituents — those vital people whom we are elected to represent.”
“The Minister will be aware that, under the public appointments guide published by the Executive Office, it is clear that she is supposed to take independent advice before appointing board members. What independent advice did she receive, particularly about the board members selected?”
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“I thank the Minister for giving way. An OECD report — I would have to check in which year — very much refers to the ability to be examined against economics and also against inputs and outputs. That is the one thing that we are missing because it is not legislated for.”
“We cannot rely on the Civil Service for such figures, given its voluntary exit scheme, which cost a lot of money, did not deliver any savings and has not improved the Northern Ireland Civil Service one iota. It is clear that we also need to look at that area.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. I preferred the explanation from the leader of the Opposition. Either way, it is not going to make much difference. I firmly believe, however, that it is an area at which we should be looking. <BR /> <BR />It is vital that the council be able to look at the cost of duplication. When we invited in the Treasury to do an open-book exercise, it found £3·5 billion in savings. Although that is a highly disputed figure, the Fiscal Council was able to point out that there are 1·88 civil servants per single job in Northern Ireland. We need to get to the bottom of that, and we need to do so in an independent and verifiable way.”
“If Members were to ask anybody in Dáil Éireann what the Irish Republic's growth level is, they would talk not about GDP but about gross national income (GNI), because they know about its economic impact on people. We have no real information on which to base our GDP or GNI. The amendments would give the Fiscal Council the legislative breadth — perhaps later, rather than right now — to consider those economic issues. It is not about forecasting. We had a very valuable debate in the Finance Committee about those issues. I accept what the proposer said in that regard. I would have gone further, but I think that that is the direction of travel in which the proposer and I wish to go in principle. I will not delay the House any further. We will support amendment Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5.”
“<BR /> <BR />In the short time that the Fiscal Council has been in place, it has gained a reputation for stalwart delivery of the facts. It has used every piece of information available to it in the context that we are in. However, it must be able to do that against the wider background of the economic situation in Northern Ireland. That is important. <BR /> <BR />We have heard today about the difference in growth figures. Anybody who looks at the growth figures in the Republic of Ireland will say that a lot of that is due specifically to FDI growth, profits being exchanged or the increase in Apple profits.”
“One thing that we have seen from the Fiscal Council — I will say right now that I am a great supporter of Sir Robert Chote and the team — is the curiosity to look into some of the issues with that. It should be possible to have that degree of looking at economic growth and its impact laid down in statute. <BR /> <BR />The Scottish system looks at supplementary costings. That means non-input costings that have come from HM Exchequer or other external sources. Northern Ireland is a classic example. Every time that we ask what the economic cost of the Windsor framework is, nobody can give us an answer, because the Government do not collect or look at the figures. Those supplementary costings should be linked to the system. We are not doing that. We need to have a method of achieving that in our aims and objectives.”
“We have heard from some Members that we can look at the Civil Service's delivery and output, but we have been around that buoy quite a few times since devolution in 1998, and the Civil Service has never delivered the degree of oversight and improvement that we need to see, nor, indeed, the data and the ability necessary to show how our effectiveness will be delivered. <BR /> <BR />We are in a situation where, to use one example, we have spent close on £200 million on the A5 road, which is vital, and the York Street interchange, which is also badly needed, but have not laid 1 square metre of tarmac. What was the input into that? What was the output from that? What is the effectiveness of that? It would have been useful to have that measured effectively and independently by the Fiscal Council.”
“We cannot do that in isolation, however; we have to do it against the background of what is happening in the economy and the impact that it has on the economy as we go forward. The model that many of us have looked at is the Scottish model. Members have rightly talked about the fact that we do not have tax-raising powers, or at least not to that extent, yet. However, we need to build up an evidence base of the effectiveness of our government: what it is capable of delivering and how it can deliver it independently.”
“I thank Members for their discussion points so far. The Ulster Unionist Party will support amendment Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5. <BR /> <BR />I will take Members back in time to when the process of putting a fiscal council in place was first mooted as part of the Stormont House Agreement. I was not around in politics back then, but, when we had the numerous discussions in Stormont Castle in 2016-17, one of the issues was how we would make a fiscal council or a fiscal system with an independent body overseeing how we did our finances and what that was likely to be. <BR /> <BR />The key to this, and the principal point that I will talk about, is that, for every input that we put into the system, we should have an output and be able to measure its effectiveness.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. The Member will be aware that the recent Fiscal Council report quoted that, based on an analysis of like-for-like delivery of public services, there were 1·88 civil servants here for every one in England and Wales. The Ulster Unionist Party will support amendment No 5 because the real issue that we seem to have here is that the Northern Ireland Civil Service, in all its years, has never identified that internally as being a problem. In one report, the Fiscal Council brought that issue to the fore. Therefore, does she not see that there is merit in amendment No 5?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. This is just a short intervention. We had the recent debacle of the Treasury's open-book exercise and its sudden discovery of £3·5 billion of savings that, it reckons, we could have. Does the Member agree that that would not have arisen, had the principle of the Fiscal Council looking at those things in advance been in place, so that we, too, could look at those issues?”
“First Minister, last week, the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee was in Brussels and had briefings from the excellent Office of the Northern Ireland Executive, which is not the most catchily named office. It came out that the additional staff there are only there on a year-by-year basis. If we are serious about, as you say, making the opportunities work, can we move those staff on to a permanent employment structure rather than a year-by-year arrangement, which does not speak to the permanence of relationships or improving long-term relationships?”
“France has pre-empted the imposition of the Union Customs Code by charging €2 per item rather than per parcel. The Document Administratif Unique (DAU) Francaise 2026 means that, if Emily or Mindy, or even Sylvie, secretly, wanted to order from Temu or SHEIN — other brands are available — on an order of three quarters of matched items, it will cost them a minimum of €8 in duty. If that formula is used here, it will not just be fast-fashion teenagers who will be up in arms. <BR /> <BR />This July, the combination of the Union Customs Code and the maritime carbon tax are going to add substantially to the costs for the Northern Ireland consumer. Faithful implementation has a direct cost — one to which the people of Northern Ireland did not sign up.”
“<BR /> <BR />It was unfortunate that our Alliance members were not there to hear the concerns about the Union Customs Code, aka the catchily named "Alliance tax", which is a duty that will be paid on all non-GB or EU parcels, with an administration charge added later in the year. Much like with the implementation of the Irish Sea carbon tax, the EU fully expects the implementation of the Alliance tax to be made as a matter of good faith by the UK, although there was no answer to questions on where the close on €100 million of duty and administration tax will go. Across the EU, the administration charge will go to funding new EU customs organisations, something that we currently have no oversight of. <BR /> <BR />One thing that I did have oversight of was an 'Emily in Paris' anti-fashionista movement.”
“The first issue is the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement, which most believed was largely on track, although some derogations have yet to emerge from the tunnel. The second issue relates to carbon adjustment mechanisms. Members will have noted the imposition of the emissions trading scheme on the maritime sector, which will add up to 6% on our shipping costs from 1 July. That was seen by the European Union as a mark of faithful implementation, despite its impact on costs within Northern Ireland. As is the case with the SPS agreement, the carbon adjustment mechanism was largely seen as being a done deal. Finally, the main EU ask from the UK is on youth movement. It is being seen as much more problematic to deliver, and concerns over it, especially on dynamic alignment, may delay any formal agreement, this summer.”
“The main topic of discussion was the forthcoming UK-EU meeting on the reset. There are three clear issues within the reset, the first and second of which were part of the UK's main asks.”
“Last week, the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee held a series of meetings in Brussels. The Sinn Féin, DUP and UUP members met representatives from our excellent Northern Ireland Executive Office in Brussels and members of the European Parliament Committees for both agriculture and competitiveness. We also met representatives from the UK and Irish missions.”
“I thank the Minister for her reply. The Minister will be aware that there is a significant issue in the Prison Service with staff on long-term sickness absence and how they were dealt with in the past. Will the Minister update us on how approaches to dealing with long-term sick absences in the Prison Service are being dealt with now? Have we turned a corner on that issue, and are we beginning to treat our staff who are on long-term sickness absence better and with much better treatment?”
“The first duty of any British Prime Minister is, supposedly, the defence and security of our nation. Paradoxically, we have also committed ourselves to the defence and security of our neighbour — a neighbour who seems more interested in taking us to court than investing even a modicum of its tax-avoidance revenues in support of the rest of us in defending our values. Any normal Prime Minister would rectify both of those issues with urgency. That should be a matter of concern for all of us. Sticking proverbial heads in the sand will do neither and should not be supported.”
“While we defend the Irish Republic, it shows no indication of moving away from its freeloading approach to defence, and the Irish lecture us and others about security concerns. <BR /> <BR />This morning, in the 'Financial Times', Lord Robertson, an ex-Labour Secretary of State for Defence, former secretary-general of NATO and co-author of Starmer's latest strategic defence review, gave a damning indictment of the state of our nation's defence today. He said:”
“Yesterday, at the end of questions to the Infrastructure Minister, I pointed out that, far from our Government paying billions to the war against Iran, we are, in fact, paying nothing towards that conflict. Rather than believing the spin from Sinn Féin, we should concentrate on the real and diminishing state of our national defences. To add to that rather hypocritical position taken by a Sinn Féin Minister and in yet another nugatory debate that was brought to the House by the Sinn Féin MLA for South Antrim later the same day, not only is the United Kingdom not investing enough in its defence but it has now taken on the responsibility for defending the airspace, cyberspace, sea space and subsea space of the Irish Republic at a cost of millions to the UK taxpayer, while the Irish Government find half a billion euro for fuel subsidies.”
“I just wanted to say that I quite enjoyed that little interaction. Well done, Matthew. Thank you”
“I thank the Member for giving way. My point, which the Member has quite ably put on the record, is the fact that PEACE PLUS funding and previous funding have always been paid for by the United Kingdom, no matter what way you look at it, because the United Kingdom has been a net contributor. When we look specifically at the funding, we are not getting money from the EU; we are getting our own money back.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister made several statements about the United Kingdom funding the war against Iran. To my knowledge — perhaps the Minister would like to correct it — one of the issues is that the United Kingdom Government are not getting involved in the war against Iran. That is a point for clarification.”
“I thank the Minister for her answer. She will be aware that organisations such as the Construction Employers Federation (CEF) say that there is a clear limit to how far such voluntary upgrades are likely to go. They cannot see how a single upgrade might be commercially viable were it to be wholly funded by developers. The implication therefore is that there will have to be a co-equal partnership or some kind of funding mechanism to do that. Where will Northern Ireland Water get the money to do that?”
“I thank the deputy First Minister for her remarks in answer to my question. Is she aware that the Irish Government, having no comprehension of what is going on, have tried, unofficially, to get similar security briefings from the UK Government? If that is the case, would it not be useful, on an all-island basis, for both the First Minister and the deputy First Minister to attend those briefings?”
“That is a reason for supporting our amendment.”
“A lot of the bombs and IEDs that were used against us were produced by the Iranians and the Revolutionary Guard. Exactly the same thing happened in Afghanistan. If we are serious about calling out terrorist regimes, we should have called out Iran. We should have been doing that for years, but we did not. Some people were happy to cosy up to ayatollahs, have tea and sticky buns with them and have their photographs taken on Bobby Sands Street in Tehran. <BR /> <BR />We have a concern, which I will express in the 10 seconds that I have left: in the middle of Tehran is a clock that is counting down to when Israel is going to be abolished and taken out.”
“At the most recent so-called peace talks in Geneva, the International Atomic Energy Agency briefed the team that uranium enrichment was now at 65%-plus. The only reason why you would make nuclear fuel with uranium enrichment of 65%-plus is to build an atomic bomb. That is what the Iranians were going to do, because, last July, its ability to make atomic bombs had been taken out, but they still had enriched uranium left over. <BR /> <BR />What were we going to wait for? Were we going to wait to see the first atomic test by the Iranians and a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv? What did we expect the Iranian regime to do? Let us look at its history and what it has done in the past. Look at the number of times that it has attacked the United States, Israel and us. A friend of mine here fought in Iraq. I was in Iraq.”
“Unlike Afghanistan, or wherever, it educated women to a degree that many of them had jobs. Is it a surprise now that so many of the diaspora are women who have escaped Iran? Why have they done that? They have escaped because it has become a theocracy. It is a theocracy that is hell-bent on creating its own dynamic and power within the region. <BR /> <BR />I was hoping that someone would talk about Barack Obama and his plan when he started the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). When talk on that policy started, the uranium enrichment of nuclear fuel was around 2% to 3%. I will make another declaration of interest: I am probably the only person here who has been in charge of a nuclear power plant. Fuel inside a nuclear power plant is enriched to somewhere between 4% and 5%. Sometimes, it is enriched up to about 12%.”
“It controls the state and the religious police: the police who go around blinding women. They are the ones who grab women, put them into prisons and conduct mass rape. Those are not my words; they are the words of the Iranians. <BR /> <BR />The other issue that Iranians have is that there seems to have been — how can I put this? We have seen it today — the idea that there is somehow some chicness about the Iranian regime and what the ayatollahs have done. I have not yet met an Iranian who is supportive of the Iranian regime and how it survives. I have not yet met an Iranian who has told me that he is sorry that the ayatollah was taken out. All of them want to see Iran be a proper country and be able to grow and develop. Previously, it had one of the most developed education systems in the region. It educated women.”
“Thank you very much indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker. <BR /> <BR />I had hoped, probably forlornly, that the debate would be about the real issues and what is going on. I have a couple of declarations of interest to make. The first is that I work very closely with an Iranian diaspora group, and I have recently spent quite a lot of time talking to members of the Iranian diaspora. <BR /> <BR />I have a lot of notes here, but, quite frankly, there is no point in talking to them, because it will not lead to any variation in the debate. The first question is this: does the Iranian regime represent a threat? The answer is, very clearly, yes. It is not Iran or the Iranian people but the Iranian regime — the IRGC — that represents a threat. The IRGC is a country within a country.”
“At the very least, Ireland should drop its court case on legacy against the United Kingdom. Why would it sue the UK over its use of the military whilst, at the exact same time, beg the UK to save its industry and the EU presidency later this year from Putin and his acolytes' interference? Hypocrisy should not be a basis for cooperation in these dangerous times.”
“It could be surmised, although I have no knowledge of it, that the cyberdefensive power of GCHQ in Cheltenham has also been requested. Keeping the Irish secure is of interest to us. A strand 2/3 issue of the Belfast Agreement is something that we should keep an eye on. However, we also believe that the United Kingdom should be properly compensated for that. Anyone who has been following recent news stories will know that both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force have been hard stretched. It is right and proper that, if our forces are deployed to defend Ireland, which has, indeed, freeloaded on its commitment for decades, we should be paid. After all, Ireland keeps telling us that it is in robust fiscal health — no doubt because it has not previously paid for any defence.”
“That is a very real concern for us because, for instance, our integrated single electricity market (ISEM) — our electricity market and system — is controlled from Dublin. Our agribusiness relies a lot on just-enough, just-in-time access to Irish business and data sharing. We have to be aware that any loss of gas to the Irish Republic will result in rapid and catastrophic failure of its electricity grid. There simply is not enough interconnection to stabilise the Irish grid, especially with the very high preponderance that they have of supplying power-hungry data centres. <BR /> <BR />It was good to see that, on Friday, the Irish recognised their vulnerabilities and reached out to the United Kingdom to formally ask it to take responsibility for the security of Irish seas and airspace.”
“Those concerns have recently been further exemplified by the Iranian cyberattacks on the US medtech company Stryker; the Russian drone incursions when President Zelenskyy's aircraft was trying to land at Dublin Airport; the movement of Russia's grey and dark fleet ships travelling unmonitored through Ireland's extensive but unpatrolled exclusive economic zone; the highly suspicious movements of the Yantar, the Russian navy's main underwater research ship, near and above sensitive data, power and gas cables and pipes; and the cyberattack that brought down the Irish health system, which, again, was attributed to criminal gangs controlled by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). <BR /> <BR />Irish sea, subsea, airspace and cyberspace are wide open for exploitation or worse.”
“Last week, along with our party leader, I was involved in talks with our Prime Minister and, separately, with the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and Minister for Defence, Helen McEntee TD. We raised with both of them the very real concerns about the lack of defence and security provisions of our Southern neighbour.”
“The Ulster Unionist Party will support the rates order. We have made our comments on in the House and in the Finance Committee. If he would be so kind, I would like the Minister to address the issues that I have raised in his winding-up speech.”
“We are not particularly good at government. Given some of the issues that we have had to deal with, such as the cost of the A5 rising to close to £200 million without a square metre of tarmac having been laid, no one can seriously say that we are very good at doing what is required.”
“We are doing an open-book exercise, and, I am afraid, the answer that will probably come back is not only that we are getting enough money but that we are absolutely appalling at spending it.”
“Given the inflation rate that we expect over the next couple of years, the general forecast is that we will have to look at substantially increasing rates to fill the gap. Minister, filling that gap will be a significant challenge for whomever replaces you as Finance Minister in the next term. As the Chair of the Committee pointed out, the only revenue-raising mechanism that we seem to have is rates. Unless we look seriously at other revenue-raising mechanisms or at the opposite — significantly cutting public expenditure and reducing the cost of government — or at both, we will not be in a position to manage the books. <BR /> <BR />Frankly, we cannot keep blaming the Brits for not giving us enough money.”
“Therefore, this is a real concern that we would like to have addressed, and I would like to hear the Minister talk about it. <BR /> <BR />Despite the rollover of the overspend and the extra Barnett money, we will be probably looking at a deficit of £1 billion to £1·25 billion at the three-year point. We cannot continue to expect money to be found down the back of the sofa or to get more Barnett consequentials to fill the gap. That will fill part of it. After the blip from what is going on in Iran and the Middle East, inflation is likely to come down again, but the question is this: how much will we use rates as a mechanism to fill the hole? We cannot keep expecting money to descend in our general direction and hope for the best, as we have in the past. <BR /> <BR />We are increasing rates by 5% now.”
“We know, from our experience over many years, that LPS is assiduous in conducting its duties. However, on this occasion, there seems to have been a breakdown between LPS and the Department, and discussions between them went askew. I and many Committee members found the lack of communication strange. People should have realised the real concern in the hospitality industry. When was that signalled to the Minister? If the concern was signalled to the Minister early, why was that proposal allowed to get to the position that it did? Our experience has always been that LPS is absolutely assiduous in what it does and in its calculations. It is one of the few agencies in the Northern Ireland Civil Service that can be an exemplar.”
“I thank the Minister for his remarks, and I thank the other members of the Finance Committee who have spoken so far. We expect to raise about £900 million as a result of the rates rise. Members will be aware from evidence that we have received in the Finance Committee that, over the next three-year period, we can expect a growing deficit, which could be as large as £1·2 billion by the end of year 3. An open-book process is ongoing. If we get any feedback from the Treasury when it looks at the amount required to balance the books and when it compares our rateable system — our domestic and non-domestic rates — with what happens in the rest of the United Kingdom, it will be interesting to see what it does. <BR /> <BR />Minister, there is a lot of concern about the Reval process.”
“The Member has hit on a very clear point. There is no sufficient data, full stop, on trade issues North/South or east-west. HMRC should get off its backside and provide some.”
“You cannot run two electricity systems side by side and expect them to work effectively.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. I agree with most of what he says, but the I-SEM does not work. It has real difficulties, and that is because there are two virtual markets. The main issue with the I-SEM is that the two system are not connected.”
“What does it do to promote North/South trade? We should not build another quango. We should build physical things, such as the North/South interconnector, and improve rail links to Dublin as well as many other things. We should get those done. Let us not have another quango, please.”
“No one can disagree with improving the North/South connection or with the idea that things would be better with all-island infrastructure. However, there are TDs from a certain party, particularly in north Dublin, who would rather improve the DART than improve North/South rail links. Some Members would join me in saying that there is a large degree of hypocrisy there. <BR /> <BR />Much of the SDLP motion is well intentioned. I know Sinéad well, and we have talked on many occasions about improving North/South trade. She will know that I am not a begrudger on North/South trade; I want it to work, and I want to see it improve. However, let us not have another quango. Can anyone tell me what InterTradeIreland actually does apart from suck up public funds and act as a job creation scheme for superannuated politicians who sit on its board?”
“That is one of the more significant problems that we have when we talk about North/South issues. <BR /> <BR />We want North/South trade to develop, and we want to see opportunities to do that, but, if we cannot even get the electricity market correct, what is going on? Many of us would welcome improvements to the rail system across Ireland. We would love to see a much-improved service between Belfast and Dublin. I would love to see a much-improved service from Londonderry all the way to Cork. The one thing that is holding up the speedy improvement of the line is not necessarily sorting out the Knockmore line but the fact that the DART, on the outskirts of Dublin, takes priority over the North/South rail connection. That is extraordinary.”