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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“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wish you all the best in the Chair. <BR /> <BR />Northern Ireland is not unique in experiencing rapidly changing demographics. As a society, we face a rising demand for adult social care services. The number of older people, the group most likely to need social care, is rising faster than the population as a whole, and that will cause profound challenges in the decades ahead. Indeed, it has been estimated that, over the next 20 years, the number of domiciliary care recipients is likely to almost double. It is therefore inevitable that increased funding will be required to meet the rising demands created by those pressures alone. While a huge capacity challenge may be coming down the track, the reality is that there is already a big shortfall.”
“We need someone who can stand up and say clearly that they are responsible for protecting our lough; someone who is willing to take the decisions, hold authority and take all other agencies and stakeholders to task; and, above all, somebody who will be held to account. <BR /> <BR />Our party will support the motion, but what we want to hear from the AERA Minister is that he will be that person who will be accountable for our lough and for what needs to be done.”
“With the global average temperature now recorded as being 1·5°C over baseline, we can, regrettably, expect a repeat of last year's disastrous events, especially as Lough Neagh is particularly affected by the facts of its ecology and topography, which, along with the fact that only one river flows out of it, cannot be changed. <BR /> <BR />There are clearly central problems in the lough: the number of pollutants, the number of invasive species and the rising temperature. In the medium term, we can deal only with the first two. The third will require a major effort to get to net-zero carbon, and we all need to concentrate on getting that done fast. <BR /> <BR />Right now, our lough needs our help. We will hear a lot about an inter-agency task force, co-design and the alphabet soup of other initiatives that are out there.”
“Sailors raised concerns about what would happen if their boats were to capsize; wildfowlers and fishermen expressed their fears, publicly and privately; and the public started to keep away from the lough shore. That all the warning signs had been there, for decades in some cases, should give no one in authority any comfort. Strikingly, it took a European Space Agency (ESA) image of what should have been the blue centre of Northern Ireland starting to look like a green-streaked Petri dish to bring home to many who care about the lough what we have known for a long time. <BR /> <BR />That our lough recorded a temperature of 17·4°C this summer, at the height of the algal bloom, shows that the lough is acting as a warning signal of the challenges that the climate emergency is bringing upon us.”
“Mr Speaker, as you will remember, when you were Minister of Agriculture in 2022, a regrettable series of deaths of dogs and other animals was reported to my office in Ballyclare and to councillors. The common denominator was that the deaths were all connected to the lough. Along with Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, DAERA found inconclusive results, but one thing was clear: the view expressed by the people most connected with the lough that their fears for its health were being ignored and that it was only a matter of time before we would be looking at the ecological disaster that would occur. <BR /> <BR />Constituents avoided the lough shore.”
“I welcome the Minister to his new post. I declare an interest: I will soon get in contact with his Department about fixing a windscreen that was cracked because of a pothole. <BR /> <BR />What will we do about the utility companies that seem to spend their entire time digging up the roads, digging them up again and not working with anybody to make things work properly? Many potholes across our South Antrim constituency are caused by utility companies digging things up, not repairing the roads properly and not doing the correct remedial work to make the roads passable.”
“Through the Speaker: do not chunter from a sedentary position. I have read my notes about being a Deputy Speaker. <BR /> <BR />We must take this seriously. We cannot keep on kicking it down the road. We have to make difficult decisions, and we have to make them now. We must push forward and do that.”
“I welcome the fact that we are now beginning to take this seriously.”
“We did have some fun, Matthew, didn't we?”
“<BR /> <BR />I would also like, as we move forward, to start thinking seriously about fiscal responsibility and where it lies. Difficult decisions will need to be made. The Health Minister has already started to make them, and other Departments are going to have to do exactly the same. We are going to have to bring forward things like mutualisation of Northern Ireland Water, and look at the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Those are really big issues. For the First Minister and deputy First Minister and the rest of the Executive: we need to get on with it. This is February. In May, we will need to make our case to the Chief Secretary of the Treasury. Time is running out. I encourage everybody to start thinking about fiscal responsibility. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the new Chair of the Finance Committee.”
“Thank you very much indeed. <BR /> <BR />Here are the circumstances: we did not ask to be put in an all-island economy, but we have businesses in Northern Ireland that have to compete on an all-island basis and they are hampered. We should be making a very strong case to get corporation tax down to 15%. For those of us who were in Hillsborough Castle, I said to the representative from the Treasury, who looked at me a bit askance, "We didn't ask for a border to be put in the Irish Sea. It is there. We need to make sure that our businesses are not damaged by that". I would hope that the First Minister and deputy First Minister, the Economy Minister and the Finance Minister will argue for corporation tax to be lowered to 15%.”
“It is regrettable, I suppose, that neither the Economy Minister nor the Finance Minister is here. On several occasions — indeed, all the way back to 2010 — the Ulster Unionist Party proposed changes to corporation tax. Whether we like it or not, we are in the single European market for a lot of our business, trade and economy, yet we are absolutely penalised by the fact that we are dealing with a corporation tax level that is uncompetitive with the rest of this island. We need to argue strongly to get our corporation tax to the OECD level of 15%.”
“These are really significant issues that we need to look at and manage going forward. <BR /> <BR />The one thing that we have to do is to think about a plan for growth and a plan for opportunity. Many of us sat in Hillsborough Castle for far too long and had numerous conversations about trying to improve our finances, but the most significant point that we talked about was prosperity and how we can get that growth agenda moving. We need to shift the dial.”
“We know from the Fiscal Commission and the work that the Fiscal Council has done that there is already a lot of data there, and we need to be in a position where we can make a strong and arguable case that Northern Ireland's level of need is where it should be. However, when we compare ourselves with Wales, the north-east and north-west of England, Devon and Cornwall and other areas in our nation, we have to be cautious about how we approach that, because, using the Fiscal Council's figures, we can see that, in some areas, we pay several hundred pounds less than those areas. Lest anybody think that this is just an issue to do with Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, I say that we would be paying thousands more if we were part of the Republic of Ireland.”
“I start by congratulating Mr Tennyson and Mr Brett — he seems to have disappeared off for his lunch — on their maiden speeches. The speeches were both good examples of what we should all be moving towards. <BR /> <BR />The Ulster Unionist Party will support the motion and the amendment, but there are issues that we need to be aware of. I notice that Jayne Brady is in the Building at the moment. We have until May to get together a plan that we can present to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to enable us to unlock funds for stabilisation and transformation. We have to get a Programme for Government that matches what we need to do to be able to demonstrate that we can put ourselves on a sustainable footing. <BR /> <BR />I welcome the idea of having an independent commission to look into, as Wales did, the relative levels of funding.”
“On a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. My friend Mr Butler wished to ask a question. It is my understanding of the joint translation process that he is fully entitled to ask his question in English, the question would be translated into Irish, the Member would be able to respond in Irish and the response would be translated into English. It was more than a little bit disingenuous of the Member who was speaking to ask whether Mr Butler's question was going to be asked in Irish. I do not think that it was the intent of my friend Mr Butler to invite such a response. May I have a ruling on that, please, Mr Acting Speaker?”
“No, not at the moment. <BR /> <BR />The real issue that we have is to make sure that we restore trust in the institutions and in democracy. We have to restore trust. We have to be back. Regardless of what happens and of whether we have an election — even if we have an election and come back — can we commit ourselves to not having more and more polarisation and more and more whataboutery? Why can we not do something to make Northern Ireland work effectively? That is what we need to do. That is why I think that Mike Nesbitt is the person to be Speaker of the Assembly. I want to see him take his vision and move that for all of us to where we need to go. <BR /> <BR />I am probably the only person who has not used his entire allocation. Maybe somebody else can make more sense of this place — I cannot any more.”
“I am even more incredulous about another issue, but I should not be surprised, bearing in mind that the Secretary of State's Government have wasted £35 billion in the last three or four weeks through complete ineptness. There is a lack of vision and a lack of understanding, but I find it absolutely incredible to hear some people say that one of the solutions is likely to be some form of joint authority. Trying to score points and raise tensions at present does not work. The people of Northern Ireland are angry. You will detect from my tone that I am not exactly happy with what is happening here either, because we have a job to do, and we should be doing that job.”
“It has to be dealt with, and, if we are not complaining about it, who is standing up to make that happen? I do not say that because I believe that what the DUP is doing is right, but I can speak for all unionists who have real concerns about the protocol. That must be sorted, and it will be sorted only when people start listening to the real concerns of the people of Northern Ireland — not just unionists but all people. We have to do that. <BR /> <BR />I find it absolutely incredible that the Secretary of State will spend about £6·5 million more of public money on an election that, frankly, people in Northern Ireland do not want.”
“I wanted Northern Ireland to be a place where everybody could work together for the benefit of all our people. Since that time, I think, of the six years that we have been in and out of here, four of those years have been completely nugatory and pointless, because absolutely nothing happened. We had three years when the party opposite, Sinn Féin, held the place down. I do not know how long the Assembly will be down now. Let us be honest: this might be the last time that any of us will speak in the Assembly. It will be a long time indeed before the Assembly comes back, I believe. <BR /> <BR />There is a real issue with the protocol, and pretending time and time again that you can ignore unionist concerns about the protocol does not work.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Acting Speaker, for controlling this rather unruly event. <BR /> <BR />The people of Northern Ireland will be watching this today, and many will be saying, "What are they doing? What is happening?", because here we are, squabbling back and forth, when we have crises. We have a crisis in our healthcare system and in our welfare system, and we have an energy crisis. All those things are impacting on us, yet we are squabbling and taking lumps out of each other. We have to ask ourselves this: what are we really doing? We are supposed to be representing the people of Northern Ireland. We are supposed to be representing our constituents. <BR /> <BR />In 2016, when Mike Nesbitt asked me to stand to be an MLA, I did so because I wanted to make Northern Ireland a much better place.”
“I think that all Members will welcome the conversion of common law precedents into statute and the requirement for a further review of those matters. The removal of the presumption against jury trial for defamation actions was a little more controversial, but all the debates have been useful and illuminating and certainly helped to inform the Assembly's consideration of the Bill. I will conclude by congratulating Mike on what is likely to be a successful conclusion of this legislative journey.”
“I thank the Bill sponsor for his opening remarks and for the oral and written briefing information that was provided to the Committee during Committee Stage. I thank the Minister for the information that his officials provided to the Committee. <BR /> <BR />As was indicated during the Consideration Stage debate, it is to a Member's credit that they bring a private Member's Bill to the Assembly. It is a lengthy and demanding process, all 3,106 days of it, and it can prove to be quite testing for the Member involved. The issues in the Bill were certainly important and included free speech; a free press; the excesses of social media commentary; and the protection of reputation. The Bill underwent quite a lot of changes during its passage.”
“Thank you very much, Minister. Of the two solutions that you put forward, which is your preferred option?”
“Lack of scrutiny during another indeterminate time of governance by the Senior Civil Service while we slip into a period of prolonged political deadlock will ensure that reform will be parked while we await political direction. The chances of dealing with the remaining 24 recommendations are, I regret to say, slim. <BR /> <BR />Ordinary civil servants deserve better. We have seen throughout the COVID crisis how the Civil Service has been able to step up to the mark. Our Ministers deserve better. The Assembly deserves better. Above all — this must be the case — the people of Northern Ireland deserve much, much better. <BR /> <BR />In conclusion, I again thank Members for their contributions. I commend the motion to the House.”
“<BR /> <BR />The key points are the failure of the Senior Civil Service to speak truth to power; to insist on the implementation of normal — I repeat: normal — standards and procedures; and, above all, to uphold the practices of good governance. Too often, we have seen officials who believe in protecting their Minister or, much more likely, the Department, rather than allowing MLAs to do their job effectively, and that trait has not gone away. It shows that the changes that desperately need to be embedded in our government machinery have not been enacted, and, without resolute and effective leadership, those changes are not likely to ever be delivered. That is the sad legacy that our Committee has seen, and that fills me with a gathering sense of foreboding for the future.”
“In recent weeks, rather than wholesale changes, there has been a rotation in the most senior roles, with moves from Infrastructure to Agriculture, from Justice to Health and from Health to Justice. That does not strike the informed observer as an example of an organisation that is seeking to embrace change. Furthermore, we must remember that the RHI disciplinary process resulted in only one written warning for misconduct. Those who led the organisation are retired and are outwith the disciplinary action. Indeed, as an example of the merry-go-round that has become the norm in our society, the paid rewards for membership of quangos and non-executive positions on boards for senior ex-civil servants continue unabated. It really appears to be another real-life example of 'Yes Minister'.”
“In her own words, she was seen as being a "disrupter" and far too likely to upset the apple cart. It is no secret that she was not universally liked by existing senior civil servants here. I wonder why. Jayne Brady struck the Committee as being in a similar vein to Sue, with undoubted skills and attributes and the qualities that the most senior civil servant should have. We should give her every support to make the critical changes that are needed. However, will she? Will she be given the support by us — the politicians — and by those in the Northern Ireland Civil Service to effect the changes in culture? Substantial change will be needed. Can she deliver on the RHI recommendations? <BR /> <BR />Only one further outsider has been brought in to refresh the senior management team of the Northern Ireland Civil Service: just one.”
“They were Sue Gray, then permanent secretary of the Department of Finance, and the new head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Jayne Brady. Both brought experience of leading and change. Both are from outside the Northern Ireland Civil Service; both showed a willingness to adopt transformational approaches; both had a willingness to engage and challenge; and both accepted that the Northern Ireland Civil Service machine was broken and needed to be fixed. We had a strong sense that both were doers, rather than just spouters of the endless management spherical-object speak that seemed to emanate from most of the rest of the civil servants. <BR /> <BR />We know that Sue Gray, despite being seen as the most powerful civil servant in our nation, was deemed, bizarrely, unqualified to lead our Civil Service.”
“I thank the Member for that. I will address those remarks later in my winding-up speech. <BR /> <BR />Looking at the results of the disciplinary process and seeing how few of the recommendations on reform have been implemented raises real concerns for me and, hopefully, for all other MLAs about whether there has been the necessary change in the culture at the top of the Civil Service. <BR /> <BR />Our Committee took lots of evidence on RHI and Civil Service transformation. It is safe to say that it received two varieties of response: one from those who had been brought in to reform the Civil Service and one from those who were long-term members at senior grades. I was struck by the evidence given by two excellent and dynamic leaders, who, in effect, bookended our investigation.”
“Bear it in mind that the original recommendation was 14. That was reduced to 11, then to six, then to four and then to one, who received a written warning for misconduct.”
“That is not to say that there were no rules to follow: there were. They were just wilfully ignored. <BR /> <BR />What of the senior leadership levels of the Northern Ireland Civil Service? It is worth reiterating what the Comptroller and Auditor General stated in the report:”
“It directly led to the collapse of devolved government here for three years, during which time vital reform of our health service and education provision was stalled and what little faith the Northern Ireland public had in our democratic institutions was further undermined. The cost to our people, our economy and all of our reputations was considerable. In fiscal terms alone, the cost easily outstrips the hundreds of millions that the inept or worse RHI scheme cost. Politicians and special advisers rightly lost their jobs. An entire scheme was shown to be inept and rife with dubious practices such as insider information being given and in which a complete perversion was made of the normal checks and balances controls that would have been expected in any normal democracy. Clearly, the normal rules do not apply in Northern Ireland.”
“In 2017, an independent public inquiry was announced. In 2018, senior members of the Northern Ireland Civil Service wrote to the inquiry, outlining the action plans that they were then undertaking to enact. Now, in 2022, we have a report that says that, of 44 recommendations, only 18 have been fully implemented — fewer than half — 14 are reported to be likely to be implemented and 10 planned actions are not likely to address the inquiry's recommendations. A total of 24 not being implemented after four years is not an edifying endorsement; in fact, it is a description of failure. <BR /> <BR />Also noteworthy and perhaps instructive of the cultural problems that we have in the Northern Ireland Senior Civil Service is the disciplinary process. The impact of the RHI debacle was severe.”
“We have all talked about an unsatisfactory disciplinary process with an unexpected and disappointing outcome that, I am afraid, has done nothing to restore public confidence. We have also discussed a complex action plan with multiple moving parts that will be well nigh impossible to monitor and assess. The action plan, like the disciplinary process, has done little to repair the reputation of the Civil Service. Something more significant will be needed, and, to support that process, we will certainly need a functioning Executive who are committed to Civil Service reform. <BR /> <BR />I trust that Members will have had the opportunity to read the Comptroller and Auditor General's latest report. It is noteworthy that he first qualified the Department for the Economy's 2015-16 accounts in 2016.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. On behalf of the Finance Committee — indeed, on behalf of all who are interested in good governance in Northern Ireland — I thank all the contributors, in particular the Minister for his response. I also record my and my Committee's thanks for the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Kieran Donnelly CB, and wish him well in his retirement and thank him for the diligent work that he has conducted on the RHI debacle. I also thank the whistle-blowers and, indeed, the informed media, including Mr Sam McBride, for the diligent way that they attempted to shed light on what has been a murky period of our recent past. <BR /> <BR />Members have spoken fairly eloquently and made their points, so I will not reiterate them.”
“I ask that the Minister, in his response, addresses the comments made and the questions asked. I commend the motion to the House.”
“The action plan, although lengthy and replete with good intentions, has not addressed the public confidence issues that arose in respect of the Civil Service during the inquiry. Perhaps the cultural questions, which the new head of the Civil Service addressed in her evidence to the Committee, are at the heart of it all. The way forward may be for the Minister or, indeed, his successor to look again at the action plan and to bring in the learning from the Audit Office report on capacity and capability. Perhaps there is also a piece around new governance arrangements for the Civil Service and maybe a bigger role for the head of the Civil Service in driving change and transformation across all departments. <BR /> <BR />I will conclude my comments on behalf of the Committee.”
“<BR /> <BR />Additionally, there are changes to the code of ethics for civil servants. I understand that, for the first time, those require accurate official records to be properly kept. That presumably includes the recording of crucial rationale underpinning key decisions like RHI. Perhaps the Minister will verify whether that assertion is, in fact, true and that the Northern Ireland Civil Service code of ethics previously did not require records of decisions to be properly kept. That sounds unbelievable, but I am not so sure that it is. <BR /> <BR />There is a lot more to unpack in the RHI action plan, and the recent Northern Ireland Audit Office report is very helpful in that regard. The Committee has struggled in this shortened mandate to do more on the lessons that should have been learned from RHI.”
“I say that because, when you compare the 2018 lessons learned paper, which we have also circulated, with the 2021 action plan, there is not a huge amount of difference. <BR /> <BR />The key points of the action plan include a review of whistle-blower policies, changes in the rules relating to spads and a new business case development model. There is also to be commercial training for staff and a long-awaited strategic review of the electronic document and records management system. The latter, I presume, is to replace the TRIM system, which featured heavily in the RHI inquiry and, indeed, the media on a number of occasions. The retrieval capacity of TRIM is, I understand, often likened to that of the closing shot of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. If Members are struggling with that reference, they might need to google it.”
“The action plan appears to include a substantial package of promises and a complex set of appendices, some of which, like the diversity strategy update, are of questionable relevance to RHI. That is then topped off with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Executive Office, the head of the Civil Service and the Minister of Finance. <BR /> <BR />The MOU, in its complexity, gives a flavour of the governance challenges facing the Northern Ireland Civil Service and perhaps points the way to the need for governance reform. I get the feeling that the appendices and much of the other material were put together by the Civil Service in 2018 and then refreshed a bit in 2021.”
“I accept the legal constraints that will prevent a full and frank disclosure today. I also believe that the situation is in danger of becoming a ludicrous, "nobody's fault" precedent that could be exploited by any future senior incompetent officers in the Civil Service. Therefore, I suggest that perhaps it is time for a different disciplinary process for the most senior civil servants. That would allow for fair disclosure, proper public accountability and, crucially, the restoration of public confidence. <BR /> <BR />Let us move on to the lessons learned or, I am afraid, not learned from RHI. The Committee has circulated a link to the relevant Executive responses to all Members. That information has largely been in the public domain since before Christmas.”
“That was despite the inquiry finding significant failures in respect of unsatisfactory briefing of a Minister and an Assembly Committee, poor handover, a lack of risk management, an absence of business case challenge, very limited record-keeping and crucial internal governance failings, which were clearly the responsibility of the most senior levels of staff over a number of years. The Committee understands that the new head of the Civil Service has instituted a review of the adapted process. However, it is also understood that, in the absence of a First Minister, she remains unable to answer the Committee's queries in that regard. That is not satisfactory. <BR /> <BR />We have legal barriers, followed by political and governance barriers, all of which have inadvertently prevented a proper exposition of the issues.”
“<BR /> <BR />In the adapted process itself, gross misconduct was apparently defined as where people had sought to mislead either Ministers, other civil servants or the public, where there was an intention to do something, and then, depending on their seniority, whether their actions brought the Northern Ireland Civil Service into disrepute. In the end, despite a tortuous process, with, apparently, a lot of legal challenges, no one was found guilty of gross misconduct. There was only a single finding of misconduct, and a single written warning was the sanction.”
“The Minister provided a written statement in December 2021 in respect of the adapted RHI disciplinary procedures and the outcomes. As it is clear that this was beset with a number of legal challenges, perhaps in response the Minister might indicate whether all of the legal costs of the civil servants involved in RHI were met by the Executive and how much that was in the end. Perhaps he will also clarify whether he was advised about the nature of the adapted disciplinary process while it was ongoing. Additionally, clarity is sought about why neither he nor the Executive were asked to sign off on this adapted process before it concluded so very unsatisfactorily.”
“However, in truth, it is largely because the Department, in its evidence to the Committee, generally declined to identify almost any of the civil servants involved, even though they were all named in the RHI inquiry report. This consequently made the job of working out exactly what had happened during the RHI disciplinary process nearly impossible.”
“Even though a global pandemic has got in the way of a lot of things and has, quite rightly, dominated our thinking, the Committee still managed to consider the questions raised by the inquiry, the Executive action plan and the disciplinary process. <BR /> <BR />This debate is about exploring the progress made by the Executive in respect of RHI and the lessons that should have been learned but which self-evidently have not. The debate will, hopefully, bookend this part of the RHI debacle and set out those issues that a successor Finance Committee, whenever that may be, might take forward in the next mandate. <BR /> <BR />Let us begin with the RHI disciplinary process. For a variety of reasons, I will not be naming names today. This is partly to respect confidential disclosures.”
“On behalf of the Committee for Finance, I thank the Business Committee for scheduling this debate and the Minister for agreeing to respond. <BR /> <BR />The previous mandate ended prematurely because of RHI. During the interregnum, the spectre of an RHI inquiry haunted this House and political discourse for more than three years. The inquiry report was published about the same time as the Executive came back, slowly, to life, and here we are again with no Executive and again talking about RHI. <BR /> <BR />Some pundits asserted knowledgeably that the RHI inquiry report was destined for the back of the radiator and would never, ever be heard of again. They were wrong.”
“I thank the Minister for her remarks. I declare an interest: one of my children will be going either to Ballyclare High or to Ballyclare Secondary. I thank her very much for that. <BR /> <BR />With something in the region of £50 million being invested in Ballyclare, which is well deserved, one of the questions that we have to ask is about future ring-fencing to make sure that the funding goes through. Has the Minister had any commitments from other political parties to support the investment as we go through? If there is no great commitment to it, will we be looking to things such as financial transactions capital (FTC) or the reinvestment and reform initiative (RRI) to make sure that the funding is there for those vital projects to be done?”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. The specific question is about the fact that the money has already been accrued in the Budget process, so we could say that it has already been agreed. Is there any method of ensuring that those funds go to our health service to provide the vital changes that we need? By using the word "accruing", there is a mechanism for that money to come to Health.”