Matthew O'Toole
South Belfast · Social Democratic and Labour Party · Northern Ireland
“I appreciate my colleague's giving way. Unfortunately, I was not here for all of the Minister's remarks — like her, I have been in the Chamber for a lot of today, so I had to pop out and attend to some other business. I presume that the Member will agree that these provisions could be more properly included in the Sentencing Bill.”
“Clearly, however, the regulatory and enforcement regime for all those watercourses and marine environments is way out of date ecologically and, indeed, economically.”
“We learned about the antics of Jeffrey Donaldson that were not criminal — so far — only after his conviction. Reporters have been able to go and find that information and people have been able to speak — felt able to speak — because Mr Donaldson has been sent to prison, convicted of appalling crimes, and is therefore less likely to seek r…”
“We are pleased, in broad terms, to support it at Second Stage. We welcome the move towards an approach to fisheries management that is ecosystem-based rather than narrowly species-based.”
“We were robust in opposing those who were not willing to deal with the nutrients action plan, for example, which should have been a core part of dealing with Lough Neagh. Of course, the farming industry needed to be engaged, and the Minister has been doing a lot of that work recently.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In just a few hours' time, the House will go into recess for more than two months. There are two outstanding and grave matters that the public in Northern Ireland want us to deal with, but we are walking away, so I want your advice on Standing Orders.”
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“Will the Member agree that, when it comes to what are often called "difficult decisions" — cuts, if you prefer — the trade-off for the public and, indeed, the people working in those services is supposed to be that the Minister and the Executive produce a plan that will lead to, as Diane Dodds mentioned, shorter waiting times for consultant referrals? The Executive have not provided that. They have made what they call the "difficult decisions" — the cuts — but not the trade-off.”
“Thank you, Minister. In fact, you mentioned the Fiscal Commission earlier, but the Fiscal Commission does not exist any more. It reported three years ago. So far, there has been virtually no progress made on delivering on any of its findings. <BR /> <BR />You mentioned the rating review cycle earlier. Your predecessor said that that would take 10 years. The Fiscal Commission reported, and nothing has happened for three years. A rating review may take 10 years to deliver any outcomes in a cycle. Is it not the case that you and, I am afraid, your party — you have had the two previous Finance Ministers — talk a great game on fiscal devolution but do absolutely nothing to deliver it?”
“Minister, you have a well-earned reputation for plain speaking, but I am afraid that you are not living up to that reputation today. I am still absolutely none the wiser as to how much this is going to cost the Executive. You must know; if you do not, then you are not doing your job. I welcome you to your new job; I am sure that you have had a baptism of fire. However, your officials should be able to tell you, at the click of a button on a spreadsheet, how much this is going to cost the Executive and the wider public sector. Your predecessor had various accounts of it. Please, can you tell us now how much this is going to cost the Northern Ireland Executive and the wider public sector?”
“Thank you, deputy First Minister. My party has always believed in engaging in the US and not just with the Administration. She and I were interns many years ago in Washington, I believe, and engaged with people there. <BR /> <BR />In recent weeks, people in Northern Ireland and elsewhere will have seen the new president suggest ethnic cleansing in Gaza, suspend aid to the world's poorest and, now, appear to sacrifice the Ukrainian people to the depredations of Vladimir Putin. Is there nothing that the Trump Administration could do that would make you think twice about a photo op in the Oval Office?”
“Deputy First Minister, you said earlier that you and the First Minister were driving delivery: I would hate to see the instructor who passed you both in the test. I suggest that you need to revisit some of that.”
“Deputy First Minister, an ordinary, reasonable person out there who looked at a target for 2024 that is just about half met in 2025 would think that that is pathetic. The Executive promised a modest list of Bills that they are not even halfway through. When will the 2024 legislative programme be complete? Furthermore, when will we have a final Programme for Government?”
“The public, if they are even aware that their regional rate is going up, do not know yet how those rate receipts will be spent to deal with those crises, because the Executive have not fronted up and told them or produced a coherent plan with which to go to the public. <BR /> <BR />When we have a coherent plan, we will be better able to judge the Budget-making process. I am afraid that what we have had thus far is improvisation and spending that limps from monitoring round to monitoring round. I will look forward to debating those matters further tomorrow and in the weeks ahead. Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.”
“The least that they could have expected was some clarity from the Finance Minister and the Executive more broadly about the rate rise that was being foisted on them. <BR /> <BR />Furthermore, I go back to my initial point that the general trade-off for the public when it comes to Budget-making is what they get out of it: how their money is spent to improve public services, to deal with the crisis in the NHS, to invest in waste water infrastructure and to deal with all the other priorities that, we know, exist, even if they are not particularly well articulated in the Programme for Government.”
“<BR /> <BR />It would also be helpful to know when exactly the Executive agreed the regional rate rise for 2025-26, because it is clear — it was indicated in the draft Budget before Christmas — that an indicative rate rise would be about 5-odd % for householders and about 3% in the non-domestic rate for businesses. That is a significantly above-inflation rate rise for ordinary families and workers in Northern Ireland. The Executive have not been straight about that thus far. I found out about it only because it was given to me in a response to a question for written answer last week. No clear oral or written statement was given to the Assembly that the Executive parties had agreed that rate rise. The public out there face extra costs.”
“<BR /> <BR />There is another outstanding question on which his predecessor did not give us clarity and, in fact, created more confusion: the position that we are in with the unwelcome additional costs for employer National Insurance, which are creating burdens for businesses but also different parts of the public sector, including councils. All councils across the North, I think, have now struck their district rate. In some cases, they are punishing ratepayers with above-inflation rises in the district rate. It would be helpful to know whether the Minister has plans to offer those councils any support.”
“While a lot of that spending will be welcome, I would like to know a couple of bits of information. Were specific bids put in? I know that bids were put in for Storm Éowyn and there were some specific areas. Will the Minister provide a little more detail on how that bidding process was run? It clearly was not via a conventional monitoring round process. Did his Department go out and ask for bids? How did that happen? What specifically gave rise to that Barnett consequential coming from London? Part of it, he said, came from the Westminster Estimates process, but it would be helpful to know.”
“There is significant movement in-year, and a significant part of what is moving in-year is the fact that a record level of additional spending has come to the Executive — a record level. The least that the public could have expected was, if not a record level of strategic direction and purpose, something better than we have had over most of the past decade. They have not got it yet. They have not got that clarity. We are still muddling through monitoring round by monitoring round. <BR /> <BR />I would like to raise a couple of other points. The Minister mentioned that there was a further monitoring round on Thursday a week ago, which came after the January monitoring round. He allocated £17 million, which was largely to deal with Storm Éowyn.”
“<BR /> <BR />Half a million pounds is spent every year on the Fiscal Council. The Fiscal Council is a critical and welcome improvement in how we do fiscal monitoring and Budget-making here, but it still has no legislative basis. Going on for five years, we have had the Fiscal Council with no statutory underpinnings. The Fiscal Council Bill, like the financial provisions Bill, should have been relatively technical legislation that gave us clarity and oversight. The Fiscal Council already gives clarity and oversight, but it would have had a legal basis for its budget and its status. It is, frankly, ridiculous that we have not had that spending thus far. <BR /> <BR />Those are the specific bits about the spring Supplementary Estimates that I wanted to raise.”
“but through this process. It needs to be regularised by a financial provisions Bill. The Minister said that it would be dealt with legislatively largely through a financial provisions Act that is due in 2025. It was due in 2024, because it was in the legislative programme. We were supposed to have passed into law a financial provisions Bill by now. A financial provisions Bill is not hugely complex or politically difficult, I presume, for the Executive parties. It is technical stuff. Officials could have been writing it all through the collapse of the institutions. It should have been written and prepared for. We should have debated it and had it on the statute book already, but we still have £24·5 million of black-box spending that was not dealt with through the specific provision.”
“I am glad that the Department is looking at that because it is exactly where we need to go. <BR /> <BR />I want to say a couple of things about the specifics of what we are debating today. We have had a record level of in-year additional Barnett and reallocations. We should have done much better in matching those to strategic priorities, whether that is on a four- or five-year indicative basis or even in the short term. Bluntly, I do not think that the public are at all clear on what the priorities are for the Executive. <BR /> <BR />With regard to the expenditure resting on the sole authority of the Budget Act, which the Minister talked about, the figure is £24·5 million at table 6 in the spring Supplementary Estimates. As the Minister said, that relates to spending that has no legislative basis. It has to happen not quite on the q.t.”
“I am grateful and glad that the Minister has offered an intervention, and I look forward to debating with him on that stuff in the Chamber in the days, weeks and months ahead. He is right to say that he, as Finance Minister, cannot place before the Assembly a legally binding multi-year Budget for Departments in the absence of one from the Treasury. However, there is nothing stopping him or his predecessor producing a multi-year indicative Budget, which is not legally binding in the same way, matched alongside the Programme for Government headings. I am glad that, in answer to my question for written answer, he has already indicated that his Department and other Departments are looking at five-year plans. I encourage him on that. His written answers may be somewhat ahead of his oral contributions in the debate.”
“I am happy to give way to the Finance Minister.”
“By the way, those are not my words. It was not me who said that but the most senior Budget official in the Minister of Finance's Department. <BR /> <BR />The corollary to that should have been a strategic plan to deal with the crisis in our public services and a multi-year Budget matched to clear outcomes and targets in a Programme for Government (PFG). We have not got that. If anybody from the Executive parties or anybody else in the Chamber wants to intervene and explain to me where either of those things is or where I should look for them, I will give way. We should have seen them by now.”
“It is important to say that, yes, it came after a decade and a half of austerity from successive UK Governments, but it is also true to say that political dysfunction and repeated collapse here have made things worse. It is important to put that on the record, because, if we were to listen to certain Ministers — indeed, probably most Ministers — we would not think that unprecedented funding had gone to the Northern Ireland Executive. Is it enough? Certainly not. The official Opposition and I will always support more resources going into local Ministries to support public services here, but it is important to say that the 2024-25 financial year that we are about to leave saw an unprecedentedly large financial settlement at the start of the year, as well as in-year from Barnett consequentials from the UK Government.”
“For many of the public, a lot of this is fairly incomprehensible. To be honest, I am fairly convinced that, for many MLAs, a lot of what we will debate today will be relatively incomprehensible. That, I am afraid, is an indictment of the standard of debate in the Chamber, but it is slowly but surely getting better. <BR /> <BR />I will draw attention to a few things. Today's is a timed debate, but we will have a little more time tomorrow to go through the issues. I will briefly comment on the spring Supplementary Estimates. During the 2024-25 budgetary year, an unprecedented amount of additional resource came into the Executive's coffers.”
“Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I have 10 minutes, although I may not use them all. Thank you for taking my point of order on the anomaly that relates to my two roles. It is important that it be resolved. <BR /> <BR />Today and tomorrow, we will have a significant opportunity to debate the Budget process in the Assembly. As always, it is important to point out that the Budget Bill and the Estimates process are not quite the same thing as the Budget statement, which sets specific allocations. They are, however, inextricably linked, because this is the legal process by which spending becomes legal, either on a forward-looking basis through the Vote on the Account that we will do for the beginning of the financial year or by looking back and regularising spending that has already happened.”
“I appreciate your granting me the opportunity to raise a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I ask the Speaker's Office again to look at the anomaly of the situation that the Opposition and I are in for timed debates in particular, but which will also arise tomorrow. I, as Chair of the Finance Committee, have the capacity to speak, but I am also obliged to give the first response as leader of the Opposition. I understand that that position has arisen because it did not perhaps occur to people, but we need a resolution for the official Opposition. It is something for the Speaker's Office to look at.”
“— we can continue with this funding model forever and a day?”
“We are talking about long-term underinvestment in waste water infrastructure, so I do not expect the Minister to fix that by herself in her term of office — her successor, her successor's successor and so on will have to keep dealing with it all — but I would like to hear her plans first of all to deal with the issues we face in Belfast and how they are holding up development, and also the water quality in Belfast lough. In the longer term, what is the plan? Are we to understand that the Executive simply think that —”
“Thank you very much. <BR /> <BR />I did not just blame just agriculture and would not do so, because it is more complicated than that. Agriculture is clearly a contributor. When we say "agriculture", we do not mean every farmer. We are talking about overloading our soil with nutrients. It is completely unarguable that that has caused some of the issues in Lough Neagh, but the Member is totally right that failure to invest in and deal with waste water infrastructure has been a major driver of what has happened in Lough Neagh; I will not disagree with her there. <BR /> <BR />The key point is that we need clarity on what the plan is. It comes back to what we, as the Opposition, repeatedly say in the Chamber: we need a plan. It will not be fixed overnight.”
“I will give way. I will not get an extra minute, will I?”
“There will be a consequential, whether that is in less money going elsewhere, in other revenue raising or in more creative use of financial transactions capital. We need answers to these questions. They are reasonable questions We cannot simply plod along and say that the funding model is fit for purpose as Lough Neagh and, increasingly, Belfast lough turn into cesspools. We cannot get houses built or —.”
“There are basically three options: an additional charge on developers, which is indirect and would go on the cost; new domestic charges, which have been ruled out — there could be additional non-domestic charges, but I am not sure that our hard-pressed businesses would be keen on that; or continuing with the current funding model, which simply takes money out of other parts of the Executive's capital budget. <BR /> <BR />The previous Minister and his colleague, the previous Finance Minister, who is now the Economy Minister, both said that the funding model was fit for purpose. The implication of that is that they are happy just to continue funding it out of the block grant in capital terms. If that is the position, we need to see ambition in the long term about how much of the capital budget goes into waste water.”
“I would like to know what is happening with the entirety of that programme. <BR /> <BR />There is a bigger question, and it really matters. It is one that I would like the Minister to give attention to and perhaps tell us more about today. Her predecessor mooted something called the developer charge. He did it in the media, and he did in the Chamber. He said that his officials were looking at it. I presume that some of those officials are in the Chamber today. I have no idea what that means beyond the phrase "developer charge". People will have understandable concerns about the impact that that might have on the price of houses, but lots of people also had an open mind on what that might mean for investment in our waste water infrastructure. The Chair of the Committee for Infrastructure is here. People wanted to know what it meant.”
“We cannot get to that situation, because that is close to where we are with Lough Neagh, let us be blunt about it. For a large part — not exclusively — of that situation at Lough Neagh, agriculture has been a significant driver. Waste water in Belfast is creating problems in Belfast, so we need to hear from the Minister what the investment plans are. <BR /> <BR />The living with water programme has been referenced. I would like an update on the living with water programme and the investment in it, some of which has been progressed. Some of the living with water programme at a Belfast level has been stalled. Also, I have been made aware — I have asked questions for written answer about this — that the living with water board has been paused or has been stood down. I would like to know more about that.”
“It is not going to become another Lough Neagh because it is a sea lough, not an inland lake, so it has different ecological conditions, but, my God, anything like what happened at Lough Neagh would be a catastrophe. Mr Brooks said that he does not want all the attention on Lough Neagh. I would quite like some more attention on Lough Neagh, to be honest, because I do not think that what the Executive or the Environment Minister have announced thus far is anywhere near ambitious enough to deal with Lough Neagh. <BR /> <BR />I certainly do not want to see a situation in which, given the amazing sea lough, with huge commercial, economic and ecological significance, that is Belfast lough, we continue down the road that it is going down, where the failure to invest in waste water is condemning it to be a tidal cesspool, to be perfectly honest.”
“Really small-scale planning decisions are being held up by our water infrastructure. In some cases, it is big developments of hundreds of houses, and, in other cases, it is literally the tiniest bits of routine planning that are being held up by our water infrastructure. It cannot be a defensible or sustainable position for any modern European city that, because of the absence of water infrastructure, cafes cannot get basic extensions, shops cannot extend their premises and we cannot have small-scale housing developments where zoning has already happened. That cannot be a defensible situation. <BR /> <BR />Specific concerns were mentioned around the water quality in Belfast lough. That is hugely concerning.”
“It is not a small brief that she has taken on, and waste water is, clearly, vital, along with all the other things, including the state of our roads and our rail network. There really is, however, a pressing crisis with waste water infrastructure. <BR /> <BR />First, I will talk about some of the concerns in the east of Belfast and elsewhere in the city. It is clear that, in parts of the city, development is being held up. As is the case across Northern Ireland, there are very real concerns about water quality. There are real concerns about the impact that it is having on getting planning decisions over the line. In the southern end of my constituency around Carryduff, we have been awaiting work starting on sewage outflow pumping stations, as that has been holding up development.”
“I welcome the opportunity to talk about waste water infrastructure specifically in East Belfast, and I will do so. People might predict talk about waste water infrastructure in the city more widely and, indeed, in Northern Ireland more widely, but there is a particular issue in East Belfast. Members have talked about specific challenges around the Sydenham pumping station and specific developments. There are long-standing issues that have been created by, perhaps, some poor planning decisions in the past decades around zoning. Perhaps, some of the decisions that were taken at Castlereagh Council, way back in the day, are ones that we could re-examine. It is important to say that there is a crisis in our waste water infrastructure across Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />There is now a new Minister, and I welcome her to her place.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I genuinely ask for clarification from the Chair. When an LCM is granted, is a Minister obliged to come back with more detail, or are the UK Government obliged to give the Assembly more detail on the meaning that they have divined from an LCM being granted? It is clear today that, while people agree with some of the principles of the GB Energy Bill, there is real concern about the devolved settlement and our unique position.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way and appreciate the clarification that she is offering. She said that, if we did not pass the LCM, we would be excluded. I do not think that it will happen, but, if the LCM were not passed, is it not true that the UK Government would be fully within their rights, as we have discovered previously, to plough on regardless and put Northern Ireland in? LCMs, whether they are rejected or endorsed, are not binding on the UK Government. It would also be the case that, if it were rejected, the UK Government could come back with a different proposal. They could even come back with more written clarification, and then we could have another LCM in a week or a month's time.”
“We are waiting, waiting and waiting for the Northern Ireland Assembly to legislate for the Fiscal Council, but we are passing a motion on Great British Energy. That is slightly in parenthesis and not really to do with what we are debating today, but it points to the slight difficulty that we have in respect of legislation coming through here. <BR /> <BR />We will not force a Division on the LCM, but I want us to put on the record that we have specific issues that we want to see the UK Government address. I would like to hear the Minister for the Economy tell us specifically how she and her colleagues will raise those with the UK Government.”
“As the Minister said, this is a Bill that just creates an entity called Great British Energy; it does not start to make investments, and it does not start to set strategic priorities. However, we are beginning to go down the road of the existence of this legal entity. We need more clarity and detail about how, as I said, it will respect the devolved settlement, respect our unique regulatory position and enable us to maximise dual market access. All those things are important. <BR /> <BR />Finally, we are, it appears, passing an LCM to help the UK Government, which came into power in July of last year, to create an entity called Great British Energy. The Minister's previous Department did not bring forward similar enabling legislation for an entity that has existed for almost five years: the Fiscal Council.”
“We want commitments on our specific legal and regulatory context here in the North and on the island of Ireland; the fact that we operate within a single electricity market on the island of Ireland; and the fact that we have unique and distinct opportunities in exporting energy across the EU and want those to be respected and maximised. What specific promises or provisions will be made to help us to maximise our dual market access and potential opportunities there, which Great British Energy could help us to fulfil? I would like all those on the record. <BR /> <BR />I would like more detail on how the Bill will respect the devolved settlement. The Minister said that amendments had come forward. That is progress. I am glad that Minister Murphy sought and got further clarity.”
“If the LCM is accepted today — I think that it will be — we cannot simply allow some random official in Whitehall to say, "Ah well, the Northern Ireland Assembly gave its legislative consent to this. We can basically do what we like now". Frankly, I fear that that is what will happen, given that, often, when we withhold our legislative consent to something, they do it anyway. We need to have absolute clarity and have it on the record. Perhaps we can hear from the Minister what she intends to do and what the Executive intend to do to get commitments in writing and articulated on the record. We want commitments on safeguards for the devolved settlement. That is number one.”
“It is also the case that, in the future, there could be UK Governments of different political persuasions and perspectives who might want to use Great British Energy to prioritise their own type of investment, which might be different from what a devolved Minister, in conjunction with their counterpart in the Republic, might want to prioritise. We need to be alive to all those things and working on all those things.”
“It may well be a really useful and positive source of getting investment into our renewables sector here, which would be welcome. We are not going to force a Division simply for that reason, but it is concerning that we do not yet have detail.”
“<BR /> <BR />We have made progress over the past decade and more on moving our generation towards renewables, and we have specific advantages as part of islands in the north Atlantic that, for example, generate a lot of wind and tidal energy. However, there are also concerns from energy companies — I am sure that they have vocalised them to members of the Economy Committee — about the certainty of when certain interconnectors, whether they are North/South or east-west, will be built. There are concerns in that respect from industry and the investment community, which we need to be behind what we do on energy. <BR /> <BR />I am simply putting on record some concerns that I have about the fact that we do not yet know how Great British Energy will interact in Northern Ireland.”
“Given that UK Governments often disregard the rejection of LCMs by devolved legislatures — I hope that the current UK Government are less wont to do that than their predecessor — and have the prerogative to simply carry on anyway, it is really important that, when an LCM is going to pass, as, it appears, this one will, there are clear words in the Hansard of our devolved legislature that demonstrate that we are not in a good position in terms of what we know and do not know about how Great British Energy will operate. It matters because we have an energy strategy and an implementation plan in Northern Ireland.”
“From what the Minister said, it sounds as though that is not simply a failing on the part of her Department; clearly, part of it comes from the home UK Department, which has yet to provide clarity on how all of this will work. We, as an Opposition, would not be doing our job if we did not say today that it is concerning that we are bringing forward an LCM without clarity from the UK Government about precisely how it will operate. I want my words to be in Hansard, because I am concerned. <BR /> <BR />The Sewel convention operates with regard to how LCMs are brought forward in devolved legislatures.”
“None of that is necessarily a deterrent to GB Energy operating in Northern Ireland; in fact, I hope that it will make us a more attractive investment proposition, because we certainly have the capacity to and already do export energy to the EU via the rest of Ireland. Hopefully, ultimately, through the greater use of interconnections, we will export it across the continent of Europe. However, I draw Members' attention to the unique regulatory and investment position that Northern Ireland is in. <BR /> <BR />We have very little detail as yet about how GB Energy will reflect that unique regulatory proposition or about how it will select and prioritise pieces of investment.”
“We have no difficulty with that, albeit that the title is not one that we would have selected. We welcome the principle of a state-owned energy company. However, energy here is devolved, and that is an important matter. <BR /> <BR />We are having a debate in the absence of real detailed information about how GB Energy will select, prioritise and direct investments in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is also part of an all-island single electricity market. We are bound by aspects of European law in that regard, which is for a good reason: it enables us to keep the lights on, because we have a single grid operating on the island.”
“I rise, to use the cliché, not to speak in support of the LCM, although we will not force a Division on it, but, rather, to put on record real and important observations about the lack of information, which the Chair of the Economy Committee has just referred to, about how Great British Energy will operate in Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />It is important to say that one of the priorities, notwithstanding the concerning utterances and plans of the Trump Administration, for the rest of this century in most of the world will be to decarbonise our economies, moving towards clean energy and away from the burning of fossil fuels. It is therefore welcome in principle that there will be a state-owned entity to drive investment in various types of renewables project.”
“Thank you, Dr Aiken, for giving way. I appreciate it. <BR /> <BR />I am delighted that the Member mentioned article 11 of the protocol. He has obviously been reading the SDLP's policy paper 'Our European Future'. It sounds as though he was agreeing with our suggestion that the Executive and Ministers here should follow up on that. Article 11 is about protecting all-island cooperation — North/ South cooperation — and it mentions tourism in particular. The Executive, perhaps through the mechanism of Lord Murphy's review of the protocol, should consider appealing to the UK Government and the EU jointly to see how the issues around differential VAT rates for tourism on the island of Ireland might be addressed. That may be something on which Lord Murphy can reflect and then add his voice to that of devolved Ministers making the case.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. I will make a suggestion. She mentioned one of my favourite subjects: APD. Given that we spend two million or three million quid a year on subsidising non-existent long-haul flights and that the ETA is being forced on the region — we all agree, I think, that the ETA should not happen, but the British Government seem to resist those appeals — could there be a negotiation because of the impact of ETA, and could we perhaps look to withdraw the APD? Could we do something specifically for VAT in those circumstances?”