Alasdair McDonnell
South Belfast · Social Democratic and Labour Party · Northern Ireland
“As someone who may be leaving you in the not-too-distant future, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Commission and the Education Service for the outstanding work they have done in my time here.”
“We have been, and continue to be, extremely concerned at the budgetary pressure faced by the Executive and the impact that that has had on front-line services.”
“<BR /> <BR />We have a long-standing viewpoint on the 2015-16 Budget. Others — the DUP, Alliance and Sinn Féin — voted for that Budget. We voted against it at its Final Stage in February, and, given that we learnt of £38 million of cuts in the Chancellor's in-year announcement a few weeks ago, as well as further cuts that are expected on…”
“No, I am going to try to make some progress at this stage. I have given way to a number of people. <BR /> <BR />Northern Ireland cannot afford to accept the fact that our economy will shrink or that the permanent politics of austerity that come with it will be allowed free rein.”
“While I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, I must say that I do not welcome the situation that we have arrived at. I take no joy in telling the House that I cannot, at this stage, envisage a situation where we could support this Bill.”
“The Member, as a former Minister, always has a simplistic view of the world. The point is this: for four years, we have argued that there were flaws and weaknesses in our budgetary process. We tried to draw attention to these but we did not get anybody much interested in them.”
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“— and say what a privilege it has been to serve in this Chamber for some 17 years.”
“As someone who may be leaving you in the not-too-distant future, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Commission and the Education Service for the outstanding work they have done in my time here. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with the Education Service and the various groups it receives from all over the island of Ireland. It is worth putting on record the good work that it does and the tremendous service it provides to this Assembly. <BR /> <BR />I ask you to indulge me for 10 seconds, Mr Deputy Speaker, while I pay tribute to colleagues across the Chamber —”
“We have engaged at every stage of the process, right back to before the Stormont House Agreement. We engaged constructively and supported what was good. We worked to make what was good better, and to salvage and strengthen that which was not so good. <BR /> <BR />Earlier, I made the point that we cannot offer support to the Bill as it stands, but we urge all the parties involved to re-engage in negotiations aimed at trying to find a responsible and mature way through the current budgetary situation.”
“If the Member has an intervention, Mr Speaker, I am quite happy to take it, but sedentary —”
“That is why, even at this stage in the process, and extending back to before the Stormont House negotiations, we have engaged constructively, supporting what was good in the Stormont House Agreement. We would be very happy to get the Stormont House Agreement implemented, and get the Bill with the amendments we made to it.”
“We have consistently warned that we need an all-party process to find a resolution to the problems. The problems that have arisen have come from side-room deals, and whatever, between the two main parties. We remain committed to negotiating on the issues relating to the Budget and welfare reform. We believe, however, that it needs to be a mature negotiation that is not bound by blind deals, side-room deals, side letters or understandings that most of us are not party to. <BR /> <BR />It is not in our nature to walk away from the negotiating table. We believe that all problems, no matter how large or difficult, can be solved by mature and constructive dialogue.”
“The Member, as a former Minister, always has a simplistic view of the world. The point is this: for four years, we have argued that there were flaws and weaknesses in our budgetary process. We tried to draw attention to these but we did not get anybody much interested in them. It was inevitable, with the budgetary process we have that if things got tight in Britain, our finances would be squeezed. In fact, the Assembly is on a choke lead vis-à-vis the Chancellor of the Exchequer and has permission to do only what the Chancellor agrees to. <BR /> <BR />There were secretive talks around Stormont House and there were talks that were exclusive. While the Stormont House Agreement was fairly public, there were a lot of other papers and bits and pieces of goings on, which many of us were not involved in.”
“Sammy, do you want to come in there, and then I will get —”
“OK. Yes, I will give way here first, right, seeing as he is first in the queue.”
“Sorry, I am trying to make some progress.”
“<BR /> <BR />Most of our devolved politics has revolved around how to spend the Treasury subvention, and recent signals from London are very clear that the fiscal imbalance will be tackled by cutting the expenditure side of the balance sheet. It is clear that the decisions that we make over the next weeks will have profound implications in Northern Ireland. The current impasse did not arise from nothing but, rather, is the result of secretive and exclusive politics, which the SDLP has long tried to open up and break down. We have consistently warned that, to find a solution to these problems, there would have to be a genuine all-party approach. The problems have arisen —”
“No, I am going to try to make some progress at this stage. I have given way to a number of people. <BR /> <BR />Northern Ireland cannot afford to accept the fact that our economy will shrink or that the permanent politics of austerity that come with it will be allowed free rein. We must develop more aggressive, more robust proposals to tackle our economic difficulties on the revenue side by seeking considered political intervention to deal with the structural weaknesses in our economy and to generate meaningful growth. Our private sector is tiny and, to be truthful, not very private since much of it depends indirectly on public contracts anyway. We have over 70,000 registered businesses, but they generate only about £650 million a year in corporation tax. That is falling year after year. It was £924 million in 2007-08.”
“The point that I want to make is that deep cuts in public spending run the danger of slowing down or reversing whatever small growth or potential growth there is in our economy.”
“Thank you very much for your intervention. I will make the point again that I made earlier: we want to see a comprehensive review and a re-engineering of our spending priorities to ensure that the focus is on the highest priorities. We would like to think that, in that process, third-level education or training would perhaps get a priority. We have not been very good over the years at creating or following through on apprenticeships. My figures tell me that we have only about 60,000 apprentices, and if you calculate that over 40 years — I am talking about people who have come through with proper apprentice qualifications — we produce about 1,500 per year. That is totally inadequate for the opportunities that are out there. We have to take advantage of the opportunities.”
“Am I going to get speaking? Am I going to get finished?”
“Thank you, Minister, for the intervention. I am sorry, but I do not know how you could have interpreted that from what I said. I said that it made no sense. I emphasised that we still believed in corporation tax reduction. It does not make sense to reduce corporation tax and, at the same time, choke off the stream of potential employees. We need to get things joined up; that is really what the battle and argument is. We believe that we can work with the money that we have and could create a much more efficient and effective process. I have discussed it with the Minister and others, and I raised the issue a number of times. It would require all five parties getting together and coming up with a genuine, coherent response on a number of issues.”
“I welcome the intervention from the Member. I respect his position as Minister, but it will come as no surprise that I do not entirely agree with him.”
“In a moment. <BR /> <BR />Although we want to work on the corporation tax issue and support it broadly, we feel that it is futile to cut the corporation tax if we are going to cut the supply of graduates and trained operatives to work on those projects.”
“We strongly believe that, in parallel, and as a belated peace dividend, a prosperity programme is needed. We need a comprehensive analysis of our spending priorities, and, in many cases, a re-engineering of those priorities to ensure that our money is spent in the best way possible and that higher priorities are given the priority that they deserve, with other priorities down the chain. <BR /> <BR />We also believe that there should be a much greater focus on third-level education and training to take advantage of opportunities that may arise from inward investment. We feel genuinely that —”
“<BR /> <BR />We have a long-standing viewpoint on the 2015-16 Budget. Others — the DUP, Alliance and Sinn Féin — voted for that Budget. We voted against it at its Final Stage in February, and, given that we learnt of £38 million of cuts in the Chancellor's in-year announcement a few weeks ago, as well as further cuts that are expected on 8 July, no one could reasonably expect us to support such a Budget now that the position has been made so much worse. We are not into knee-jerk changes of position. We are not the ones who said that the previous Budget was the best deal possible. We know now that those who did got it wrong. <BR /> <BR />The SDLP agrees with many out there who believe that brutal and severe austerity measures are not the only way in which to stimulate our economy, an economy that is only just emerging from recession.”
“We have been, and continue to be, extremely concerned at the budgetary pressure faced by the Executive and the impact that that has had on front-line services. The Budget settlement is without a doubt the most severe that we have faced in recent times, and the prospect of more in-year cuts will further affect departmental allocations and impact even more severely on our front-line services. There are very significant financial challenges facing every Department. Budgetary restraints all too often cause severe problems, ultimately at the coalface, where front-line services are delivered. We believe that best practice should always be considered and that the focus should be on ensuring genuine efficiency savings are made rather than on simply making red-marker cuts in areas that can, and often do, adversely impact on priority services.”
“The public have already lost trust in us as politicians. In part, they have also lost trust in public services such as the health service.”
“While I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, I must say that I do not welcome the situation that we have arrived at. I take no joy in telling the House that I cannot, at this stage, envisage a situation where we could support this Bill. However, let me be clear — this should not come as any surprise to the Chamber — that the SDLP has consistently opposed austerity Budgets. We voted against this Bill's predecessor last February. We challenged previous Budgets where they fell short. <BR /> <BR />I and my colleagues in the SDLP are well aware that this is a crucial time in the public expenditure cycle. We do not want to put public services at risk, but we must ensure that public services continue to be funded through 2015-16. We cannot afford to let the public down with inadequate or dysfunctional services.”
“I wish and pray that God may bless them and take care of them all in due course at this awful and very sad time for them all.”
“<BR /> <BR />It was awful, unbelievably awful, for many of us and, indeed, awful beyond that for the families that six young people died in such tragic circumstances. It was doubly awful for the families who had bid farewell to them — some a few days, some a couple of weeks, earlier — as they set out on the journey or expedition of a lifetime, full of hope, full of expectation and full of excitement to see the world. It was awful for those who were injured and their families, and I pray to God that they make a rapid and good recovery. I join in sending the very genuine messages of sympathy and support from the Chamber to all concerned: to the families and friends of those killed; and to the injured and their families and friends.”
“For me, the Berkeley incident brought back a lot of memories. It was particularly poignant, and I shared it in a very personal and deeper way than most because, some 44 years ago, I was that J1 student: I was that UCD student, like so many of those who died. I was a medical student, who, financially broke, travelled to the US, like many of these young people, to widen my horizons and clear my bank debts. I pay tribute to the very practical expression that the US has given by promoting the J1 visa programme for students and naming it the land of opportunity. It is particularly helpful and particularly useful and gives all sorts of opportunities to young people. I will leave that at that.”
“I also add my sympathy and my thoughts, and those of the SDLP, because I share the grief and distress felt by so many across the island of Ireland, the US and much further afield at the awful tragedy in Berkeley. I associate the murderous attack on the church in Charleston with those remarks.”
“I note that paragraph 9 mentions Horizon 2020. Can the deputy First Minister perhaps elaborate on the all-island steering group or how we might gain more from the Horizon 2020 programme? It has long been a bugbear of mine that we are drawing down only a fraction of the amount of research and development money in that context and that only three or four major players, like Queen's, the Ulster University and Shorts, were drawing down that money. To my mind and in my opinion, it is vitally important that we exploit that opportunity to ensure further economic development here.”
“Does the Member accept that no concessions or improvements were available on anything that we were negotiating for in good faith? We put issues, including a prosperity process and other things, to you and others, but there was no progress or comeback on any of them. Neither was there any comfort on the advances that we sought on the Bill. Frankly, it is a bit mischievous of you to make the suggestions that you make. We negotiated in good faith. We put our needs on the table, but they were not met.”
“If we can create a prosperity process, we will be more self-sufficient, autonomous and confident, and, indeed, would have more confidence in our Executive and our Government. From that will flow more tax and more funds for welfare, education and health. <BR /> <BR />We have, at all times, engaged honestly and honourably in these discussions and this debate. We regret that our genuine needs were not met and we feel that we are left with no other choice but to do what we have to do this afternoon.”
“Any decisions that could be made today are, in fact, gazumped by a further phase of cuts that will render any decisions that might be made obsolete. They will be swamped and overtaken by his next round of cuts. <BR /> <BR />There is a clear and real need for economic opportunity to be created and injected in parallel with any changes in the welfare system. It is crazy to talk about people accessing work if there is no work to access. We in the SDLP want a commitment from the two Governments, and, indeed, maybe from Brussels and the US, but from all parties here as well, that we need to be doing more to create more jobs. That is in no way a criticism of what has already been done but a call to take stock and find ways of doing more and doing it better.”
“The big challenge for all of us here is much wider than welfare. Any movement towards curtailing welfare for vulnerable people at the margins of our society and somehow pushing them towards work requires, for example, a much better and more affordable childcare arrangement to allow young mothers to access work. A lack of adequate childcare here is acting as a major barrier for young mothers who want to work, due to the extra cost of childcare and a lack of reasonable access or availability. <BR /> <BR />The Government-imposed fines to our block grant around welfare reform are punitive and, we argue, must be removed. We see them as a gun to our heads in everything that we do. The recent threat of further cuts from George Osborne, without much detail, means that we are not having this discussion with our eyes open.”
“Somehow or other, it seems that many of our problems have arisen in that space.”
“We expected those gaps to be filled out by discussions and with agreement as the Bill progressed, but, unfortunately, the genuine amendments to the Bill that we tabled were dismissed out of hand using petitions of concern. That was even before — and this is the more worrying aspect — George Osborne announced his second round of brutal cuts. <BR /> <BR />There are some further points I would like to make briefly without causing undue delay. A lot of mention has been made of the Stormont House Agreement. There were meetings at Stormont House of the two Governments and five parties. There were even five-party meetings at Stormont Castle, but it appears to me that, in the aftermath, with the discussions, anxieties and stories we hear, there was a third set of meetings between Sinn Féin and the DUP that the rest of us were not privy to.”
“I do not want to gush too much here, but the Minister has reminded us that a lot of this is down to regulation as it is worked through, whether here or elsewhere. The devil is in the detail of the regulation. <BR /> <BR />Another issue that I want to draw attention to is that, although the bedroom tax has been bought out in the short to medium term, it is still there, and it is our belief that it needs to be removed entirely. <BR /> <BR />We want to put it clearly on record that we took part in the discussions at Stormont House and agreed to many of the issues discussed there, including the mitigation of £94 million per year, or £470 million over five years. But, at that time, on that day again I emphasise, we made it clear that we thought there were still big gaps that needed to be dealt with as the agreement was fleshed out.”
“I can accept half of what the Member has said, but the SDLP does not endorse Tory cuts.”
“We have been told that 37,000 households will be better off, by some £39 million extra per year, which adds up to almost £1,000 per household. Yet we know that somehow or other, even with our mitigating package, something in the region of £100 million a year is coming out of welfare. So, somebody is going to lose. We cannot all be winners.”
“We in the SDLP believe that it is only through comprehensive, inclusive and honest negotiations that an equitable and fair settlement may eventually be achieved, not just on welfare but across the whole range of political challenges that face us. <BR /> <BR />I would like to talk briefly about protecting the vulnerable, because that is what we are about. This protection is not just financial but must be given expression through good advice and support services. I welcomed many of the changes that were made in the development of the Bill, and, again, that is one of the reasons why I commended the Minister. Access to advice and support has improved significantly, but there are still significant credibility gaps in this Bill.”
“We have repeatedly highlighted our opposition to the British Government's imposition of arbitrary fines and penalties on the block grant. This shallow, British Government tactic of creating financial stress is a crude attempt to exert political pressure, and, for us, it is both reckless and potentially a very destabilising move politically. We remain committed and willing — I emphasise again — to engage in genuine discussion and negotiation including all five Executive parties, and we call again for an end to the side deals and the back-channel talks that can only lead to further misunderstanding and confusion.”
“I emphasise that we were clear at the conclusion of the Stormont House talks that, while significant progress had been made on a number of selected issues, the overall outcome was not as comprehensive, decisive or complete as we would have wished. We made that clear on the day, and we are still of that view. Nothing significant has changed. The SDLP has, since the Stormont House Agreement, sought to amend the Bill at Further Consideration Stage. We sought to strengthen and improve the emerging proposals by tabling a series of honest amendments and engaging constructively in all the implementation meetings that followed. We believe that this latest deadline is ill judged and ill timed and serves only to undermine much of the constructive engagement that we and others have been involved in during the process.”
“The point that I was making, humbly and honestly, was that perhaps this week should not have been and did not have to be the deadline. Useful negotiations were taking place, and there was further room. I compliment the Minister: we may not always agree, but he has been masterly in dealing with the Bill on many occasions. Despite our disagreement at times, he has been honest and honourable in all that he has done. <BR /> <BR />We have consistently highlighted the fact that welfare is bound into a much broader economic landscape in Northern Ireland. There is a need to take a much more strategic approach to protecting the most vulnerable while creating the conditions required for access to prosperity for those in need of opportunities.”
“We may have differences at times politically, but, at a personal and human level, it is important that we take care of each other and have nothing but good wishes and goodwill towards each other. <BR /> <BR />I want to emphasise that the SDLP remains fully committed to negotiating and achieving a solution to all the issues raised by the Welfare Reform Bill, and we are committed to the Stormont House Agreement. However, we believe that the negotiations need to be mature and responsible, which means that they are not bound by an unnecessary deadline or short-term tactics.”
“I will be as brief as possible and speak in general because, in the words of a Phil Coulter song, it has all been said now. Everything has been covered and most of the points made. Making the same points again might emphasise them, but it would not make things any different. <BR /> <BR />At the outset, I put on record my good wishes and, indeed, the very best wishes of the SDLP for the rapid and full recovery of the First Minister, Peter Robinson. We were all a little shocked on hearing of his sudden illness yesterday morning, and we should note the efficiency and the effectiveness of the health service at its best in providing him with appropriate treatment. I would appreciate it if colleagues could convey our best wishes.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I apologise for any personal offence.”
“You said that 7,000 people have applied. If I recall correctly, the target was in the region of 3,000. How will those people be selected? Will the Minister assure us that large numbers of people in one Department or one section of one Department will not leave, thereby crippling that service?”
“I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on her promotion and express the hope that the personal generosity for which she is widely known will show itself in the Department of Finance.”
“Does the Minister agree that to delist the building would be counterproductive for heritage tourism in Belfast?”
“I have no doubt that incoming SDLP councillors on the new council will seize the opportunity to do just that. The situation desperately needs respectful and open discussion that is free from cheap political point scoring —”
“It is difficult, Mr Speaker, but anyway. We need to move to a situation where we can actively promote honesty and reconciliation. That will not be achieved by glorifying violence of any sort. We cannot be half in, half out, half up or half down. <BR /> <BR />Last night, at the final meeting of Newry and Mourne District Council, every SDLP councillor voted to suspend standing orders to accommodate a full, open and honest discussion. Our councillors and the party as a whole are extremely disappointed that the opportunity did not materialise. That signifies that we have got only halfway towards democracy and that, in fact, some people do not want to be engaged in honest debate. <BR /> <BR />I hope that, if the primary vote had passed, our councillors would have voted to change the name of the park. In fact, they have already made that clear.”
“Michael Mallin or James Connolly is totally inappropriate. This situation —”