Alex Attwood
West Belfast · Social Democratic and Labour Party · Northern Ireland
“I certainly do not take away from the contribution being made by the judiciary in Northern Ireland to framing a society that upholds the right principles and applies human rights standards across the board without fear or favour. <BR /> <BR />There are two issues with bail. One is police bail, which nobody has commented on so far.”
“Whatever it is, it is a flip-flop. It is trying to cover your tracks. It is having said to people that everything was all right when things were not all right. People saw through it.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way. When I was housing Minister in 2010-11, I conducted a fundamental review of the Housing Executive. It was based upon a number of principles, including protecting the institution of the Housing Executive, its legacy and name.”
“What world have you been living in for the last two or three months? <BR /> <BR />That is why Mr Agnew is right to say that there will be anger. There will be anger at the DUP on the day that a public inquiry is established into RHI, belatedly endorsed by Sinn Féin because it had no place else to turn.”
“He accepted a point from me and then said, "Well, actually, since that time the then deputy First Minister has been looking at the matter." Is it not curious that 18 months ago, despite NAMA, despite Red Sky, despite ransom strips — and, for all we know, people might have even known about RHI then — Sinn Féin, despite all that evidence, s…”
“Sorry, apologies. <BR /> <BR />I agree completely with Mr Agnew who said, in his opening remarks, that there was a need for an independent open process to investigate ministerial conduct, not least given recent events, and that there will be public anger if the motion is not passed.”
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“Let us be doubly cautious, because the report that the Secretary of State for Transport was forced to publish last Thursday was published on the quiet on the day that the Minister had to go to the House of Commons and say that they did not have the money to do a lot of other projects, including rail projects between Manchester and Leeds. The British Government have promised money to do work on the rail network in the Midlands and made a commitment to do HS2, yet, as we see from last Thursday in respect of the money for the rail project in Leeds and Manchester and HS2, there are huge question marks. In the Minister's response, maybe she could put more shape, if there is any more shape, on the words that she entered into the record last Thursday.”
“The MPA report that was published on Thursday continues to grade HS2 as amber/red, a reading that means that successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent. If something is coming in respect of HS2 and there is some private understanding — maybe there is not — let us be cautious about it.”
“<BR /> <BR />In any case, if there is any money coming and anything that any party or Minister thinks might be able to get us over this hump, let us put down some words of caution because, last week, the British Government were forced by the Information Commissioner in London to publish a 2012 report on the Major Projects Authority (MPA) assessment of HS2. After this document was suppressed by the British Government, which they had to publish last week, they were going round saying, "Look at HS2. Look at this £50 billion project. Look at the free beer tomorrow." This is what the Major Projects Authority said:”
“I understand that. I will come to that point. Has it started or will it ever start? My question is this: given that the Minister has put it out there on the public record that we will engage with HMT, obviously to see whether there are Barnett consequentials on HS2, is anything coming or privately understood, even at a party-to-Government level, never mind a Government-to-Government level, in respect of HS2, because the use of the Minister's words, "may well be Barnett consequentials" seem to me to be potentially pregnant with something or other. We will see whether the Minister can give an answer on that particular matter.”
“I thought that was a curious phrase because, following the announcement about HS2, there seems to have been a bit of an elephant in the room when it comes to budgets, namely whether there are Barnett consequentials or not. If there are, given the scale of HS2 and £50 billion, pro rata, that would probably mean a Barnett consequential for here of over £1 billion if my sums are correct.”
“In order to try to be a bit more productive, it might be better for me to try to shape, as the SDLP sees it, how we will actually deal with the issue that the Member has just mentioned, namely how best to negotiate with London on all these matters. In that regard, I have a number of questions to ask the Minister. She may or may not be able to answer them now, but it might be productive if we can begin to answer them. <BR /> <BR />First, in the debate last week, the Minister said the following about the £50 billion HS2 project:”
“<BR /> <BR />I also say to the Alliance Party before moving on — I will say it subject to correction in Hansard — something that Mr Murphy picked up. It was the comments of the Member from East Antrim. He made an argument — this is how I wrote it down, so it may be inaccurate — that the way in which to disagree with the London Government and their policies is to accept the democratic outcome of the election. Work that one out: the way in which to disagree with them is to agree with them. That really is, to borrow Mr Farry's phrase, utterly bizarre.”
“What confidence does that give to victims and survivors? <BR /> <BR />Even with the thresholds of Stormont House — which the SDLP believes were lacking in a number of regards — since Stormont House, in order to test the intentions and good faith of those with knowledge, the answers that have come back for those with knowledge in state agencies and in other illegal organisations have done nothing to convince victims and survivors that the ambition of Stormont House, moderate though it was when it came to justice, truth and accountability, is going to be fulfilled. That is the fundamental issue, in our view, when it comes to Stormont House, over and above how all the other issues are becoming more challenging because of the wider welfare issues.”
“I thank the Minister for attempting to rebut the arguments that I just made. If there is an issue about dealing with the past — this is a point that the SDLP made at the meeting last week — it is actually even more fundamental than the issue of money and the fact that there is an impasse around issues of money and budget that might be informing and affecting other aspects of the Stormont House Agreement. The fundamental challenge to Stormont House on the past is how those with information and knowledge have conducted themselves since Stormont House was signed, because there has been a series of revelations and programmes that deal with the activities of terror groups and state agencies, and the narrative of those is quite clearly an attempt by people in command and control to suppress truth and accountability.”
“I will give way in a second. I am going to give way to everybody. I have no issue about doing it. <BR /> <BR />It seems to me that, to go back to the nursery rhyme, if there are 10 Ministers in the bed and one is asked to roll over, the first that rolls over is Stephen Farry.”
“Dr Farry does not seem to be insulted, upset and angry, if not on his own behalf then on behalf of victims and survivors when it comes to that issue.”
“<BR /> <BR />Can you imagine a situation in which, after all the monumental efforts by victims and survivors to deal with that issue in a comprehensive way, the Secretary of State has the audacity to say to them that the money that was allocated for their interests and needs and to bring about truth and accountability will be returned to the Treasury if it is not spent?”
“<BR /> <BR />Dr Farry came to the Chamber and said that it was utterly bizarre for the SDLP to do what it is doing, when his party was told, as all of us were only a matter of days ago, that moneys that were meant to be committed in Stormont House and which all of us believed were ring-fenced for the Stormont House Agreement, revert back to the Treasury if we do not spend them in-year on dealing with the past. That is what is utterly bizarre. It is utterly bizarre that anybody can claim that we are inconsistent on the issue of the Budget when the British Government is, piece by piece, beginning to challenge the fundamentals of the Stormont House Agreement when it comes to budget, including the fundamentals, even in-year, for dealing with the past.”
“Mr Allister was not there. The Secretary of State bluntly told Mr Ford that the money would have to be returned to the Treasury and could not be rolled over. <BR /> <BR />At the risk of breaking the confidence of that meeting, Mr Ford then advised the Secretary of State that he, to use his words, was "grossly insulted". When she said that she did not intend to insult anybody, Mr Ford replied that all the people who have been working for the last six months to put flesh on the skeleton of the aspects of Stormont House that his office was dealing with would be insulted.”
“I will in a second. That is what is utterly bizarre in our view. <BR /> <BR />In my judgement, that point has been rammed home. Dr Farry sat next to his party leader at a meeting of the four parties and the two Governments last Thursday morning, and there was an exchange between the Secretary of State and David Ford. David Ford asked the Secretary of State, because he had not got an answer, whether £30 million of moneys arising from the Stormont House Agreement, which are allocated for each year of five years for dealing with the past, could be carried over into the next financial year if they were not spent in this financial year. I was there, and all the other parties were there. Mr Murphy was there —”
“<BR /> <BR />What is bizarre is that, as with the SDLP, the Alliance Party backs Supply resolutions, but, when it comes to Budgets, it flip-flops: opposing Budgets at one time in the last year and now flip-flopping to support a Budget this evening.”
“Dr McDonnell and Mr Ramsey may want to address those issues in their own time, but I want to put it on the record that that is where I stand on all those matters. <BR /> <BR />I want to respond to some of the comments that were made by Dr Farry. I will not delay very long in that regard. However, I want to say this: Dr Farry said that it was "utterly bizarre" of the SDLP to not oppose the Budget last week and to vote against it this week. I remind Dr Farry that, across the lifetime of Budgets and Supply resolutions in the House, the SDLP has not blocked Supply resolutions, because they release money to fund our public services and our public employees. However, since 2011, we have consistently voted down Budgets. That is not utterly bizarre; that is very consistent.”
“First, I want to apologise; I missed a lot of the Minister's reply on the last occasion as I had to attend to a small family matter. I know that she made some reference to a TV programme — I think that it was 'Little Britain'. I am not too familiar with that programme, and that perhaps reveals the television-watching habits of the Minister. She referred to the SDLP as being like some of the comments that were made by one of the characters in that programme. I want to make it absolutely clear that, whatever parallels she may wish to draw between the SDLP and 'Little Britain', I, for one, do not cross-dress, I do not tell many jokes and I am certainly not as overweight as the character to whom she referred.”
“This morning, the High Court in Belfast ruled that the Executive had a legal duty to adopt an anti-poverty strategy, that they had not done so and that they are in breach of their legal obligations. Will the Minister, if not now then soon, perhaps by written statement, advise Members of the consequences of the High Court ruling in respect of ongoing budget and welfare issues, not least in the context of what may happen on 8 July and how that might impact on people who are deemed to be poorer in Northern Ireland?”
“The point that I would like to make is this: it seems to me that, even though all that we might wish to capture through categories of driver will not be captured by the Bill, subject to what the Minister might find out over the next number of weeks and months, at the end of this process, it has to be the case that you cannot differentiate between daytime and night-time hours when it comes to the overall scale and scope of clause 20. If we are to have a consistent approach, which recognises that risk arises at every hour of the day, even if it varies between hours, clause 20 has to recognise that every hour of every day is a risk to every driver.”
“Then I stand corrected, but I also stand corroborated that Mr Wilson's ambitions in respect of the Bill are way beyond clause 20 and that there are other areas, in his view, in terms of the draft Bill going way back a number of years, where he saw that the Bill was stretching itself and the threshold in the content of the law and enforcement was going to be too high. I welcome the fact that Mr Wilson has corroborated the very point that I made at the beginning of my speech.”
“That seems to acknowledge, after all this debate, that there has been an acceptance that the threshold required in respect of road traffic law is now higher than might once have been the case.”
“We are moving more and more to recognising that there are some appropriate constraints on liberty, as some might see it, because the risk is so great when it comes to road traffic in the North. <BR /> <BR />Given that there were, I believe, 79 deaths in Northern Ireland last year, up from 57 two or three years ago, and that after seven years of decline there is now an increasing volume of deaths and serious injuries on the roads North and South, we have to have a precautionary approach when it comes to the content of the Bill, whereby the risk is recognised as being significant and growing, and which should result in moderate restriction on people's liberty. <BR /> <BR />Mr Wilson, as I said, targeted his commentary at one clause and not at the scope of the Bill generally.”
“That is a point that Mr Beggs made when he quoted from the documents; from Daniel Greenberg who talked about the constraints of liberty. <BR /> <BR />It is always the nature of law, or very often the nature of law, that you have to balance the risk to citizens with the need to put only proper and reasonable constraints on liberty. That has always been the case. Look at our legislation in respect of drink-driving. Some people would argue that that gets in the way of their liberty, yet we have decided that in those circumstances, including in this Bill, the risk is going to become more and more important. <BR /> <BR />Look at the freedom to smoke, that some would claim, where people have to balance the risk of smoking with constraints on their liberty when it comes to where they choose to smoke. That is the essence of this Bill.”
“I stand corrected, but it was stated by the Association of British Insurers at a public conference in London that, in the event of this overall regime being put into law, it could see a reduction in insurance premiums for young drivers by 19%. We should treat that with a bit of caution, because insurance companies might tell people what they want to hear. Nonetheless, does the Association of British Insurers have anything further to say about what insurance premiums in Northern Ireland might be in the event of this legislation being passed? <BR /> <BR />I want to make a couple of quick points in respect of clause 20. It is always the case when it comes to legislation that you have to balance risk with constraints on liberty.”
“Well, you did refer to the insurance industry indicating —”
“<BR /> <BR />If the Minister and his colleague in the South get their way, you will have all-Ireland recognition of penalty points in respect of five categories of criminal offence, making the point that the bad should not be the enemy of the good. If there is some good that we can do in this legislation, even if it does not capture all the people who we might like to capture and because that is outwith our control, we should take that opportunity going forward. <BR /> <BR />Could I also ask the Minister a second question? This was touched upon by Mr Lunn. It is my recollection that the Association of British Insurers said at a conference in London that, in the event that the regime that was being proposed by the Minister was put into place, the consequence would be that they would see potentially a 19% reduction in insurance premiums.”
“When the Department asked the British Government whether they thought it was useful and timely to do the same with regard to both these islands — all-islands recognition of penalty points — the London Government said that they did not think that they wanted to go down that road at this stage. Even though we have on these islands all-Ireland recognition of disqualification, and that is good, the London Government said that they did not want to go down the road of all-islands recognition of penalty points. Despite that, the Department and the Minister are still taking forward that initiative, because even though people will come from Britain who have penalty points, those penalty points will not be recognised in Northern Ireland. That is a weakness and a deficit.”
“My answer to that is this: the bad should not be the enemy of the good. If it is not within the mandate of the European institutions at this stage to have joined-up thinking and practice when it comes to road traffic penalties, and that is the case, even though that is a deficit in the overall regime, both in law and practice, that deficit should not get in the way of creating some strength and authority around drivers in Northern Ireland, who are subject to our law and who can be subject to mechanisms that improve practice when it comes to road use. <BR /> <BR />I will give you one example. The Minister is currently taking forward this initiative in relation to all-Ireland recognition of penalty points.”
“The Minister — and I think that he is right on this — has said that he will go back over the summer, when there is adequate time, to produce voluminous levels of evidence on what informs the policy ambition of the Bill but, at the same time, informs these hard cases, of which there are quite substantial numbers as our immigrant population grows, which some people in this part of the world would not want to see happen. Nonetheless, there can be, I believe, a scoping of clause 20 in order to mitigate the concerns of any Members in the Chamber, produce the evidence that can mitigate those concerns and adjust clauses so that you capture more people who should be rightly captured by the intention of the clause.”
“However, because we do not have all-Ireland recognition of penalty points, those people are now driving North with those penalty points and are not restricted. The point that I am making is that the fact that we do not have all-Ireland penalty points does not mean that you take action against all the other categories of drivers in Northern Ireland who may be subject to offence.”
“This is not a one-stop shop or one quick answer by the Minister to the issue of road safety, road injury and death on the island of Ireland. It is also a much broader strategy, so it would be useful, in the context of the life of this mandate, which is coming to an end, hopefully not sooner rather than later. Where are we in respect of the recognition of all-Ireland penalty points? It goes back to Mr Wilson's point and Mr Allister's point about citizens from other places, in Northern Ireland, who are not potentially subject to these restrictions. That is already the case. People could be in Northern Ireland who were previously in the South and had been subject to penalty at the hands of the court, and, if we had all-Ireland recognition of penalty points, they would be captured by enforcement.”
“The answer to that, surely, it seems to me, is to deal with the problem in every single hour of every single day, not least the hours of nine to 10, when the evidence is that the scale of death arising from an accident involving young people is at its highest. That hour, more than any other hour — an hour not referred to in the amendment by Mrs Overend — is the most acute, critical hour in terms of risk to people and deaths arising from road traffic accidents involving young people. I will come back to that later. <BR /> <BR />Can I ask the Minister two questions? You have to see this in the round and the broadest context. One of them touches on Mr Lunn's point. Where are we in terms of all-Ireland enforcement of penalty points for those five categories of criminal conviction that carry the greatest risk to the citizens of Ireland?”
“The way to answer that is simply with a point that has been made before. Two thirds of those who are killed as a result of the driving of young people are killed on our roads between the hours of 6.00 am and 10.00 pm, and one third are killed between the hours of 10.00 pm and 6.00 am, so the answer to the question is not how many are killed during the particular hours of night-time or daytime. The answer to the question surely has to be that two thirds of those who die as a consequence of young drivers die between the hours of 6.00 am and 10.00 pm, and one third of those who die as a consequence die between the hours of 10.00 pm and 6.00 am.”
“I will in a second. The consequence, as I understand the figures, is that it is not a matter of seven deaths — seven is too many — it is a matter of a multiple of seven deaths in the year 2012, when there were 57 deaths, which was the lowest that had ever been recorded in Northern Ireland history and, in fact, in the history going back to pre-partition days, as far as I recall it. The number of deaths as a consequence of young drivers was disproportionate to the number of young drivers. I will give way to the Member.”
“That is certainly the logic of Mr Wilson's argument, and I will come back to that. Mr Wilson essentially makes the argument that, if you cannot make sure that the law applies to everybody at every time, let us not have the law at all, or, on the other hand, if you are going to have law, make sure that it applies to every person at all times. That is the logic of his position. I will come back to that in an instant, reminding him that, in 2012, of the 57 deaths on the roads in Northern Ireland — they have been rising ever since, as they have on the island of Ireland — 43% of the people who were killed were killed by the 10% of the drivers on the road who are classified as young.”
“I will. What can we do in those circumstances in which there were a number of people in a car, where there was a serious road traffic accident, and where there were traumatic injuries and one death? What can we do, throughout the hours of the day, to mitigate a replication of that incident?”
“On the way back from Omagh one day, I called to that wake house in a loyalist estate and saw the trauma that is visited on people's houses and families by a serious road traffic accident when there are many people in a car. That should be our touchstone in the ambition and practice of the legislation, whatever the arguments of Mr Wilson and others.”
“He has narrowed his focus tonight, and I will come back to that, but let us be very clear: at Executive level, he wanted to derail quite a lot of the arguments that are now part and parcel of the Bill, and on which I understand there is no division. I welcome the fact that the Committee saw that level of common sense and ambition, unlike that which informed Mr Wilson's previous views. <BR /> <BR />When it comes to the issue of young people in a car at any time during the day, my view was informed by a visit that I made to a house not very far from the city of Belfast, when a young woman had been killed in the early hours of Friday night/Saturday morning. She had been in a car with five of her peers. She had been the one person who had been killed and two others had received traumatic injuries.”
“<BR /> <BR />Mrs Foster referred to an incident in Enniskillen and the traumatic injuries to a citizen of that town, somebody whom I subsequently got to know because that person was part of one of the advertisements that were referred to earlier that had some part in trying to improve our road safety. Mr McGuinness referred to the terrible incident in Donegal, where a number of young people were killed in a car accident, and he said that he and many others had visited the homes of all those who had been bereaved. The imprimatur of the Executive went into the policy ambitions of the Bill, despite the considerable and lengthy protestations of Mr Wilson.”
“When the policy outline in the Bill went to the Executive, Mr Wilson was the only Minister at the Executive who opposed the policy intentions that became part and parcel of the Bill that we are discussing this evening. He will remember, as I do, the critical moments during that Executive discussion when not I but Arlene Foster, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson gave their imprimatur to the policy objectives of the Bill. Why did they give their imprimatur to the policy objectives that are now part and parcel of the Bill? It was because they related to their own human experience and the horror and tragedy of road traffic accidents and the effect that they have on people's lives.”
“Sammy — Mr Wilson — knows what I will say next.”
“I want, first, to acknowledge not just the officials — the departmental officials and the Committee officials — but the Committee members themselves. A long time ago, it was my anticipation that a further unpicking of the original Bill, beyond that which has been discussed this evening and that which was amended further at Committee Stage, would have occurred at Committee. The legislation was drafted to try to push limits and best practice when it comes to the safety of people on our roads in the North, both those who are in cars and those who are outside cars. There are a number of areas in which I would have anticipated some further unpicking of the Bill as originally proposed at the Committee, and I welcome the fact that that did not happen. I welcome that because if it had happened, the world of Sammy Wilson would have prevailed.”
“I ask the Minister to lodge the updates across the 12 work sectors since the last summit, in November 2014, in the Assembly Library for Members' consideration. When the discussion took place on the forthcoming referendum on membership of the European Union, did the British Government indicate in any shape or form that they recognised how any withdrawal from Europe might have a disproportionate impact on the economy and the people of Northern Ireland?”
“It is my sense that this will now get managed not in the short term but over a longer period, and maybe there are reasons for doing it in that way, not least because of the months that are ahead of us. I suggest that there should be an opportunity, between now and Final Stage and in the period thereafter, for everybody, probably including us, to reboot and regroup in an effort to renew what unites us, which is the scale of what will come on 8 July and the effect of the autumn Budget on the lives of our people. Let us not be naive; let us not mislead them: let us be straight and honest with them. The scale of that requires a response from all the parties in the Chamber.”
“That is what he said on Saturday. Today, he says that there is conditional support for this Budget. I will leave it at that. <BR /> <BR />My concluding remark is addressed to the Minister. You might say that some of this is mischievous and so on, but I think that you recognise that the Tories are about to do something that will, in year 1 and year 2 of your Budget process, be quite immense, because they have said that they will do it quickly and severely, and, given what they did over four or five years in the lifetime of the previous Parliament, we can only imagine what the scale of that will be in the early years of this one.”
“It will not do austerity, yet the Budget Bill before us is the worst austerity Budget that we have seen in this jurisdiction since 2011. Although I disagreed with a lot of what Mr Farry said, he did make the point that the austerity Budget, which Mr McGuinness said was the best deal possible in response to the draft Budget last November, was the consequence of mismanagement of the public finances. In that regard, I have some sympathy with Mr Farry's comment. However, to argue that Sinn Féin "will not do Tory austerity" on the back of the worst austerity Budget seems to me to be somewhat problematic. In concluding his point, Mr McGuinness said:”
“No, but when the evidence and the public statements penned by two Ministers lead you to a certain conclusion, you are justified in drawing it. When we put it to the Secretary of State whether there would be in-year cuts, and she said that she did not know, we said that we thought that there would be. I suggest that the record of the past two weeks corroborates our conclusion. <BR /> <BR />I will conclude with two final points. Let me make a comment, in passing, about where Sinn Féin is in all this. Mr McGuinness said in London on Saturday:”
“— that 8 July is about future years only, not about this year. I will give way.”
“Experience tells us to be vigilant about that and cautions us against it. <BR /> <BR />Does anybody conclude that, arising from that article yesterday, George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith are prepared not to make in-year welfare changes and cuts? That is a conclusion that I would not draw, and I urge people to be a bit more cautious than to say —”