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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“<BR /> <BR />My second point is that, as everybody knows, the scale of mental trauma arising from the legacy of conflict is immense. The VSS says that new victims are coming forward, as we speak, in relation to all that. If we are going to deal with the issue of mental health, we have to deal with the issue of legacy. We have to go back to that issue as soon as we can. In doing that, I put down this marker: let us not have a partial deal. Let us not have an outcome done by the few in politics rather than by the many. If that is the outcome — I fear that it might be —”
“Those people are going to have enhanced needs over the next period of time, not simply because of what is happening with welfare reductions but because of the decision that was made in respect of Europe. It is very likely that, sooner or later, people on welfare in the North will experience a real-time benefit cut because there will be no rate of inflation increases for benefits over the next four years. Arising from last week's decision, people are saying that the rate of inflation is going to be 2% in the next year. People already on reduced benefits are going to have further real-time reductions because there is going to be no benefit uprating. That will reflect on their lives through mental health and other pressures.”
“The first is that, as everybody knows, the number of people on disability-type benefits in the North is one in 10, whereas in Britain it is one in 20. That is a point that Ms Bradshaw, I think, touched upon.”
“Here we have notional moneys going to an organisation that helps people, including those who have been abused in homes in the past and those who have mental health problems, and that advocates for their needs. Yet when it comes to their immediate needs, that organisation has a derisory budget cut of £2,000. The point I am making is that, if we are going to have hard outcomes in supporting people with mental health difficulties and the organisations, including SAVIA, that support them, we have to get real about the funding needs of those organisations. <BR /> <BR />I do not intend to rehearse the scale of the issues — that was outlined by Mr Butler, Mr Durkan and others — save to make two immediate points.”
“But if these matters that are unanimously agreed by the House are then reflected in the actions of Ministers and in the final Programme for Government, that is one measure of making progress. <BR /> <BR />Ms Emma Little Pengelly referred to great champions, and she was, of course, right about that. One of the great champions we have at the moment for advocating on behalf of victims and survivors and in supporting victims and survivors who have mental health issues is Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA). Yet it learned last week that the paltry sum of £10,000 it receives every year to run a small resource is being reduced to £8,000.”
“As with everybody else, I welcome the debate and thank the proposer for tabling the motion. I recognise what people said, in that, whether it is individual politicians, the families of politicians, other people and the organisations in particular, the debate shows how you can shape in a better image this issue to make progress going forward. Of course, the measure of all this — at least, one measure — and, indeed, of all the debates we have had since the election is whether the unanimous view of the House on a manufacturing strategy, a childcare strategy, broadband or, like today, mental health, becomes part and parcel of policy and the Programme for Government going forward. If not, we are a mere debating chamber.”
“I do not agree with the Member that there is not going to be a supplementary Budget this year. The Chancellor flagged up this morning that, on the far side of the new Cabinet in the autumn, there may well be. In that event, is it not now the case that the Minister of Finance will be obliged under the law established for Fresh Start to come to this Chamber and make a statement about the changed financial position, that being a requirement of the British Government for the Fresh Start?”
“To develop your point, is it also not the case that, when it came to the successor programme to Peace, the British Government made no argument whatsoever to the Brussels authorities for the continuation of Peace and that it was left to the Irish Government and our own Government to make that argument? Is that not further evidence of what London will do on a pound-for-pound basis to support the North post-EU withdrawal? Look at what happened with the Peace project. They did not back it at all.”
“— in the real lives of people will we deal with all that?”
“— investment deferred. How, in real time —”
“— a revised downwards economic forecast, the fiscal surplus by 2019-2020 out the window, corporation tax in jeopardy, firms denied market access and —”
“I will give way in a second. <BR /> <BR />How much shorter will they be in this negotiation, given the trauma and fallout of what has happened? <BR /> <BR />Secondly, I ask the deputy First Minister how we will deal with the immediate consequences of what will happen — this is the next two years, it is not even beyond two years. Higher inflation —”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. That is why the Irish Government should convene a forum for the future. We need to recognise that those who, as Mark Durkan said, tailgate London as the road to the future, will realise that they have been left behind in some other place down that road. Every time we rely on London, especially when it comes to money, in every negotiation with Blair and Brown or Cameron and Villiers, they have come up short.”
“I will shortly. That is why we call for a forum to recognise the paradigm shift that occurred last Thursday and to recognise that to rely on London in the next two years is a strategy of folly — thoughtless folly at that. I will give way to the Member.”
“<BR /> <BR />I say, especially to the First Minister, that in the management of this issue over the next two years, the scale of this cannot be handled, as Mark Durkan put it to the Assembly group this morning, through the usual diplomatic channels. The paradigm has changed, and it has changed utterly. Those in the DUP and elsewhere in politics in the North, who want to put all their eggs in the Boris basket, will quickly learn how shallow a strategy that is. That is why the SDLP again calls on the Irish Government to invite the parties in the North and the South to come together in a forum for the future —”
“Well, the figures will confirm that. For all those reasons, the scale of what happened last week, in the politics and culture of this island, needs to be recognised. That is not about a rush to a vote for a vote's sake on the existence of the border, which has been the approach of some in recent days. It is to recognise that, because of last Thursday, the dynamic in the politics of this island and these islands is different from any time over the last 50 years. In my view, the consequence of that — this is why I am hopeful and positive about the future — is that people will begin to reimagine a future different from the past and try to make the future bigger and bolder than the good that we achieved in the past.”
“<BR /> <BR />I think that there is a sense of loss, bewilderment, upset and even anger within nationalism and republicanism, but I sense that those feelings exist also, to some degree, within unionism. The figures will confirm that a greater percentage pro rata of unionists in Northern Ireland voted to remain than the percentage of nationalists who voted to leave. For all those reasons —”
“Speaking on behalf of those who have been democratic and nationalist, without apology and without exception over the last 45 years of the SDLP, we find the decision upsetting, game-changing and immense in its consequences. Maybe that is quite natural, because the democratic nationalist tradition on this island, be it in the North or in the South, identified itself more as European. We were more influenced by John Hume and his recognition that the European project was the biggest peace project in the western world, and we were more attached to the three strands of the Good Friday Agreement and its unspoken fourth strand of accommodating difference in the European context.”
“From where we sit, and in virtually all whom I spoke to over the weekend, there is a palpable sense of loss after the vote last week: a sense of loss of place, of who we are and want to be; a sense of loss of influence and identity; and a loss of funds. I say that because the bombastic approach taken by some in the DUP during the debate is in marked contrast with the scale of the decision last week and its consequences. I hope that the bombastic approach of the few will be replaced by a more discerning approach by the many. I hope that, even in the last hour or two, that has been better understood by the DUP. <BR /> <BR />There has been discussion about how nationalism has responded to the vote last week.”
“First, I welcome the junior Minister. There is a widespread view that, as Justice Chair, he went some way towards earning that nomination. <BR /> <BR />Are there any plans in the First Minister's head or in her Department for a SIF II? Is it not better that that approach to neighbourhood renewal is delivered through neighbourhood renewal? Does she agree that even neighbourhood renewal is now in jeopardy, given its reliance on European funding, which will clearly be uncertain two years from now?”
“Is it the case that, six months after Fresh Start, not one penny of Fresh Start moneys has been released to the PSNI and the NCA to tackle the threat of organised crime in Northern Ireland and on these islands? When will moneys be released to the PSNI for that purpose?”
“I will quote what Séamus Mallon said to the first Oversight Commissioner for Patten:”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is an error on our part. It is being moved by Mr Justin McNulty.”
“Of course, in all of that, he needed a partner. It is not for me to tell the story, but there is a story, as Trevor knows, in relation to the age at which he became engaged and subsequently married. Maybe before the end of this week, he will share that story, because I think it is for him to share, not for me to tell. He has had a partner and wife for many, many, many years, of which many of us would be envious, I am sure. On behalf of the SDLP, I offer him and his wife, Liz, every success in their future endeavours.”
“In my opinion, the highest responsibility in public service that Trevor Reaney held was with the Policing Board during the implementation of Patten and the new beginning to policing. In my view, since 1998, that has been the single biggest paradigm shift, and Trevor Reaney was part and parcel of that.”
“On behalf of the SDLP, here in the Assembly and more generally, I wish Trevor all the best. On one level, Trevor's career demonstrates that he is a glutton for punishment because he jumped from the frying pan of Craigavon Borough Council into the fire of the Policing Board. Then, at risk of mixing my metaphors even more, once bitten, twice shy, he jumped from the frying pan of the Policing Board into the fire of the Northern Ireland Assembly. In that way, he was a glutton for punishment, but, in a much more important way, Trevor demonstrates commitment to public service. There have never been harder places of public service than councils, the Policing Board and the Northern Ireland Assembly.”
“Has any thought been given to convening the next meeting of the BIC earlier rather than later, in the event that, this Thursday, there is a vote to leave the European Union, not least because of the likely outcome, which is that the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will vote to remain? Do you see a role for the BIC in the deeply unfortunate scenario of the United Kingdom deciding to leave the European Union?”
“I will conclude now. That was meant to be a proper 14-day negotiation. This is my final remark. The one thing that surprises me about the Alliance Party is that even it thought the PFG negotiation was meant to be more than it was. Why would you put in your proposals to beef up the PFG framework if you did not think that that negotiation was meant to be something more than what we ended up with, which was the DUP and Sinn Féin telling all the other parties, "It is government on our terms. Take it or leave it". Were we not right not to take it?”
“If you go and check, you will find that quite a number of organisations put on record with officials and elsewhere in OFMDFM — now the Executive Office — proposals in respect of the PFG negotiation. We believe that the PFG negotiation which informed this Budget — I will finish now —”
“As I said in my opening remarks, look at the sword that London has hanging over this place in respect of corporation tax: "You will do it on our terms or you might not do it at all". Watch that one. <BR /> <BR />We opposed Stormont House where it needed to be opposed and supported it where it needed to be supported, and we voted against 'A Fresh Start'. Then there were discussions around the Programme for Government where we sent people in with a watching brief, and the document that came out said that there was no political endorsement. Meanwhile — this is the point that the Alliance Party needs to face up to — we were telling organisation after organisation to get their proposals in not just to the parties and Ministers but to the officials in OFMDFM who were responsible for the PFG.”
“You are right. The Minister might want to touch on that. He may not want to explore it in great detail — well, he might — but it is an area where, in protecting the legacy of the Housing Executive, its integrity and its future, you can do things, and it will be useful to consider that. <BR /> <BR />I want to conclude, if I could, with a comment in respect of the Budget and the PFG and the shallow narrative that is about the place and was referred to yesterday by somebody in relation to our approach to the PFG. We opposed 'A Fresh Start'. We voted against 'A Fresh Start', and this goes back to comments made by Mr Lyttle, Ms Bradshaw and Dr Farry yesterday. This will be my concluding remark. Were we not wise to endorse the good in Stormont House and try to rework the bad?”
“When there was bad stuff going on in the Housing Executive, I came and gave a statement to the House in that regard. When I was housing Minister, I had a fundamental review to try to protect the legacy and future of the Housing Executive while recognising that it was time for radical reform, including the terms for the separation of housing from other functions. However, that work got derailed by DUP Ministers who were trying to play politics with the Housing Executive rather than deal with the housing crisis in the North.”
“We made the argument and, on both occasions, a DUP Minister, but in different Ministries, blocked it. We need to go back to that. <BR /> <BR />There are other initiatives as well. That is why the Minister's comment on housing and housing funding — I think that there was a reference to the Housing Executive — was either just a warm phrase or the words were pregnant with something. Maybe he could explain, not today but some time. <BR /> <BR />I remember when I was housing Minister, I would come to the House and make statements on housing issues. When a lot of stuff was happening around the Housing Executive — it was not good stuff — that did not take away one iota from the huge contribution of that body over the last 50 years.”
“This sums up the last Government. When I was in the Department for Social Development, I argued for a developer contribution, and the planning Minister blocked it. Then, when I was planning Minister, I argued for a developer contribution, and the housing Minister blocked it. You can join up the dots in that regard.”
“Maybe something is about to mature, and land release could happen. We would like to hear that. In that regard, I ask the Minister —”
“Yet it is my understanding that the work that the Strategic Investment Board was doing on an audit of public land in the North, which has been going on for three or four years, has been passed back to the Department of Finance to take forward. The Minister might want to confirm what is now happening in the Department of Finance in regard to a land audit to identify where there can be social and affordable housing, not land for private developers, even though Choice and Apex may do some private development themselves. Where will they get the land? They might have the money from the European Investment Bank and they might get match funding from government, but they cannot build unless they have the land. I do not know what happened to the work that the SIB was meant to be doing, but it has now gone back to the Finance Department.”
“The European money is predicated on the fact that there will be match funding or at least substantial grant aid. I think that the grant aid might have gone up in the last couple of years. Will there be that funding? That is a strategic decision. That is an outcomes-based approach to housing in the Programme for Government that has to be front and centre in the Budget and PFG when they come back here later this year. How then will we move beyond 4,700 to 11,700? That is what we will have to do. This goes back to real-time issues in the Budget. <BR /> <BR />If you speak to the housing associations and bodies, they will tell you that they are scrambling for land and that a lot of the new build now is on small sites, whereas they need to scale up and have big sites.”
“The point was that we negotiated hard for the money. We did it in a context where we were reducing discreetly the grant aid that was going to the housing associations so that they had to rely on some of their own resources. The investment bank is a very welcome thing, not just for the university or housing but for other opportunities going forward. I think that the Minister is thinking about where else he can go in that regard. That is why any imaginative thinking that might come out of DOF in that regard will have the rug pulled from under its feet by what might happen on 23 June. <BR /> <BR />These are my questions, because there might be a bit more of a crafted approach. Will there be the match funding to enable Choice and Apex to build those 4,700 houses?”
“We need to get back to the levels that were being built when, to be fair to us, Margaret Ritchie and I were housing Ministers. Mr McCartney is giggling, but these are the facts: in recent years, the budget line for housing is down to 1,500 or less. In those four years, the budget line for housing was 2,000 or more. In the year that I was housing Minister, there were 2,300 new-build starts. Those are facts; you cannot really dispute them.”
“<BR /> <BR />The point I want to make to the Minister is this: we have the papers to prove where we have tried to put forward discerning and crafted interventions to the Programme for Government or on welfare or whatever it might be. The issue of housing is really one of the great challenges of this mandate. I think that the Minister, to be fair to him, is beginning to think laterally and imaginatively in that regard. Whilst I ask him to confirm that he endorses austerity, I confirm that he seems to be endorsing a lateral approach to housing. In that regard, we got the money from the European Investment Bank to allow Choice and Apex to build 4,700 houses, but the need is for about 12,000 houses over the next five years. I think that the Minister will be very aware of that.”
“<BR /> <BR />One of the Minister's most curious and inviting remarks — I hope the Committee or parties have the opportunity to explore this further with the Minister — was "What are we going to do about housing finance?". There was some reference to that — I have it in my notes somewhere, but I will not find it now, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister made a point yesterday about the Alliance Party, and I could make some comments about the Alliance Party and about the ups and downs and toing and froing that you have had over the last six months on Budget votes. You abstain; you vote for; you vote against; then you stop money going to Supply resolution. It is a right muddle, but I am not even going to indulge in that. To borrow a phrase from Ms Bradshaw yesterday, it is mystifying, but we will move on from that.”
“Let us not pretend, however, that we are all raging against austerity and not actually doing austerity, even to the point of handing over powers to an austerity Government to impose their austerity on people who suffer the burdens of austerity. A little honesty about that might be a bit helpful and move things on. <BR /> <BR />I want to conclude. Mr Lunn was not in earlier. I will not go back over it, but I acknowledge the very skilful and understated way he spoke. That is his nature: all his speeches are understated, but they are all very telling and forensic in their political points, and we saw the evidence of that a short while ago.”
“All these measures are now part of the experience of our citizens in Northern Ireland: freezes on welfare for four years; the ability of London to unilaterally change the benefit cap when the Chancellor thinks national economic circumstances — whatever that means — merit it; and all the rest, including the most punitive proposals on ESA. That is austerity in capital letters. Do not let anyone pretend otherwise. Let everybody in Northern Ireland know it, for all the welcome mitigation, which is more than for any part of Britain, as we acknowledge. The authors of the proposals are many and multiple. I acknowledge all those people, not least Eileen Evason and her team, and the advice and other organisations that informed her thinking.”
“Is austerity not the London Government changing support for mortgage interest into a loan, which then becomes a charge on the property of the people who take the loan? Is that not austerity the same as all the other measures — the social security measures — that are now part of the social security regime in this part of Ireland? When the Minister rightly rages against austerity, will he confirm that all those interventions are austerity and that the DUP and Sinn Féin signed up to it? <BR /> <BR />Will the Minister comment on what I thought was a brazen remark from the Minister for Communities in his first Question Time? When he was asked, "Was there any mitigation of any of the social security measures that are now part of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016?", he said, "No, there is not".”
“One of the ways of doing that was to have, unlike Wales and Scotland, devolution of welfare and social security legislation. That was abandoned in the course of an afternoon. <BR /> <BR />The point I want to make to the Minister is this: as he concluded his statement last night, he said that he was opposed to austerity. I put it to the Minister yesterday, and I put it to him again today: is austerity not reducing the benefit cap to £20,000 for people in Northern Ireland? That is what Sinn Féin and the DUP signed up to in the legislation. Is austerity not a freeze on social security benefits and tax credit amounts for four years? That is what the DUP and Sinn Féin signed up to in November last year.”
“I want to put to the Minister again today what he did not seem to respond to yesterday, which is the consequences of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, which has now received Royal Assent and is the legislation that governs the social security aspects of welfare reform and work in this part of the world. I would remind the Minister that, on a certain date in November last year, he voted for the legislative consent motion (LCM). He voted with his colleagues in the DUP for the LCM that transferred and surrendered welfare powers from this place to London. Those who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement and the subsequent Northern Ireland Act 1998 made a point and a virtue of trying to maximise the devolution of powers at that time.”
“There was a budget line in that regard, Minister: £50,000 in year 1, £350,000 in year 2, £575,000 in year 3 and £675,000 in year 4, totalling £1·65 million. I acknowledge what is now happening in respect of the independent advice sector, but I would like to hear more from the Minister. He is probably waiting to do that, and I acknowledge that this is probably going to be in his reply. He would probably like to hear more from the Department for Communities, and, hopefully, progress will be made in that regard in the next monitoring round, if not earlier. <BR /> <BR />There are two further issues that I wish to deal with. One is the issue of welfare reform in general, which is now emblazoned, if you like, across the Budget (No.2) Bill because of the financial interventions to deal with the punitive actions of London.”
“The Minister and the Department for Communities seem to have taken forward some of the work in respect of independent advice — I welcome that, even though there is no statutory right to independent advice — but I would like to hear whether anything further is coming in respect of food poverty. <BR /> <BR />In that regard, I refer the Minister to appendix 5 of Eileen Evason's proposals, where she has two pages of documentation about what interventions on food poverty might look like, including a spend of £50,000 this year, rising to £675,000 in year 4, with 11 sites facilitating distribution to those who are food-poor. While we would not want it to be like that, that is the reality of life for growing numbers of our citizens and communities.”
“If you look at Eileen Evason's proposals, you can see not just the SDLP's thinking but that of other parties; you can see the streams of thinking through those proposals from those who gave advice in that matter, and that included the SDLP. I could go on and on in relation to all those matters. <BR /> <BR />It is welcome that the Minister has provided additional money for the independent advice sector today that will change the budget line over the course of the year. However, where are we in respect of the second element of Eileen Evason's recommendations around financial capability, namely the need to address food poverty in Northern Ireland?”
“The SDLP put in 13 documents, in real time, in response to the real situation in the negotiations across the issues in 'A Fresh Start', and we shared some of those documents with the other parties. The Alliance Party shared documents with us, but the DUP and Sinn Féin did not share documents with anybody until they published 'A Fresh Start' half an hour before the Executive meeting at which we were asked to endorse it. I am not taking any lectures from any Minister about the good authority of the SDLP when it comes to these issues, including proposals on welfare mitigation. If they had listened to us when we proposed those in law in January and February of last year, the welfare situation would be in a position of strength.”