Conor Murphy
Newry and Armagh · Sinn Féin · Northern Ireland
“More detailed consultations with individual childcare providers and parents are taking place this month and into February. The group agreed that the research would conclude in March 2025. The work is on schedule; there has been no delay. Childcare is an excellent example of various Departments coming together to deliver for our people.”
“The Bill looks at the issue of flexible working, but at every meeting that we have had with employers, we have made a point of talking to them about the need for them to be flexible, particularly in relation to women who are returning to the workforce, and to offer people arrangements that entice them back to the workforce and give them t…”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion. <BR /> <BR />Although the Department of Education leads on childcare, it is a priority for the Executive as a whole. When setting the Budget for this financial year, the Executive earmarked an additional £25 million for childcare.”
“As a matter of fact, I publicly launched the scheme and the courses in the Met last summer. My officials are also working with our six further education colleges to develop childcare microcourses for future delivery. <BR /> <BR />I also offered to assist Minister Givan's Department as required.”
“The group identified the need to better understand the business models for childcare, what type of support is needed to ensure the sector's financial viability and how support should be targeted. Given my Department's business expertise, we volunteered to take that work forward.”
“No tensions or obstacles have been placed in the way of any of that work, and I hope that that continues to be the case, because the issues are much more important than party political exchanges across the Chamber. We will continue to work in that manner.”
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“The Member will know that we do not have either the financial wherewithal or the data to do wage schemes. We had previously asked HMRC, which holds all that data, to assist with the possibility of creating a bespoke scheme in the North like the wage scheme, but we got a point-blank refusal. It is therefore not possible for us to intervene in that way, because we do not know who pays taxes and how much they pay. HMRC holds all that data. Furthermore, the Executive's finances would not stretch to meeting wage support. That has to come from Treasury. <BR /> <BR />We continue to press the Treasury on that. We do not want to see anybody in greater hardship. The experience of the pandemic has put a huge number of people into hardship, and it has already created a significant number of redundancies.”
“I concur with the Member's view on the extension of furlough. We have been arguing for that for some time. As I say, we will continue to argue for it now that the scheme is back on the table, albeit belatedly. I have not seen Unite the Union's plan, but I have always had an open-door policy of meeting the unions when they have an issue that they wish to present, and I am more than happy to meet Unite the Union to see the detail of its plan.”
“The Member asks a very pertinent question. We are told that an employee must have been on an employer's PAYE payroll by midnight on 30 October to qualify for the scheme. That is very late information for people, and they have been coming to terms with that over the weekend and today. We are continuing to press for further details, and we want to make those as public as we possibly can and to make them available as early as we can so that employers in particular and employees who can now avail themselves of the scheme understand that they can do so. There was a gap from the end of June through to October during which newly employed people could not avail themselves of the scheme. They can do so now. As I say, those people, if they were on the payroll right up to a minute before midnight on 30 October, now qualify for the scheme.”
“We are disappointed that we are not in a multi-annual Budget cycle, but we, like Scotland and Wales, will continue to press for flexibility with our finances until the end of the financial year.”
“The job support scheme, although very substandard when compared with the furlough scheme, was nonetheless better than a cliff edge, but we are now back to the previous decision. As the Member knows, we have continued to press for flexibility with our finances and, if there are to be any, to get the earliest possible notice of Barnett consequentials. Although the support from the Treasury has been welcome and has no doubt assisted us to assist businesses, to respond to the pandemic by supporting the health service itself and to protect the vulnerable, the lateness and abruptness of the decisions has not helped us in our planning. We will therefore continue to press for that flexibility. As he knows, the comprehensive spending review is under way in Whitehall. We want early information on the outcome of it.”
“As the Member will know, we updated the Finance Committee on some of these discussions a week or so ago. We continued to press for the continuation of the furlough scheme because we recognised that the end of October was a cliff edge for many employers and employees.”
“<BR /> <BR />The fact is that we, the Scottish Finance Minister, the Welsh Finance Minister and, in latter times, the mayors of cities in northern England were all calling for a furlough extension, but those calls fell on deaf ears in the Treasury. When it became an issue in southern England, that extension was abruptly granted. Welcome as it is, it has been handled in a way that has caused huge uncertainty to business. Of course we want to see it extended, but one month is not going to be sufficient. I hope that the British Government will recognise that sooner rather than later and that they will give notice to employers and employees about protection of jobs in the time ahead.”
“It is welcome. Bear in mind that, for many months over the summer period, we argued for that extension. We ended up with the job support scheme, which was quite restrictive. There was then a move about a week ago to expand that scheme, which was welcome, but it was still not as good as the furlough scheme. Then, suddenly, overnight, we are back to the furlough scheme. The uncertainty of the pandemic and how we are dealing with it has been greatly exacerbated by the approach of the Treasury in getting support for workers and employees. We have been on the very point — on the eve — of people coming to terms with the job support scheme. Only a week ago, it was changed, and then, suddenly, it was brought abruptly to a halt.”
“Clearly, it was not right to have any money that was wrongly received sitting in anyone's account. Once the leadership of our party became aware of that, the money was returned immediately to the centre, and action was taken on the back of it. I have to comment on lectures on propriety in government, coming from a DUP Member for North Antrim. At the very least, in transparency, the Sinn Féin process for dealing with this money, which was not applied for or sought but should have been paid back much more quickly, and dealing with transgressions within our party is much more transparent than that that applies in the North Antrim DUP.”
“<BR /> <BR />We will continuously get advice from the Chief Medical Officer and the Health Department on how COVID is behaving and what the projections and the trajectory are for it. Clearly, we want to make sure that people heed the advice and that we, as a society, become more proactive in suppressing the spread of COVID across the board. That in turn will hopefully not lead to a situation where we have to bring in restrictive measures, but we have held back some additional money to make sure that, should that situation arise again, we do have some support to give out to businesses at that time.”
“The Member knows — I was listening to the Economy Minister earlier — that the Executive are rolling out schemes, particularly for businesses that have been affected by the restrictions over this four-week period, and are looking at a range of measures, including those brought forward by the Infrastructure Minister for taxi and coach businesses, and measures for those who did not previously receive support. In allocating money for that, we have held back a sum of money, which the Executive agreed to last Thursday, to ensure that, should there be a necessity to repeat the current restrictions — none of us wants to get into that situation — there is money to assist businesses through that phase as well.”
“I will be pressing for that because the weeks and months ahead will continue to be challenging for businesses and workers who need certainty that the support that is offered by the furlough scheme will remain in place.”
“For months, I have pressed the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to extend the furlough scheme so that jobs can be protected. This announcement is welcome, albeit that the extension is for only one month at this point. <BR /> <BR />I welcome that the scheme will be open to employees who were on the payroll on or before 30 October, including employees who were not previously furloughed, as that has been a gap in support to date. <BR /> <BR />Many businesses, however, have been faced with tough decisions about redundancies, which have not been helped by the lateness of this decision by the Treasury. It remains unclear whether the furlough scheme will be extended beyond the end of November.”
“A LeasCheann Comhairle, I have tried to answer as many questions as I can without wearing out your patience and that of the rest of the staff here. I will draw my remarks to a conclusion. It is imperative that the legislation debated today continue its passage through the Assembly so that public services here can continue to be delivered to our citizens. I ask Members to support the Bill, thereby authorising spend on public services by Departments for the 2020-21 financial year.”
“All the outreach work that they would have done has therefore not been able to happen. That has reduced the cost. It is not about safety issues but about some of the outreach work that the HSE does. The programme spend has been utilised in other ways, however, such as for online and media campaigns targeting areas of high risk, such as falls from height in construction and aspects of agriculture and manufacturing. It has re-profiled its expenditure in that way.”
“<BR /> <BR />A range of other points were raised, and I will try to finish those points. One of the questions that Gerry Carroll raised was about the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) staff reduction of cost. Ironically, it is a reduction of cost due to COVID-19, because the events that the HSE staff would have run or attended, such as the Balmoral show or awareness events, have not been able to take place.”
“There are two difficulties with that. The Economy Minister will bring forward some hardship schemes for businesses that are in what might be considered to be the supply chain and that are affected by the general economic downturn. There are two issues. One is the cost of the wage, which, if we brought in all businesses affected, would be beyond the means of the Executive. The other thing is the data. We do not possess the data to support us to be able to do a job retention or job support scheme. That data is held by HMRC. It has been asked whether it would assist in the development of such a proposal from here and has given a point-blank refusal to that. We do not have the data, and I suspect that the cost of such a scheme would be beyond what we have left of the COVID money.”
“<BR /> <BR />I will give way one more time. I am sure that everybody else wants to get home tonight.”
“It is the job support scheme. The job retention scheme is the original scheme, which is more commonly known as the "furlough scheme". We have been told that the job support scheme is for businesses that are obliged to close under the regulations. If that is a portion of the business within a larger business, it may well apply to the workers who are in that portion of that business. If others in the supply chain decide that it is not profitable enough and that there is no point in staying open and that there is no business to be done, they may not qualify for the job support scheme. In whatever support that we can put out to schemes, we need to bear in mind that the key thing of the retention of workers for many businesses will not necessarily apply in circumstances where they have closed when they have not been obliged to.”
“Quite a lot of retail and hospitality already has the rate relief for the full year. They continue to benefit from rate relief, as do a lot of retail businesses. As many people have told us, the effect of COVID will still be with us beyond the end of this financial year. We are already considering rate relief beyond March of next year for targeted sectors.”
“There is a variety of —. I will go for Mr Buckley since he”
“If people in ancillary businesses decide that it is not profitable enough for them to remain open, we can try to get some support to them, however limited that is, but the job support scheme from Britain will not apply to their staff if they go off.”
“The Member made the point about companies that have to close, as opposed to ones that are obliged to close, as a result of the restrictions. We can consider being more generous, and the Economy Minister has talked about the supply chain and businesses that have been severely impacted. The initial run of money — certainly in the scheme that I brought forward — was to get it directly to those who were obliged to close. Further schemes should try to have a broader support in the economy. The job support scheme that will pay the wages of those people is fairly rigid and is based around businesses that are obliged to close.”
“<BR /> <BR />Jim Wells made various points relating to the fiscal commission issue, the aggregates levy and other things. That is the sort of debate that we need. That is why I want to establish a commission that will look at all those issues and generate a debate in this institution that will allow us to decide whether we can take more tax-varying powers and, if we take them, what we can use them for. That is how all those ideas can be brought to the Floor.”
“That is a debate that we should, perhaps, have had this time last year. It was rushed through because the Executive were back only in January, but that is a debate that we will have in the time ahead. I look forward to all the contributions and suggestions coming forward at that stage. <BR /> <BR />I agree with Mike Nesbitt's point about an outcomes-based Programme for Government. That is infinitely preferable, and I fully support it. He made a point about no leadership being shown in the debate. Again, I have been long enough about here to remember all those issues. The Good Friday Agreement happened in 1998, and it was 1999 before an Executive was formed. Questions about a dearth of leadership have been about this place for a long time and at various stages.”
“<BR /> <BR />As I said, the Budget process for next year will begin as soon as we can get the information from London. The Member berated me at one stage for not going away and setting that Budget. I do not know the time frame for a Budget, nor do I know the amount that I will have, so it would be quite irresponsible of me to start to set a Budget now. That is why we have pressed the Treasury for information about the comprehensive spending review. That will dictate how much money we will have and over what time frame we will have it. <BR /> <BR />As soon as we have that information, we can start to set the Budget and consult on it. That is the time to have that debate when all the Members who have ideas about what should be in that Budget can have their say about what we should be spending our money on.”
“There are two exercises at play and there is an overlap between them. That is just the way that this year has gone. In a normal year, all the action would be in the monitoring rounds because that is when Departments bid for any money that is surrendered. We have also had injections of COVID money that have come across from London, so we are trying to manage both things. The bids are in for the October monitoring round, but there is also COVID money to be allocated, so it will be seen in the totality of all those bids. Of course, when it comes to an allocation, we produce the chart when we make a statement — the Executive agree it — about the money that was bid for and the money that was allocated. Members will be able to see that chart at that time.”
“I have asked people, such as his colleague in the Department for the Economy and other Ministers, to bring forward propositions to spend that money as quickly as we possibly can. We recognise, having talked to businesses and dealt with them, that, as well as the key issue of supporting wages, which is about keeping workers in jobs, businesses need cash to keep them afloat. That is what we have been trying to do.”
“Of course, and it is up to the Member whether he votes against the Budget (No. 3) Bill, as can Mr Wells if he wishes to do so. However, he must bear in mind that we brought the Budget (No. 2) Bill through since March, so we have been trying to manage the situation. Of course, these are unprecedented times, but the Member argued that there is no money for this or that in the Budget. We have given more money in business support than has ever been given out by an Executive in the history of this place, and it is all in this Budget. <BR /> <BR />More money has now been allocated for business support. It might not be enough as far as the Member is concerned, but we have more money allocated and we have more money to allocate.”
“3) Bill and where the money is; it is in the Bill and he should read it. He has misunderstood the Bill, because the money that we agreed, which he voted for last March, is in the Bill, and the money that we received for COVID is also in it. We have allocated more money to businesses this year than probably ever in the history of the Executive.”
“However, we also want flexible arrangements, which is why we have been looking at regional hubs so that civil servants can work there. That is more accommodating to their lives, and it also reduces their carbon footprint and the need for transport in and out of Belfast, as many of them work there every day. That will help us to deal with some of the problems that arise in that regard. <BR /> <BR />I have already said that I am not sure where Mr Frew gets his information that we are not spending the COVID money. We are spending that money, and the plan is to spend it all out. We now have figures from Health about the largest chunk that is left. We have had an additional £200 million and we need economic intervention. Economic interventions are in this Budget. The Member kept asking about the Budget (No.”
“<BR /> <BR />It is a matter of prioritisation. I do not go into the Department for Infrastructure, nor would anyone there expect me to, to dictate how that money is spent. I also recently allocated an additional £15 million in capital that has enabled Northern Ireland Water to bring forward investment in sewerage infrastructure, including a number of waste water treatment works, this year. Of course, I will meet the Infrastructure Minister in the near future to talk about budgetary requirements for next year. <BR /> <BR />I assure him that we are tracking the location of jobs. The estate that is needed by the Civil Service has reduced and will probably continue to reduce as a consequence of COVID and of more people working from home.”
“Of course, he went on to recognise that the Budget was the same one that he voted for and agreed in March and that had been set in train before the Executive came back and needed approval within a number of weeks of their coming back. <BR /> <BR />In relation to investment in infrastructure, I assure the Member that the Department for Infrastructure has received its biggest capital budget so far this year. It is up to the Department and the Minister to prioritise that capital budget. I do not disagree about the need for capital investment in water and sewerage infrastructure, but, of course, that is a decision for her. The Department has a capital budget of £558 million, which is by far the largest capital budget of any Department and represents more than 36% of the Executive's total capital budget.”
“He waxed on about the welfare mitigations and threatened that the Minister should not expect accelerated passage to be accepted. The first Welfare Reform Bill that came through here was brought in by his party colleague Margaret Ritchie, and she asked the Assembly for accelerated passage to bring it through. I remember, because I was part of the negotiations on welfare mitigations between five parties, and it was us that held out for the welfare mitigation package. Sometimes people like him operate on the basis that if something happened more than a week ago, the public will not remember it, but, thankfully, I have been around here long enough to remember all that. <BR /> <BR />He criticised the Budget for not having a housing plan.”
“<BR /> <BR />Kellie Armstrong asked about the labour intervention. The Executive were unable to meet the bid from the Department for Communities for £4·8 million for labour market interventions due to needs from other COVID pressures that presented at the time. The Department for Communities has funded the initial pressure internally in the short term and is open to bid again in-year and as part of the forthcoming budgeting exercise. <BR /> <BR />In relation to Mark Durkan's contribution, one of the benefits of being about here long enough — I have been here since 1998 — is being able to remember the positions that parties have taken over the years. One of the downsides is that, over time, one loses tolerance for listening to them.”
“We cannot set aside the impact of that. <BR /> <BR />Some Members, including Kellie Armstrong — I see that she is not with us — and Jonathan Buckley raised the issue of underspends by Departments. Mr Wells made point that I was going to make: monitoring rounds are a necessary process. If we did not have them, we would be rigidly fixed in our budgetary spend to what we agree at the start of the financial year. For a variety of reasons, some projects do not go ahead as planned, and some budgets are allocated on the basis of anticipated spend and some on on-demand spend that may not materialise. We have to have the ability to reshuffle money as the year goes on, and the objective is to make sure that we spend out, against our own agreed priorities, that money before the end of the year.”
“Many points were raised about education, with Robin Newton raising a number. I understand his passion for the subject and do not doubt his sincerity, but I know that he will recognise that 10 years of austerity Budgets mean that schools are in the red with their budgets and that classroom assistants are being paid a pittance on part-time contracts for doing vital work. Those, along with the special educational needs (SEN) budget, which we increased this year, were low-hanging fruit and were the first areas to be hit by austerity. The impact of that cannot be overestimated in the context of the ongoing situation. I agree with him about the value and importance of education for young people. It is not just about the three Rs, as he said; it is about the sense of worth and of having a chance in society that education can provide.”
“I think that it will inevitably cause people to lose their jobs, and that is a concern for us. She also asked, again, as did many Members, about the sectors that have been left out. As I have said, the £55 million was set aside some months ago by me in a proposition to the Executive to allow space and time for those schemes to be brought forward. It is a matter of regret that some of them have not been brought forward. Again, I encourage Ministers to get down quickly to providing some support there.”
“That is a matter of concern for us all. <BR /> <BR />Robin Newton mentioned EU funding for education programmes. That funding was supposed to be replaced under the shared prosperity fund, but we have yet to receive any clear detail about that. <BR /> <BR />Caoimhe Archibald asked about the Treasury engagement for the job support scheme. We have rehearsed that many times here. Initially, the job support scheme was not intended to provide any assistance, other than to those who were working for at least one third of their normal hours. That has been changed in recent times to recognise that the further restrictions require greater support. That is welcome. However, it is nowhere near the scheme that had been advanced with regard to job retention earlier in the year.”
“so it would hardly be fair to allow Members to raise points with me without allowing me to respond to them. <BR /> <BR />As I said, that debate has raged on in the DUP. I hope, for all our sakes, that some meeting of minds happens in that party, because the more clarity we have on the public message, the better for all of us. <BR /> <BR />Declan McAleer, who spoke on behalf the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, raised the issue of EU exit costs, and, of course, we have continued to press the Treasury to meet those in full, as they have committed to do. We have not yet had that confirmation, but we will continue to press for it. There are concerns about the future of farm payments, and I wrote recently to the Treasury to express my concern about how that is planned to be rolled out.”
“I am certainly happy to take your advice, a LeasCheann Comhairle. However, I am responding to the points that were raised after you gave latitude in the first instance,”
“It is not a clean or clear-cut process; it is one that requires speed of action and as much clarity as we can possibly bring to it.”
“First, if the Member wants context, he should ask his own Ministers, including his party leader, who brought the propositions for those decisions to the Executive. These things are done at pace. The rate of transmission, as he knows, was going through the roof, particularly in certain areas, but right across the North. <BR /> <BR />We got advice from the Department of Health that we needed to take action immediately. That did not allow people to figure out how to get all their ducks in a row, because the virus, by that stage, had spiralled further out of control, and people would say, "Why did you not take action sooner?". It is a balancing act between taking the necessary interventions and making sure that we have all the regulations lined up, with all their implications for all the various businesses.”
“We listen to advice, to discussion and to debate, and we take in what the medical experts tell us, what we know the impact will be on society and the economy, and then we take our decisions. There is a responsibility on all of us — not just on those of us who are in the Executive — to argue for those decisions if that is what our parties have backed. If people have a different view in their party, that is a matter for their party discipline.”
“They are brought forward by the Health Department and are transposed by the First Minister and deputy First Minister into a paper for the Executive. We do not come to the Executive with propositions about the length of time of restrictions, the severity of measures or what is required to reduce the R number. Those are brought forward to us. <BR /> <BR />That mischaracterisation has gone on for over a week, and I will take this opportunity to clear up the matter, as it was repeated in some media outlets as well, as it was briefed last Monday. We did not, and do not, propose for any longer restrictions because we do not bring propositions to the Executive.”
“<BR /> <BR />Mr Givan went on — Mr Frew raised similar points yesterday and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Mr Buckley raised them today — to challenge the decisions that were taken by the Executive in relation to the interventions that were necessary for next week. I am not getting into that. Arguably, from a benign point of view, that debate is within the DUP. Others might categorise what is going on within the DUP in relation to these measures much more stridently. He said that members of the Executive had wanted to close schools for six weeks. That is not true. Apart from the Health Minister and the First Minister and deputy First Minister, Executive Ministers do not bring proposals to the Executive about restrictions.”
“<BR /> <BR />Mr Givan raised a variety of points, but one question that he asked was about money that had been returned by the Health Department. It returned £2·5 million of capital funding for the mother and children's hospital flagship project. It also returned £6·3 million of resource in the October monitoring round because of a reduction in the Agenda for Change pay pressures. It is not that Health was unable to spend the money, but it is a fact that sometimes either projects do not cost as much as originally thought or money that was anticipated for things such as the Agenda for Change is not used.”
“That often does not lead to the best spending when we are in an annual Budget system and Departments are forced into trying to spend money because it is a bigger sin to hand it back than spend it on something that, perhaps, is not so strategically important. However, that is the situation that we are in until such times as the comprehensive spending review allows us to move into a multi-annual budgetary situation and plan that better. That is why we have asked for carry-over flexibility if we end up not spending all the money. From my time as the Minister for Regional Development, I know that Roads Service was always ready to spend all the unspent money in January, February and March on road improvements. That was welcome and needed, but it is not a strategic way to spend our money. Of course, we want to make sure in relation to that.”
“That is why we gave Health the time to have a proper look at that £600 million that was available to it and to make sure that it could bring forward properly costed proposals and understood the time frame in which the money had to be spent. That was clearly my intention. In the middle of all that, we have had monitoring rounds for the ongoing allocations to Departments outside of COVID. The October monitoring round will be brought forward very quickly, and we will have a further monitoring round in January. <BR /> <BR />I am not sure if it was Mr Wells who said that the biggest sin is to return money at the end of the financial year, but I agree with that.”
“Of course. I have said that repeatedly, and I have said that I want to see that at recent Executive meetings. I have listened to all the arguments about "Our Minister is good" and "Your Minister is bad". That stuff does not get us anywhere. I want to see projects delivered. People have now decided who is responsible for what, and I have asked them to bring propositions to me as quickly as possible. Of course, I have also asked that they bring propositions to me for the additional £200 million, which we received only last Friday. <BR /> <BR />I recognise that the COVID money that we have received — the £2·4 billion — has to be spent in this financial year.”