Edwin Poots
South Belfast · Democratic Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I call Mr Eóin Tennyson. Again, this is Mr Tennyson's first opportunity to speak as a private Member, so I remind the House that it is convention that a maiden speech be made without interruption. However, if you choose to express views that provoke an interruption, you are likely to forfeit that protection.”
“Sorry — Ms Armstrong. My apologies. <BR /> <BR />That the Assembly could, in some way, get that money out when it is a UK Government responsibility. The UK Government have distributed it directly in Scotland and Wales, not through the Welsh Parliament and not through the Scottish Parliament.”
“I have not got time; I am sorry. <BR /> <BR />Ursula von der Leyen, who was in the Republic last week, made some of the most ridiculous claims about the British Government, who have supported Ukraine in a way that no other Government in Europe have and who have never engaged in the activity that was suggested by Ursula von der Leyen.”
“Today, a lot of statements have been made but there has not been a lot of fact behind a lot of what has been said. We have Michelle O'Neill, who walked out of her role as Health Minister — not for six months but for three years — and abandoned her position when we had Bengoa and there were all the problems with nursing that led to the str…”
“I need to deal with the issues first. <BR /> <BR />He referred to the Budget that he produced. No party supported that Budget. The Alliance Party did not support it, because it did not cover policing and prisons. Infrastructure did not support it, because it would not allow it to do the basics of what had to be done.”
“We had a circumstance where Sinn Féin repeated, month after month after month, that there were hundreds of millions to give to the public when that did not exist and when, in reality, Minister Murphy was racking up debt that will roll into next year, which will ensure that that will be a difficult financial year.”
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“Yes, I will give way in a moment. The chickens thrived better in the drier heat produced by the woodchip boilers than that produced by gas boilers. The gas boilers are on also. They are not part of the scheme, by the way, before we get new accusations flying about. Very often, woodchip boilers do not bring the heat in the house up to a high enough temperature. So, for people who think that heat was being generated just to be blasted out the doors, that is not the case; the heat was being generated and was being augmented by the old gas systems when those chicks were in their early stages.”
“<BR /> <BR />Moy Park encouraged its growers to do it. What really bugs me, particularly on social media, is that people do not seem to realise that day-old chickens need considerable amounts of heat, and for quite a long period afterwards. Woodchip boilers provided that heat from non-fossil fuels, and that was beneficial. Moy Park encouraged farmers to install them because the chickens —”
“Those Members who choose to go through the Lobbies and do something different are saying, "Roll on. Keep spending the money. We will make plenty of noise and plenty of protest and seek to get as much publicity as possible over this issue. Let us get as angry as possible, but we are quite happy for it to go up in smoke because then we can continue to blame the DUP for what is going on". So, let us see the colour of your money. If you are for real, you will do the right thing and vote for the proposals today. I know that the proposals will hurt people who have installed boilers. People who installed woodchip boilers are not criminals, rogues, thieves, murderers or a whole lot of other things; most are just involved in a business that needed heat and, therefore, they looked at this option and did it.”
“I believe that there are significant inadequacies, that people got it wrong and that the scheme as devised is clearly flawed. All of those issues are out there, but I do not believe and have not seen evidence that this involves political corruption. I do not think that that case can stand. Nonetheless, let us have the public inquiry, and let us have its findings as quickly as possible. I do not like and would resist a long public inquiry, as might be proposed. I would much prefer a very rapid inquiry: one that has all the papers, witnesses and everything else that you can have at a public inquiry, but one that also gets answers for the public quickly. <BR /> <BR />We find ourselves in this circumstance today, and we will see the colour of Members' money.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and apologies for moving around. <BR /> <BR />A number of years ago, of course, nobody imagined that we would be leaving the European Union, which has set us very stringent targets for the use of renewable energy. Therefore, the concept of a renewable heat initiative, using woodchip instead of fossil fuels, was a good one. When the uptake was slow, many did not anticipate that there would be a spike at some stage. The spike happened only after a Minister in the Westminster Government announced that they were to withdraw funding from wind energy. Nonetheless, the spike happened, and we are now in the circumstance that we are in, and something needs to be done. <BR /> <BR />There has been a whole series of efforts to try to make it appear that this is hugely corrupt. I do not believe that that is the case.”
“I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this issue. Much has been said about RHI over a number of months, but there has been very little action. Now is the opportunity for Members to take action to do something about it and to ensure that the £490 million that the BBC claimed had gone up in smoke does not go up in smoke and that public resources are used for other purposes. At the same time, that would give us time to come forward with a more comprehensive package to deal appropriately and adequately with the issues of concern that have rightly been raised on the overspend. <BR /> <BR />The concept of RHI is a very important one because, as of today, we are still members of the European Union.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Member for giving way. If he cares to look back on any of the communication from Peter Robinson around the period of him stepping down, he will see that that was not for investigation but because he wished to spend time with his family, who were going through extremely difficult circumstances. There seems to be a lot of confusion about that, and it appears to me that, if you keep pumping out a message, even though it is the wrong message, it appears eventually to be the truth when, in actual fact, it is not.”
“I want the people who carry out the likes of the shooting last night to be marginalised, sidelined and incarcerated and to serve very long sentences for what they do, not given the opportunity to go out to carry out more of this in the name of Ireland or of any other cause.”
“We are now in a similar circumstance in Northern Ireland, where, perhaps, others have greater problems, but the question that has to be posed is this: are we going to back or are we going to go forward? Instability creates vacuums, and evil people step into those vacuums. I think that it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to commit ourselves to ensuring that we, for all the problems and wrongs of Stormont, continue to provide stability and leadership and continue to be there for the people of Northern Ireland, because we have had the awful, horrible, bloody past that I have had to grow up in, and I do not want my children or grandchildren to grow up in that environment.”
“We took the decision to do so because we did not want to go back; we wanted to go forward.”
“Last night was a stark reminder of what many of us grew up with in this country and what many of us heard all the time in news reports: murders and attempted murders. First, I wish the police officer well in his recovery; we are thankful that his injuries are not life-threatening. <BR /> <BR />This has not been a success for those who set out last night. Success for them means the same outcome as happened with Constable Carroll, David Black and Adrian Ismay and, indeed, civilians who have been targeted by the same individuals. What stands as a stark reminder to us all is that, this time 10 years ago, we were discussing with our members and the wider public the outcome of the St Andrews negotiations and whether we should proceed into government with Sinn Féin, which was a hugely difficult decision for us.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. As I indicated in the speech I made four weeks ago, the Saville-type or Chilcot-type inquiry is not in anybody's interest. If you go back to how I dealt with pseudomonas, for example, you will see that we had an inquiry done and dusted in a matter of months, whereas the hyponatraemia inquiry, which the Member rightly asked a question about, has cost £15 million and, seven years later, has not delivered the answers. That is not the way forward. We want the truth.”
“I do not want a public inquiry of the nature of Chilcot or of the nature of Saville, and I explained that in the last speech that I made on the issue. We are happy for a full public investigation to be led by a judge. We want it done quickly, and I would love to have the information out before an election and stop all of this "He said, she said" trial by media and the hate campaign being imposed on us by the other politicians against Arlene Foster because she is much too successful a politician for their liking. She is far too popular with the public, so let us damn Arlene Foster and get rid of her because she is much too great a politician for you to contend with.”
“I am happy to have that clarification. That is not an issue. <BR /> <BR />We are happy for a public inquiry to take place because, with all of this "He said, she said" —”
“The Member gets back to this "Get rid of Arlene" campaign. Ofgem did not see it, the officials did not see it, the specialist consultants did not see it and the Committee, which had Alliance members, did not see it. Nobody saw it, but Arlene Foster has to take the hit on it all. Arlene Foster brought in tens of thousands of jobs as ETI Minister. She was a hugely successful ETI Minister and has been a hugely successful First Minister. The hate campaign brought about by all of the other Members here needs to stop. They need to stop the hate campaign against Arlene Foster.”
“It is absolutely true that Amber Rudd moved early and that that created all sorts of issues and problems. There were issues about wind energy as well that we had to close early. Had that not been the case — I know that Mr Frew worked hard to ensure that it was not the case, as indeed did Mr McGlone — we would have been in a worse position.”
“Northern Ireland had the second-highest success rate in bringing in inward investment in the United Kingdom. The only place beating us was the south-east of England. Every other region in the United Kingdom was trailing in the wake of Northern Ireland when Arlene Foster was ETI Minister and was out there bringing jobs back to Northern Ireland, yet Members are fixated with a hate campaign against her.”
“Yes, I would, and the entire Executive for that matter and the SpAds who were involved. Everybody has culpability in this. However, this is what I am coming to: the motion targets one individual — the First Minister, who was Arlene Foster. Arlene Foster did not devise the scheme. She was presented with it. She did not ask for it to be changed by civil servants so that it was different from the UK one. She was presented with a scheme and told, "This is the best way forward for Northern Ireland". She accepted the advice of the energy division, which devised it after input from all the specialist consultants and Ofgem. Here we have a fixation with a hate campaign against Arlene Foster. I say clearly that Arlene Foster brought in tens of thousands of jobs, in conjunction with Invest NI, to Northern Ireland during her period as ETI Minister.”
“I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the issue. There are a lot of people who have culpability: two ETI Ministers; the officials who drafted the scheme; the specialist consultants who were brought in; Ofgem; and the Assembly Committee that oversaw it. Everybody — everybody — has culpability in this. We owe the public an apology for devising a scheme that was not fit for purpose. An important message that needs to be got out there is this: we devised a scheme that was not fit for purpose, we regret that and we need to fix it. That should be the focus of the Assembly and everyone in it. We need to rectify the mistake and move on.”
“— the biased broadcasting corporation as opposed to Members who have been weak and inept.”
“I will take Mr Kennedy's word for that, but I do recall that, when he was in office, the lights were off even though someone was at home. We can all castigate various parties. The truth is that today has been unbefitting of the House. We have had walkouts, temper tantrums, grandstanding and all of those things. That does not add anything to the House. In fact, the opposition has come from —”
“I think that everybody in the House knows the issues of collective responsibility. Where you have those cross-departmental issues, those kick into place. I can assure the Member that, as a Minister, I made the decisions and no SpAds made the decisions for me. I hope that, when Mr Kennedy was a Minister, no SpAds made decisions for him. That is just a fact of life. I made the decisions. I stood over my decisions, which were sometimes right and, on the odd occasion, wrong.”
“No, I will not give way. I do not have time. We have not heard those answers. The truth is that hyponatremia issues have been dealt with by all the health services responsible to ensure that the mistakes that happened then are not repeated. Let us be very clear: we do not need to get into a process that lasts seven or eight years to seek answers or to spend tens of millions to identify the answers, so we will not be going down that route. You can jeer all you like, but that is just not on the table. I will give way now.”
“Thirteen million pounds. Let us hear it again: £13 million to get the answers on hyponatremia. That was asked for something like eight years ago, and we have still not heard those answers.”
“I will tell you why there will not be a public inquiry. When I took on the office of Health, I was informed that Minister McGimpsey had asked for a public inquiry on hyponatremia. Mr Allister, who has just jeered me, asked a question the other day about how much that has cost so far. I think that the answer was around £15 million.”
“Mrs Foster has done her job in an exceptional way in all the positions that she has held. She has been a superb First Minister. I find it absolutely amazing that, when we actually have a woman First Minister, so many women want to drum her out of office. That is a disgraceful action on the part of those Members. Mrs Foster has done an exceptional job as the First Minister, and we will be backing her. She will not be going anywhere. She will not be stepping aside. Get the message, folks: she will not be stepping aside. Also get the message in relation to the reviews of this: there will not be a public inquiry; there will be an open and transparent inquiry.”
“Here we have the First Minister, who has come before the House, and there is no evidence whatsoever against her at this point, but we have a demand that she stands down, moves away and cannot do her job. <BR /> <BR />Let us go through the proper way of doing things, which we have grown up with in this United Kingdom — the British way of doing things. That is, that people are found innocent until proven otherwise.”
“The SDLP, the Ulster Unionists and Alliance would all have put that bill of over £400 million up further, because they pressed for the scheme to be kept open for longer. <BR /> <BR />What we have today are the actions of a lynch mob.”
“Mr Allister would have cost us more money, as would all of the opposition parties that spoke today.”
“He has had his opportunity and berated everyone, so he can listen for a moment or two instead of trying to talk over the top of people, because he is not going to succeed.”
“If Mr Allister had stayed in the Chamber as opposed to trotting out at the back of the flock like a little sheep, he would have heard what the First Minister had to say. The First Minister said that she was sorry that the initial scheme did not contain cost control measures, that there were fundamental flaws in its design, that it was the deepest political regret of her time in the House and that, as Minister, she accepted responsibility for the work of the Department during her time at DETI. <BR /> <BR />At least the First Minister is taking responsibility. Mr Allister, on the other hand, whenever it came to voting on this scheme, pushed and pressed that it was kept open until the end of March —”
“— than it was to loyalist areas. It is funny that, when it is money coming to loyalist areas — I am proud to be a loyalist by the way: loyal to the Queen and loyal to my country — the Alliance Party is complaining.”
“Instead of targeting it because of one individual making a stupid comment, let us look at the good that is coming out of it. The same people did not have anything to say when, through neighbourhood renewal and all sorts of things, ex-prisoners' groups were getting the money, which was going to republican areas six or seven times more —”
“Money from SIF is going into speech therapy, having been channelled through Resurgam. Resurgam could have kept the money, but it is being channelled through the schools. As a consequence, those children are coming to school ready and able to take on the lessons. They will not form the educational tail that there has been in deprived working-class loyalist areas very often. I commend those kinds of initiatives. <BR /> <BR />Today, we have heard politicians from all over — Mr Kennedy and others — talk about the great projects that have been happening yet say that it is a terrible fund that is delivering them. The truth is that this is a hypocritical motion from a hypocritical party. SIF is doing great work. It is doing wonderful work. I want to see it going forward.”
“She would have seen buildings being put up in deprived communities that are making a tangible difference. Mr Lunn knows what is going on in the Lisburn community. He knows the benefit. When there is something taking place in Resurgam, Alliance Party councillors are tripping over themselves to get into photographs and everything else to be associated with it, but Mrs Long decided to pull out. <BR /> <BR />Let me tell you about one of the key initiatives that is happening in Lisburn, and that is the early years initiative. I commend it to every constituency in Northern Ireland. We identified a serious problem with the educational tail, where young people were not achieving at the higher end, and those young people are now being targeted at nursery and in early primary years.”
“They were in the meetings commending them — commending Mr Stitt for his wonderful work — and here they are today, complaining because of one stupid, flippant remark. <BR /> <BR />Let me be very clear: the work that is being done by the communities is excellent work. Mrs Long, at the invitation of her Alliance Party councillors, was to come to Lisburn last week and see the work that is going on with the Resurgam initiative, but, on the very day that she was to come, she cancelled, claiming that she had a conflict of interest because she was going to be participating in today's debate, wherever she is. How is it a conflict of interest to come and see what is happening on the ground? If she had bothered to come and see what is happening on the ground, she would have seen initiatives that involve youth work.”
“In attendance were none other than David Stitt and Robert Scott, and those members were congratulated on the informative presentation on the progress of the Kilcooley Sports Forum project business plan. <BR /> <BR />That was a meeting chaired by the Alliance Party. Also in attendance was one Councillor Muir. He seemed to pay a lot of attention to these things, because he was in attendance at another meeting when it was discussed, on 7 October 2014. Again, Councillor Wilson was there. He attended a further meeting, on 14 October 2015, which was chaired by none other than Councillor Armstrong, who, I think, is the same Kellie Armstrong who is now in this Assembly. <BR /> <BR />Here we have the Alliance Party, taking a full part in the process and giving the money to an organisation headed up by Mr Stitt, and they did not have an issue.”
“I do not stand here today to defend the social investment fund; I stand here today to commend it. I hope that the Executive Office has the will to do a SIF2 because SIF has been doing wonderful work out there. <BR /> <BR />It has been targeted by a small number of people who have gone after one individual, who made a stupid and flippant remark, which means that everybody who has benefited from SIF is now the target of individuals in this Chamber who are acting out of political interests and not in the public interest in this instance. <BR /> <BR />I note all that the Alliance Party have been saying. I note that in North Down council, for example, Alderman Wilson, who is an Alliance person, chaired a SIF meeting on 7 May 2013.”
“I welcome the Minister's clarification. Una Crudden and Angels of Hope have done tremendous work on raising awareness of ovarian cancer, which is generally known as a silent killer. What importance does the Minister's place on ensuring that what was desired by the late Una Crudden, which is a campaign specific to ovarian cancer, happens? What is her position on that? Does she intend to have a full-blown ovarian cancer awareness campaign as opposed to integrating it with other cancers?”
“We are saying that £30 million seems excessive for equality and human rights.”
“If you are going to tell me where that money will come from, I would be happy to.”
“Where does the resource exist that you will feed to the quangolands and the people who are unaccountable and unelected? It is very interesting that that is a point Mr Attwood and his colleagues made.”
“That is correct, but, very often, there are people who should have been deemed appointable but do not get through the system. If you know all the buzzwords and get a bit of help writing up your application, it is much easier to get through. I am not convinced that the skills and abilities that lie with quangos do not also lie elsewhere. I just do not think that that stacks up. <BR /> <BR />Mr Attwood and his team go on to say that we need to put more finance into arm's-length bodies to establish "proper resourcing". What exactly does that mean? It means that we take money from somewhere else in government and give it to the quangos. He had 10 minutes to speak on this, and I never heard him say once where he was going to take that money from. Where does the money exist?”
“Thank you for giving me the extra minute. I pointed out that, very often, people who are very well qualified to sit on quangos do not get through the process and retired civil servants do. That is where the jobs for the boys comes from. Ministers do not get an option to pick individuals who are extremely well qualified because they have already been screened out.”
“The retired civil servant seemed to get recommendations, whereas the people more skilled to carry out the job had fewer recommendations. Many of us believe that, in quangoland, there is a fair degree of "jobs for the boys". Of course, certain parties were associated with that, and that may have led to Mr Attwood's stout defence of quangoland. Historically, the SDLP has not done badly out of quangos. The SDLP would be better withdrawing its amendment and supporting the motion. Mr Attwood's amendment goes on to say that we need to put more resources into quangos.”
“If the people do not like the decisions, the people can change the individuals who make them. We need to be very clear that quangos are not fit for purpose in a modern, democratic society. Quangos should be very limited and very technical, and particular skill bases can be applied to them. In the era that we live in, we do not need 100 quangos for a population of 1·8 million. I am fascinated by the SDLP wanting to defend them. <BR /> <BR />According to the SDLP, quangos have "technical and specialist capacity". I am not sure how the SDLP arrives at that conclusion. I looked at many of the applications from individuals to join quangos. It seemed that a huge surplus of people who have just retired from the Civil Service apply for quangos, and they seem to get through with far greater regularity than people who had far greater skills.”
“It has been an interesting debate thus far. I noted that Mr Atwood, when moving his amendment, did not speak to that amendment; he just criticised the motion. Maybe I will spend some time speaking to Mr Attwood's amendment in the absence of him attempting to do it. Mr Attwood's amendment is keen to recognise that the skills to make decisions lie with quangos as opposed to political bodies. As Mr Stalford pointed out, quangos came about largely as a result of direct rule. Those bodies were answerable to direct rule Ministers, but, in essence, they were able to do largely what they liked because the direct rule Ministers did not pay that much attention. Now that we have the Assembly, a bolstered local government system and an Executive, those are the people who should make the decisions on behalf of the people.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He raised a valid point about the Canadian system and so forth. Has the Member any thoughts on what George Eustice is talking about when he refers to having an insurance policy for farmers whereby there is a minimum price? When times are good, that is OK; when times are bad, we have a Government-backed insurance policy that ensures that prices never drop in the way that milk prices have dropped over the last two years?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Maybe the Speaker's Office will look at the number of points of order that have been coming in in recent times and the fictitious nature of huge numbers of them. In fact, for the vast majority of points of order, the Speaker is ruling that they are not a point of order. Perhaps that is a matter that needs to be addressed and —”
“There are regulations that require farmers to ask the Department for permission to clean out a drain, to cut down a tree that is more than six inches in diameter or to plough their fields at this time of the year. Does the Member honestly believe that those regulations are good and beneficial for the environment? Most farmers think that they are an absolute nonsense?”