PMS bombshell - Executive intends to pocket Treasury's £25m donation

10 February 2011

Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:-

“A Written Answer by DFP Minister, Sammy Wilson, in the Assembly, just released, contains a bombshell on the PMS saga, and something which exposes grasping intrigue by the Executive of appalling proportions.

“It now appears from the Minister’s answer that though Westminster is contributing £25m to the Mutual Access Fund and the Treasury does not require it to be repaid at any time, the Stormont Executive will demand not only that the matching £25m which it is putting in will have to be repaid out of the realised assets of PMS, before savers get any balance monies still due, but, also, that the Executive will then pocket Westminster’s £25m, because it too will be recovered from the assets, but not paid back to Westminster.

“I am appalled and disgusted if this is the grasping intent of the Stormont Executive.  

“On 17 January 2011 in the House of Lords, Lord Sassoon, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, in answer to Lord Ken Maginnis said:-

The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon): The proposal put forward by, and agreed with, the Northern Ireland Executive (NIE), was that the £25 million from HM Government (which will not be repaid) is to be matched by an equal contribution from the NIE. This enables the NIE to bring forward its own plans to address the needs of Presbyterian Mutual Society members.

“Given the contradictory indications from Stormont Sammy Wilson, in a Question from Danny Kinahan MLA, was asked to reconcile Lord Sassoon’s answer with his stance in an earlier answer AQW 3339/11. In today’s reply he says:-

“….the answer to AQW 3339/11 indicated that the proposed solution includes the requirement for the Mutual Access Fund contribution to be repaid from any available surplus at the end of the ten year loan workout period….
This answer is consistent with Lord Sassoon’s response to HL5586. This indicates that the Northern Ireland Executive is not required to repay HMT’s £25 million contribution, not that the Mutual Access Fund is not to be repaid.”

“So, whereas Minister Wilson is now conceding that the Treasury’s £25m does not have to be repaid to London, he appears to be saying it will be repaid, as part of the Mutual Access Fund, from the assets, but repaid to whom? The answer must be to the NI Executive.  So, though it never was their money they are going to be enriched by it once the Mutual Access Fund is repaid from the assets, and that in advance of paying out any balance monies due to the savers!   (And, what about the money put up by the Presbyterian Church, is the Executive going to grab it too when the Mutual Access Fund is repaid?)

“This is highway robbery by the Executive. A grotesque money grab from savers, who may well go short because Stormont insists on having back £25m that they never put in. This is Treasury money, but Stormont is going to hijack it.

“So, when you distil everything down, what is Stormont actually going to do for the PMS savers – lend £175m to the administrator, which must be repaid with commercial interest when the assets are realised, put in £25m of their own money into the Mutual Access Fund, which also has to be repaid, but also they intend to take back £25m they never put up, namely the £25m from Treasury, and all that before any balance monies are repaid to the hard-pressed savers. And, this is supposed to be the ‘just and fair’ settlement promised by Stormont? It’s a greedy cash raid at savers expense.

“I am, therefore, calling on the Executive to immediately retreat from this avaricious stance and desist from trying to pocket money that was never theirs.”

General