Jim Allister’s speech in the Budget Debate
15 February 2012
I think every Finance Minister likes to be thought of as a magician. Yesterday, after the First Stage of the Budget Bill, the Deputy Speaker solemnly announced that the Bill would then be printed. When I made my way from here to my pigeonhole on the second floor, there it was, just waiting for me, magically printed, and here we are, just a few hours later, expected to debate it.
When I picked up the Bill and began to look at it, the first thing that struck me when I read figures like £15 billion and £16 billion is how glad I am that we are part of the United Kingdom. Where would we get £15 billion or £16 billion to run our hospitals and our schools, to pay for roads and to waste the money that we waste if we were not within the United Kingdom? When I think of some in this House who have a vision of taking us to another place — a bankrupt place — I really ponder where the £15 billion or £16 billion would ever be conjured up from. It would take a very green, magical magician to conjure up that sort of money.
Of course, the reality is that we can only have the level of spend that will be endorsed in this Budget because we are fortunate enough to be part of the United Kingdom. If others had their way, they would take us to a Greek-style crisis, such as we are seeing elsewhere in Europe. Therefore, we should reflect that when we talk about the Budget Bill, we are talking about something that goes to the core of the exercise of our citizenship, and given the extent of the deficit between what we raise and what we spend, the constitutional reality of Northern Ireland is something to be cherished and valued. It does not just mean that we have a rich heritage and are part of a great nation. It means that the Government have money in their pocket to spend. If we were not part of that arrangement, we would not be talking about £15 billion or £16 billion. We would be talking about scraping by on whatever could be raised locally and with a lot less provision in our community — all of our community.
The people who speak the most about wanting to change the constitutional attachment of Northern Ireland should think of their constituencies and ask what their constituency of West Belfast or West Tyrone could raise in comparison with what it spends. When they answer that question, it will be time enough to talk about constitutional change, because the reality is that they could never raise a fraction of what we spend and get in the United Kingdom.
The Budget Bill sets parameters in a very general sense for what each Department can spend, and one of my complaints yesterday, which I will repeat, is that there is only a one-line figure in the Budget Bill, and you do not know the breakdown. Therefore, there is no certainty as to where money is coming from and where it is going. However, it struck me that, within the limitations of the Budget Bill — although it gives some figures — the announcement today already, for this and future Budgets, takes us outside the parameters of what is provided for. In the A5 announcement, the Minister told us that in year 3, I think, he will be £185 million short, and, at this moment, he does not know where he is going to get it from. Yesterday, I heard that same Minister chiding the SDLP about where it will raise the extra money to do the things that it wants to do.
We were told this morning that that project was a job-creation project, but, less than a year ago, the same Minister told the House that it was not a job-rich project. Last March, the Minister had one of the many exchanges he seems to have with Ms Ritchie. On 1 March last year, during the Final Stage of the Budget Bill, the Minister said something that must have been relevant and admissible then. I suggest that it is equally relevant and admissible at the Second Stage of the Budget Bill this year. He said:
“in the last debate on the Bill, her party was vociferous in its support for one of the biggest capital spending projects in the Budget, namely the A5. Believe me, that project is not job rich, because most of the money will go on buying land, and the rest will go on a capital intensive project.” — [Official Report, Bound Volume 62, p380, col2].
The point that I am making is that in terms of wise spend and in spending money to try to match and track the deficit in jobs, it is right and necessary that we maximise that spend to maximise job return. I am making the point that, today, the Minister has promoted a project, which he knows is not job rich, despite what he said today. How does that fit under the Budget, with the Programme for Government and with the intention to make job creation our top priority?
Of course, there is much more about the A5 project that, perhaps, will be surprising. I asked a question this morning, and I still await an answer. Due process involves an inquiry. In previous answers, the Minister said that he cannot make decisions until he has an inquiry outcome. Due process requires a business case. Has a business case for these two aspects of the A5 project been given to DFP? Has it been approved? When was it approved?
I make those points because if we are talking in all seriousness about a Budget that is setting parameters, limits and the direction of travel, we are espousing the principles of proceeding by due process. However, when it suits, it seems that due process is an expendable commodity; it is not something that we really have to hold to if political opportunism makes a better offer. That, I think, is one of the problems in respect of setting budgetary arrangements, which are then breached in terms of the arrangements that they are meant to set.
I looked to see how DETI is fairing in the Budget, and I discovered that Invest NI has, perhaps for many years, had something of a misfocus with regard to its preoccupation with the glamour of foreign direct investment and ignored too much the reality that so many of our people depend on jobs provided by local entrepreneurs — small businesses that might grow into medium-sized businesses.
Mr Storey: I thank the Member for giving way. If he had been paying attention to what was happening in his constituency, he would know that as the result of the intervention of Invest Northern Ireland, a local engineering company in Ballymoney has employed more people and secured more contracts. If —
Mr Speaker: Let us have all remarks through the Chair.
Mr Storey: Mr Speaker, if the Member paid attention to local issues, he would discover that that company in Ballymoney is glad that Invest NI exists.
Mr Allister: I am perfectly aware of the situation. Moreover, in my own small way, I have brought some jobs to Ballymoney by recently opening a new advice centre. I am sure that the Member is welcoming of that as well. If he wants to talk about Invest NI and North Antrim, I will be very glad to do so. The sad reality, confirmed by answers to questions, is that, in five years of devolution, two foreign investors have been brought to North Antrim by Invest NI. Since 2007 — the first four years of devolution and Invest NI — when the Member was in this House, not a single foreign investor had been brought to visit North Antrim. I am more than sure of my facts about North Antrim: we have had abysmal neglect by Invest NI in attracting foreign direct investment.
Yes, Invest NI has been very good at spending money on hospitality: £2 million in the past five years, and I am sure that there is money in here for that as well. It has been very good at directing bonuses to its chief executive but not so good at looking after the on-the-ground requirements of North Antrim.
As the Member engages me on issues pertaining to that, he drives me on to deal with the issue of education. Education is, of course, provided for in this Budget. We do not know a great deal of the detail of the spend, but we anticipate that some will go to ESA in due course; something that the honourable Member Mr Storey, not so long ago, told us had gone and was not coming back. Well, we know that it is coming back, courtesy of the deal that he and Sinn Féin have done. He used to brand ESA as bureaucratic and an invention to satisfy the control freakery of the Sinn Féin Department. Now, in due course, he will rise to support and vote for a Bill to bring back that which he said would never come back, but then the honourable Member is a past master at abandoning that for which he previously stood.
I certainly do not endorse ESA, nor do I welcome the fact that, within the Budget, it shall be —
Mr Storey: I ask the Member to check the comment of a member, or former member, of his party Terry Williams — I am not sure which, because the members of his party keep coming and going. What was it that he said at the Member’s party conference in some room, somewhere? I ask him to check what Terry Williams said about ESA —
Mr Speaker: Order. Let us not get into a debate about party conferences. Please let us not go down that road, even in interventions. Let us try at least to keep to the subject. Once again, I remind the whole House and the Member to try to get back to the Budget.
Mr Allister: I will take your advice, because we could end up at GAA matches or anything, Mr Speaker, if we were to go down that road. Maybe some will, and the honourable Member may be next to follow in that regard.
I regard certain things as being absent from the Budget, and I regret that. We are approaching what will be a remarkable event in the lives of most of us: Her Majesty will celebrate 60 years on the throne, which is a truly incredible achievement. Yet neither in the Programme for Government nor the Budget does one penny appear to have been allocated to celebrate that momentous occasion. Not one penny, it would seem, has been allocated to give our schoolchildren a memento of that occasion. Not one penny, the Culture Minister has already confirmed, of additional funding will help communities to celebrate that momentous occasion. That is, from my perspective, not only hugely regrettable, but a slight, which I, for one, resent. We should be prepared to put that right. It is quite amazing that, in this year of all years, when we have the diamond jubilee, there is not a penny to give our children a memento or to help communities to celebrate, but there is money — “loadsamoney” — for hospitality, spin doctors and all that. In that small but important measure, we have very much got our priorities wrong.
The Ulster covenant will be celebrated this year. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Ulster covenant, there was a public holiday in Northern Ireland. This year, the covenant has its 100th anniversary, and if the House gets it way, it will be barely mentioned because there is nothing in the Budget to afford funding to celebrate that momentous occasion, which was the big building block in the creation of this state.
I make those points to draw attention to the defects in the Bill. I am sure that there is much more that I could say. I regret the fact that, under the Budget, money will be rolled out for the Maze project, which will be blighted by building on the site of the prison to incorporate the divisive prison buildings. We need a conflict resolution centre. Why do we want to build it where it will be blighted and divisive? Let us build it where there is no baggage to bring that bite to it. However, under the Budget, that is exactly what we will see.
I make those few points, and there will be other opportunities to make further points.
