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Budget (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

I join others in thanking the Minister for the way that he presented the order. We have expressed before concerns about the way that Northern Ireland is governed and I do so again in the short time available to us to discuss the budget. The Order in Council procedure was put in place as a brief interim arrangement, yet today it is still in force after more than 30 years. It allows governments not receiving or even inviting a single vote from the electors in Northern Ireland to impose their will on the views of those people. ““No taxation without representation”” was the cry of the American colonists, who were mostly also Scots. Northern Ireland does not lack representation in this or the other House but there is no place for an elected Member from Northern Ireland in any British government. That is a great contrast with Scotland in particular. I give an example which has already been mentioned. Currently the Government are inviting comment on the draft consultation order concerning education, which flies in the face of every recorded local opinion. At this point I would like to acknowledge yesterday’s announcement of £380 million for education capital projects. That is welcome news indeed. I have interests in several areas, one being Artigarvan. I was pleased to note that Artigarvan primary school is to be rebuilt at a cost of £2.5 million. I raised that issue in an earlier debate on the Northern Ireland Budget. Just in case there is any misunderstanding, I should point out that that capital funding was due and will have no effect on the debate on the future of education. In some places 30 pieces of silver may go far, but not in Ulster. The current debate is not about selection but about democracy. Disquiet about an unseemly rush to change is felt right across the community. For example, the Catholic Heads Association, representing 30 Roman Catholic grammar and secondary schools across Northern Ireland, has opposed the proposed changes as ““uncosted and untested””. It complains that no one has yet been able to judge the content or value of proposed new courses or the real cost of new courses when schools are currently undergoing stringent financial cutbacks. In relation to the ethos of schools, the CHA said that the proposed education order would begin a process of undertaking the powers of decision making and resting them with the individual schools. When the president of St Columb’s College in Londonderry, the alma mater of two living Nobel laureates, expresses such concern about an unseemly rush to adopt radical legislation, surely the Government realise the disquiet about the process. There is an unwillingness to listen to considered argument. These are not sectarian or political issues; they are issues about the democratic rights of citizens of the United Kingdom. I have to say that I am slightly concerned about the value of debates in Committee. In July last year, I raised the topic of the funding of festivals in Northern Ireland, particularly in Belfast. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said:"““I shall not brook any cover-up or any funny-money fiddle that has my name on the end of it. I shall always want such things looked at. At the same time, I am looking at it purely on the merits of the case regarding what the rules are. If this is public money, the public are entitled to track it down; the auditors are entitled to track it down and know what is what””.—[Official Report, 4/7/05; col. GC 47.]" The noble Lord will remember that he was talking about the interim funding that was used for West Belfast, Ardoyne, New Lodge and other areas. That was on 7 July. I have a document here, Ardoyne Irish Festival 2005, which was signed off on 29 July—some 22 days later. It was signed off by a gentleman in the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure and the Department for Social Development, for a grant of £72,000. The report is for 2005, but when you read it, it is the same report as for 2004. In fact, it is obviously the same report as for 2004 because the whole way through it the dates are for 2004. The problem with Northern Ireland is that it is a small part of the world and people talk to one another. The people who outlined the fact that they had used the 2004 report twice were actually the good activists in Ardoyne. Just think of it—we on the unionist side of the House cannot get money for our festivals and for funding our activities, and we meet people from Ardoyne who say, ““DCAL told us, ‘Send in the same report as last year and we will not read it. We might weigh it, but we will not read it’””. The same report was submitted, but the bright spark who sent it in did not even have the wit to change the dates. At least, in fairness to the people of New Lodge who sent exactly the same report in for 2005 as for 2004, they went through it and changed the dates. That was 22 days after the Minister told me that he would not stand any funny money and that nothing would be done in his name with funny money. Only 22 days later DCAL is signing off £72,000 on the wrong year’s report. I ask the Minister this: do we talk in a vacuum here? Is this a waste of time? Does information from these debates go back to the Northern Ireland Civil Service? Does it go to the departments? The very document that was signed off by DCAL was signed off incorrectly under its own terms and conditions. The document says that it must be signed off on behalf of Ardoyne by a member of the board of directors of Ardoyne. Even that has not been done properly. How can DCAL, only 22 days after the Minister told me that there would be no funny money in his name, sign off a report for the wrong year which has not even been properly filled out? I have raised this with the noble Lord before; he knows about this. I raised it with him in December. I know that from December to March is not a long time for DCAL to answer queries. It is probably going through its book of weasel words. But it is disgusting and disgraceful, and nothing winds up the unionist community more than being told that we in Ardoyne do not have to write reports—we send in last year’s reports. The only way we are ever going to get out of the mess that we are in in Northern Ireland is through fairness and not favouritism. Will the noble Lord give the Committee an undertaking regarding the new arrangements—which I totally approve of—for the handling of transitory funds for the nationalist and unionist festivals? We should not forget that DCAL’s own report stated that for every £1 the unionist festivals received, the nationalist festivals received £9. Those are DCAL’s figures, not mine. Will the Minister ensure that there is no hocus-pocus and that there is no chance that this year, unlike last year and the year before, Gerry Adams will tell a Minister of the Crown that unless there is money for the West Belfast festival, buses will be burnt? It will come as a great surprise to my good colleagues in the Shankill Road to learn that money is given out on a bus burning count. I would like a clear undertaking that the organisation which will now consider money for festivals will not come under any form of pressure from the Secretary of State or anybody else to give what is perhaps surprisingly favourable treatment to Irish festivals and that everything will be done on a basis of fairness. Will the Minister confirm that information from the debate of 7 July last year was passed to the department? If so, why did DCAL still sign off the wrong report? Will he ensure that in future the views of the small band of Northern Ireland Members in the British Parliament are at least taken into consideration by the Northern Ireland administration? Will the Minister comment on the fact that the grant for the 2005 West Belfast nationalist festival has not yet been agreed? That will be of great interest to those who award such grants. The 2005 West Belfast festival took place in August 2005 but the organisers have not yet had their letter of offer. I shall tell the Minister why that may be the case. As I understand it—the Minister can confirm this—that state of affairs has arisen because in 2004 DCAL in its hurry to award money to the West Belfast festival—which, let us not forget, is awarded £600,000 and has 14 employees—overpaid. Will the Minister confirm that DCAL paid the wrong amount of money to West Belfast and that it cannot issue a letter of offer for 2005 because it is doing its best to grab back the money it paid out in 2004? The funding organisations in Northern Ireland will be very interested to know that a letter of offer does not have to be sent out before the event. Does the Audit Office know that? Will a report of this Committee’s discussion be sent to the Audit Office? While I am talking about DCAL I would like an undertaking. We in Northern Ireland believe that we can play a role in the 2012 London Olympic Games. The people of Scotland, Wales and other parts of the UK are preparing for the Olympics. They are receiving an extra budget for doing so. But the organisation in Northern Ireland that has been given the job of preparing for the Olympics has had its budget cut. It is the only such organisation in the UK to have its budget cut. How then can we be on a level playing field with organisations in other parts of the UK which have been given extra money to put on events to prepare for the Olympic Games when the events company in Northern Ireland has had its budget cut? Is the Minister prepared to explain exactly what that is about? I take the opportunity to return to a topic I have mentioned before—the scandal of Waterways Ireland. In that organisation there continues to be a breakdown in confidence in the chief executive and the senior management. The chief executive recently circulated a set of revised reports on risk management and customer care training, which are another bone of contention. The contrast between the two reports circulated in December and the two original reports completed in the previous six to 12 months is marked and stark. They read like the reports of two completely different organisations. As I understand it, they do not reflect reality. The greatest concern is the transfer of responsibility for many of the serious problems facing Waterways Ireland from the chief executive and senior management on to middle management and the staff. The major risk outlined in the original assessment was lack of leadership and poor management at the senior level in tackling key issues. This concern has been removed—consultants were asked to remove it; I would like to know what the cost of using them was—and replaced with a note of the risk that employees are demonstrating a lack of leadership in their roles. That has now been given a high probability. There is disbelief in the assessment of the major risks facing the organisation in the revised risk register. In less than a year, the likelihood of 90 per cent of those risks have been removed, changed or downgraded. The original risk assessment carried out by 40 of the key managers identified 36 major risks facing the body. It established that some three-quarters of them were likely to impact severely within 12 months, and some to hit hard much sooner—within a few months. The assessment even concluded that some risks are already seriously affecting the organisation, such as the lack of leadership and the failure to recruit and retain key staff. The major risks have not been addressed since then. The revised report has just been presented without consultation. In my opinion, it is an enormous whitewash. The feedback from the customer care exercise carried out in 2005 suggested that Waterways Ireland is beset with fundamental management problems. It is dysfunctional and morale is at an all-time low. Despite the responsibility for major dysfunction of the organisation being placed squarely on the shoulders of the chief executive and the senior management in the original report, the blame has now been shifted on to the middle management and staff. Anger is growing among senior managers and staff throughout the organisation about this misrepresentation. The picture painted is untrue and is not backed by hard evidence of what is going on in Waterways Ireland. It is totally unacceptable, and it is not the right way to go about solving the problems. The only thing that will help to solve the problems faced by a body like that is an open and transparent inquiry into the complaints raised by the management. I mention, for example, the small matter of bulk purchases of chocolate for the staff. The justification is not clear. The chief executive lied to Ministers and Parliament about the approval to purchase it, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, reported to this House that the purchase had been approved by the senior management group on 3 December 2002 and 4 December 2003. The original minutes, of which I have a copy, show that to be a lie. This is the second time that the chief executive of Waterways Ireland has misled a parliament. The last time it was over the corruption surrounding the appointment of the director of marketing and communication. The chief executive appointed Martin Dennany without any recruitment process in a jobs-for-the-boys scandal. Yet the report made to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2002 stated that the appointment was made through open competition. At least 21 staff have complained of gross mismanagement, corruption in appointments and bullying. In one case of bullying the chief executive was investigated and the complaint was upheld. Very serious concerns have been expressed about appointments to two senior management jobs. Concerns have been reported about the culture of the organisation. There is a breakdown in confidence in the chief executive among middle managers and staff. The main reason is growing concern and anger at the shift of blame for the major dysfunction of Waterways Ireland, including financial matters, from the chief executive and senior management on to middle management and staff. In 2004 and 2005 enormous expenses were incurred in consultants’ fees in these two areas. In the past six months a substantial amount of money has been wasted on bringing back the consultants and rewriting the reports to shift the blame. What is the exact cost of the consultation over those two years? Waterways Ireland has failed in financial planning, budget control and management of programmes and projects. It is a case of gross mismanagement, jobs for the boys in appointments to senior management, lying to Parliament, shifting the responsibility for major failures on to middle management and staff, and proven bullying of a senior manager and then his sacking. Why has no action been taken against the person responsible for all this—the chief executive? Why were the claims about gross mismanagement not included in the investigation? Why were the complaints of 20 managers not included, or not investigated since? Why has the investigation report been kept secret? Why is John Martin, the chief executive, still there? Against that background, the Irish gave the chief executive a 35 per cent performance related pay increase between 2000 and 2004. Will the Minister comment on the problem that was outlined at a meeting of the North/South secretariat in early 2000 when John Martin appeared before the committee and said that he refused to be bound by Northern Irish law? He said that he would not do so as he was an appointee of the Irish Government, that he had immunity and would do as he liked in Northern Ireland. The right honourable Member for North Antrim has requested at Privy Council level to see the relevant documentation. When I requested the documentation relating to the affair, I was told that I could not see it since to do so would damage relations between the UK and a foreign country. I would like the Minister to comment on that. The only explanation can be that the gentleman has political immunity. Did we vote for the Belfast agreement to bring in low standards of cronyism, jobs for the boys and low standards of Irish governance into our part of the United Kingdom? How much has DCAL awarded the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission for 2006–07? I am also concerned about the Maze stadium. I received a Written Answer on that yesterday which, coming from DCAL, is not exactly true. The Answer stated that there was never,"““any report prepared during the 1980s into the siting of a national stadium for Northern Ireland””.—[Official Report, 1/3/06; col. WA 71.]" However, an investigation was undertaken by the then education Minister, Nicholas Scott—it was chaired by Mr John Salters—who came up with the idea of creating a stadium for Belfast in the 1980s. It was part of the Commonwealth Games. Why have I received a Written Answer saying that there was no such investigation? Schedule 1 on page six of a draft statutory instrument regarding the Department of Health states that the future of cancer policy lies not just in ensuring early access to high quality care and treatment but equally in finding policy solutions to the other major daily challenges faced by cancer patients and their families as they live longer with cancer. Northern Ireland is lagging behind England and Scotland in producing a national cancer plan. The Scottish cancer strategy, Cancer in Scotland: Action for Change, was published in 2001 and set out a clear direction of travel for developing and improving cancer services in Scotland. In England, a cancer plan was adopted in 2000. It was limited in scope, focusing on tackling waiting lists and death rates. In recognition of this the Government are now moving towards cancer plan two. The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is in the process of preparing a cancer service framework, yet we have no indication of when it will be published. Can the Minister tell us when it will be ready? Northern Ireland can learn from the English experience by recognising that cancer will remain the number one killer for the foreseeable future. The framework should focus not only on waiting times and death rates, but on dramatically improving the patient’s experience throughout their cancer journey. We would like to see the framework include core funding for the Northern Ireland Cancer Network, and the ring-fencing of a budget for cancer services for at least the first five years. Patients face new challenges as a consequence of living longer with cancer. Many are forced to give up work as their treatment begins, and then face many months or years before they can consider rejoining the workforce. Just when household incomes are falling, patients are faced with extra costs for things like repeat prescriptions, higher heating bills, wigs, childcare, special clothing and diets, the costs of travel to and from hospital, as well as the cost of parking there. In 2005, a survey found that 39 per cent of cancer patients of working age have experienced significant financial difficulty as a result of their illness. While dealing with the Department of Health, perhaps we can look at whether we are training enough doctors and nurses, especially midwives. Currently, midwives are being brought in from Scotland at huge cost to staff Northern Ireland hospitals. What plans do the Government have to invest more money in training medical staff such as midwives? They can also save money by the creation of midwife-led maternity units. In referring to the Department for Regional Development, I pay tribute to an issue which I know is close to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland—the new trains for the Northern Ireland railway. By any standard, the 23 new trains are a success by anyone’s judgment. On some of the major lines they have increased in a short period passenger traffic by 20 per cent, which is extremely good. What arrangements are being made in next year’s financial Budget to start the process of replacing the 12 older trains that are currently being used on the Larne line and which are creating discontent among the good people living in East Antrim? They cannot see why they are being treated like second-class citizens. Further on the issue of transport, when is it proposed that the Dungiven bypass will be finished, and what level of cost has been written into this year’s Budget for it? I turn to Schedule 1 on page 7. Why is there a decline of £63 million in the 2006 budget for the Department for Regional Development when infrastructure investment is a high public priority? Further, when water charges are introduced, why is it necessary to introduce a completely separate billing system costing dear knows how much, when an extra line could be added to the rates bill, thereby avoiding extra costs? There is no reason why that could not be done, as water charges will be based on property values in the same way as rates. What are the associated costs for water reform? I turn to Schedule 1 on page 6. The allocation for 2005-06 for superannuation and other allowances to the Department of Finance and Personnel is set at £4 million. It is accompanied by a figure in parentheses—£89.6 million. Can that please be explained? Why has the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment allocation for 2005–06 decreased by £10.6 million in money terms, or almost 4 per cent? On page 4 of the schedule, how much of the budget allocation for the Department of Education for 2005–06 and 2006–07 is devoted to the Classroom 2000 project? How much of this allocation is earmarked for the training of teachers to operate the system? I am concerned about the provision for special needs now that there are problems in the funding of the Belfast Education and Library Board area. What arrangements are being made to give funding for special needs to people like myself who are dyslexic? The Department of the Environment is dealt with in Schedule 1, page 7. The environment protection agencies in England, Scotland and Wales have helped develop efficiencies during times of water shortage. Northern Ireland also needs one. What are the current efficiency targets and are they being met? On the Department for Social Development, Schedule 1, page 7, the complexity of claiming benefits has led to an under spending of benefits. What has happened to the money not claimed? Could the Minister give us an idea of the under spending in each of the last two years? What proportion of its budget does the Northern Ireland Audit Office spend on its running costs? How does that compare with the National Audit Office? If we go back to education, how much has been spent on the preparation of the new policy on education, which lacks democratic approval? It will result in the imposition of a ““one size fits all”” comprehensive scheme and many other deteriorations in results. I would like to know how much that is costing in the budget of 2005–06. Perhaps I may turn to EU funding through Peace II. I do not know from which of the many pots of funding I wish to discuss it comes. I am concerned about Peace II money, which is allocated through the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. This is a Republican-led body, with a Republican agenda. Its interest is in curbing all funding to victims’ groups and increasing funding to ex prisoners. In an article published on 25 March 1999, Avila Kilmurray, director of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, when addressing a conference about the cost of imprisonment said that politically motivated ex-prisoners of war are at the forefront and actively continuing the struggle. I wonder what Mrs Kilmurray meant by ““the struggle””, and who are the prisoners of war? I was not aware that the Government had declared ex-prisoners to be prisoners of war. This lady, however, is the director of the intermediary body responsible for funding victims’ groups. Is it any wonder that victims’ groups feel that they are being shut out? I said earlier that if one wants to govern Northern Ireland, one can only govern it through fairness not favouritism. I ask the Minister to confirm that there will be no more sideways deals done with Sinn Fein on any issue—on-the-runs, the Maze stadium, education, or the funding of Irish festivals—no more deals. For those of us who have taken an interest over the years in cross-border bodies, it is now time that we examine carefully the meaning of care and maintenance. Care and maintenance, we were told, was there to stop all bodies making changes to the Belfast agreement and to legislation surrounding the cross-border bodies. I hope that there has been no change of legislation to any cross-border body during the period of care and maintenance. Some of us think that care and maintenance simply means Irish only.