:01:38. > :01:41.In Northern Ireland: more arguments this week about exactly how much
:01:41. > :01:51.paid the wealth -- the welfare reform will bring.
:01:51. > :01:51.
:01:51. > :29:51.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1679 seconds
:29:51. > :29:54.Hello and welcome to Sunday politics in Northern Ireland. David
:29:54. > :29:59.Cameron has been accused of not doing enough to help poorer people
:29:59. > :30:03.in tough times, what more can our politicians do? Is there still a
:30:03. > :30:06.chance to make changes and ease the pain some have warned is bound to
:30:06. > :30:12.come? Also on the programme: The short
:30:12. > :30:21.sittings and poor debates, R MLAs doing the business on the hill?
:30:21. > :30:27.They are not doing anything else of scrutiny so the evidence shows no
:30:27. > :30:37.work at all schedules for April and May. And we will have news of some
:30:37. > :30:37.
:30:37. > :30:40.unwanted guests in the Department of Justice.
:30:40. > :30:43.While the Social Development Minister has repeatedly cautioned
:30:43. > :30:47.against breaking parity on the welfare bill, we have heard a lot
:30:47. > :30:57.this week about the need to make changes to reflect the needs of
:30:57. > :31:01.Northern Ireland. Are we a special case? You are very welcome to the
:31:01. > :31:04.programme. Simon, have you been overly defensive about the
:31:04. > :31:08.children's Commissioner's report this week? We recognise there are a
:31:08. > :31:13.lot of people out there because of the economic downturn who were in
:31:13. > :31:17.pain. For many that is compounded by the spectre of a welfare reform.
:31:17. > :31:23.Trying to ease those concerns has not helped by this report. Its
:31:23. > :31:25.evidential base is out of date and figures are included that the
:31:25. > :31:30.Department for Social Development does not recognise where they have
:31:30. > :31:34.come from. They would say they are from the website. They say they are
:31:34. > :31:39.on the website or provided by the Department. There are figures that
:31:39. > :31:43.are simply do not stack up. Some of the language is incredibly clumsy.
:31:43. > :31:48.If you go to page 11 of the report it seems to suggest that the
:31:48. > :31:52.Assembly should consider limiting the family size of those who on
:31:52. > :31:56.benefits. I am sure that the Children's Commissioner who is
:31:56. > :32:00.charged with protecting the rights of children would not be advocating
:32:00. > :32:04.a Chinese style policy. What they are saying is that when it comes to
:32:04. > :32:07.a 6th child, should benefit be withdrawn to try ended centre by
:32:07. > :32:13.his people not to have huge families if they cannot afford it,
:32:13. > :32:16.is it a bad idea? I think it is an outrageous decision -- suggestion
:32:16. > :32:18.that the Assembly should social engineer families. I would call
:32:18. > :32:22.upon the Children's Commissioner to come forward immediately and
:32:22. > :32:25.clarify the status of this suggestion because it is an
:32:25. > :32:29.outrageous suggestion and I would hope that the Children's
:32:29. > :32:33.Commissioner who was meant to protect children would not advocate
:32:33. > :32:37.such a position. What do you make of this report? Whether the
:32:37. > :32:41.statistics are right or wrong, I think with our own eyes we can see
:32:41. > :32:46.there are problems in society. I think we can see that austerity is
:32:46. > :32:50.biting very hard on families. Families with one child, three
:32:50. > :32:53.children, five children, six children... When it comes to big
:32:53. > :32:57.families, should people make decisions, people who have plenty
:32:57. > :33:00.of money make decisions all the time about their family size?
:33:00. > :33:05.think everyone should make decisions about their family size
:33:05. > :33:10.but it should not be legislated for. That is the key. People should have
:33:10. > :33:13.the wisdom and common sense to recognise how many children are
:33:13. > :33:18.they can adequately provide for. Rather than having more children
:33:18. > :33:22.than they can provide for they should use, shall I use the term?
:33:22. > :33:27.Restraint. It is not up to the Government to dictate how many
:33:27. > :33:33.children a family should have a. Thank you very much. Sinn Fein --
:33:33. > :33:40.Sinn Fein's Alex Laski chairs the commission, this is all about
:33:41. > :33:45.parity. Do you fundamentally disagree with parity? This has been
:33:45. > :33:52.used to kill off any discussion about the way we administer the
:33:52. > :33:56.system of benefits. I understand Parity and it is a huge issue and I
:33:56. > :34:01.cannot dismiss it. It is a big issue. There are some people who
:34:01. > :34:05.would say that they agree with it so they are entitled to have that
:34:05. > :34:09.view but not everyone shares that. It is not easy for you because
:34:09. > :34:15.you're not in the social development committee, you are on
:34:15. > :34:19.the committee but you do not hold the ministerial position. We have a
:34:19. > :34:22.statutory responsibility as a scrutiny Committee. Across all of
:34:22. > :34:29.the parties in the past year, I have chaired this committee in the
:34:29. > :34:34.past year and we have taken a range of presentations. The commissioner
:34:34. > :34:44.has the responsibility to bring forward reports, no matter what the
:34:44. > :34:44.
:34:44. > :34:50.content is a. We have discussed with the trade union sector, we
:34:50. > :34:54.have had presentations from a whole raft of organisation says... Lots
:34:54. > :35:00.of people are really unhappy... Department themselves, last year,
:35:00. > :35:05.gave us a figure and after the introduction of the new welfare
:35:05. > :35:09.changes, that department quoted a figure of a reduction in the
:35:09. > :35:18.overall money of �450 million. Others have written that figure to
:35:18. > :35:22.more than 700 million. I would say to people let us deal with the fact.
:35:22. > :35:26.Scrutiny committee only deal with facts and evidence and we will do
:35:26. > :35:32.that robustly. What can you do for the people along watching today who
:35:32. > :35:34.feel they will be badly hit, their children will end up being reduced
:35:35. > :35:39.into a poverty situation, what can you do to make a difference to
:35:39. > :35:47.them? Is the answer nothing? answer is not nothing and should
:35:47. > :35:53.not be nothing. Parity should not be seen as, there is parity so
:35:53. > :35:57.there was nothing we can do. There was a halt system to underpin this
:35:57. > :36:01.new put -- reform. They are a raft of sanctions which are very
:36:01. > :36:05.draconian so we are saying that if we do not have the same type of
:36:05. > :36:08.housing stock as exists elsewhere, how can we penalise people for
:36:08. > :36:13.having to live in a home that they cannot move out of, to something
:36:13. > :36:21.more suitable for their family size? So we should not be capping
:36:21. > :36:23.money for that and they should not be sanctions. We are looking at
:36:23. > :36:26.areas of flexibility so we're trying to agree on a range of ways
:36:26. > :36:32.in which we can do things Tiffany to meet the needs of people here.
:36:32. > :36:34.What we know and everybody has agreed on this is that there will
:36:34. > :36:37.be a significant reduction in the money available through the
:36:37. > :36:42.benefits system. The benefits system is designed to support
:36:43. > :36:48.people who were vulnerable, who fall out of any -- employment and
:36:48. > :36:52.so one. That is a system which is a fail-safe mechanism. The benefit
:36:52. > :36:58.levels are supposed to be at subsistence level. What we are
:36:58. > :37:02.talking about here is �450 million being taken out. That means people
:37:02. > :37:07.will lose money, family by family. Most of the changes we have heard
:37:07. > :37:13.about so far I Nasir that -- methods of payment. It may not take
:37:13. > :37:16.on board the payment to the head of household. Are we may pay directly
:37:16. > :37:20.to the landlord in said of the tenant. That will not help people
:37:20. > :37:30.who have mental health issues and will get their DLA cut. We have put
:37:30. > :37:36.a fair amount of concentration into this. Some of these measures relate
:37:36. > :37:40.to both departments and we are concerned that people who have
:37:40. > :37:45.mental health issues, and we have a very high rate of that unfortunate
:37:45. > :37:48.the... Are you satisfied they will not be targeted? It is probably
:37:48. > :37:53.easier because if you have a broken leg you can see it, but a mental
:37:53. > :37:59.health issue is not visible. There is sympathy towards that but no
:37:59. > :38:05.more than that at this point in time. I have been the chair of this
:38:05. > :38:10.committee in the past year and I have not raised it every week to
:38:10. > :38:13.grab a headline that I have refused to do that. When the legislation
:38:13. > :38:19.comes before you, what can you do? What fundamental differences can
:38:20. > :38:24.you make? What we are doing at the executive level is we are looking
:38:24. > :38:28.at areas of what we call flexibility. That will allow
:38:28. > :38:31.agreement on what those flexibilities may actually be. How
:38:32. > :38:34.can we administer the system better? How do you assess people
:38:34. > :38:39.with mental health issues? We have a private company at the moment
:38:39. > :38:45.that has been given a contract to assess people. They are not even
:38:45. > :38:48.fully qualified medical professionals. We have had a long
:38:48. > :38:52.argument about medical health practitioners and medical health
:38:52. > :38:58.professionals, it is very difficult to work it out. We're interested in
:38:58. > :39:01.the process by which people will be assessed for these particular
:39:01. > :39:04.conditions and they have been a lot of problems around that. What we
:39:05. > :39:09.will be looking for is how the system can be administered better
:39:09. > :39:14.in the interests of people that we all represent here. We will
:39:14. > :39:18.certainly be watching with interest. Thank you. Tomorrow the Assembly
:39:18. > :39:22.will debate a DUP private member's motion about the Chancellor's plan
:39:22. > :39:28.to limit tax relief on charitable donations. Since the executive has
:39:28. > :39:32.no power, why is it being raised at Stormont? It will raise -- it will
:39:32. > :39:42.use up some time during the plenary session. There are concerns that
:39:42. > :40:08.
:40:08. > :40:10.MLAs are running out of things to to talk about. The Assembly is
:40:10. > :40:13.adjourned. Monday's plenary at the Assembly ended after just four
:40:13. > :40:16.hours. Members have had an early bath on several occasions recently.
:40:16. > :40:20.It seems there's just not enough to talk about. This is a farce. We
:40:20. > :40:24.turn up here two half days a week to discuss the notions and to fill
:40:24. > :40:27.the time and try and put a face on But is the Assembly really so
:40:27. > :40:31.unproductive? In the last mandate, 69 bills passed through and
:40:31. > :40:33.received Royal Assent. Three of these were from private members.
:40:33. > :40:36.Since the new Assembly began last summer, three bills have reached
:40:36. > :40:39.Royal Assent. During the last mandate in Scotland,
:40:39. > :40:43.53 bills were passed, but a larger proportion - a total of 13, came
:40:43. > :40:50.from private members. In this parliament, two bills have reached
:40:50. > :40:53.Royal Assent. We are not even a year into current
:40:53. > :40:56.Assembly and things do take time to be drafted up, and given the
:40:56. > :41:04.circumstances in NI there are more hurdles to be overcome and so
:41:04. > :41:07.things tend to be slower. This Former Deputy Speaker agrees
:41:07. > :41:17.that the recent lack of business is frustrating, and he has a possible
:41:17. > :41:21.solution. I suppose one way of getting round this is reducing the
:41:21. > :41:25.today's, Monday and Tuesday, two one-day and using that extra day
:41:25. > :41:32.either for specific constituency business or even more importantly,
:41:32. > :41:35.I think, committee business. In all legislatures it is the committee
:41:35. > :41:38.business which is where the work is done really.
:41:38. > :41:44.But according to a former senior official at the Assembly, the
:41:44. > :41:47.committees aren't as busy as they could or should be, either. Half
:41:47. > :41:51.the committees are not doing an inquiry at the moment. So few bills
:41:51. > :41:59.at legislation in front of them. They are not doing any financial
:41:59. > :42:01.scrutiny except the Personnel Committee. The evidence... Some of
:42:01. > :42:05.the fall would work programmes shown no work at all schedules for
:42:05. > :42:08.April and May. The L in MLA stands for legislative
:42:08. > :42:11.and since there's not much in the way of actual legislation coming
:42:11. > :42:13.through the executive, this would seem to be the perfect opportunity
:42:13. > :42:18.for members to introduce their own bills. And that's what's happening
:42:18. > :42:20.here today. The Green Party's Stephen Agnew is
:42:20. > :42:29.launching a consultation on his proposed bill aimed at co-
:42:29. > :42:33.ordinating children's services. should be judged in this Assembly
:42:33. > :42:38.term by the end of it on what decisions have been passed and how
:42:38. > :42:45.that legislation will improve life for people in Northern Ireland or
:42:45. > :42:50.the governance of Northern Ireland. Beverages are sold in all
:42:50. > :42:55.parliament out legs... Some observers feel the Assembly is
:42:55. > :43:01.occasionally wasting their time on matters that might be worthy but
:43:01. > :43:04.are now not pressing. While there is space for no other business,
:43:04. > :43:14.people will select these because there is nothing else to discuss.
:43:14. > :43:17.The absence of legislation creates a huge space for Mr. I thing the
:43:17. > :43:27.Assembly is left feeling that there are full-time members of full-time
:43:27. > :43:28.
:43:28. > :43:32.salaries doing full-time -- part- time jobs. What is the point in
:43:32. > :43:37.tomorrow's motion when you have no power to change it? I think it is
:43:37. > :43:41.important that from time to time and we bring forward the concerns
:43:41. > :43:44.of their constituents. In this case it is charities that will have
:43:45. > :43:47.concerns about the changes the rules and Westminster are having on
:43:48. > :43:52.Northern Ireland. It is important we project our boys from the
:43:52. > :43:55.Assembly on the national voice as well when it is appropriate. I
:43:55. > :43:59.think it is unfair to criticise the Assembly because we have not passed
:44:00. > :44:04.a lot of legislation. We have only been back in recession since last
:44:04. > :44:07.year and legislation is not all we do. There is constituency work as
:44:08. > :44:14.well as committee work and the committees are busy despite what he
:44:14. > :44:17.said in nappies. Legislation is not the only way in which a minister
:44:18. > :44:22.can act to improve lives of people in Northern Ireland. There are lots
:44:22. > :44:26.of things going on. They have been over 100 questioned and fashions in
:44:26. > :44:29.the Assembly and there have been 70 oral statements... People don't
:44:29. > :44:33.expect their lives to change because they have locally
:44:33. > :44:38.accountable government. It does not always require legislation to do
:44:38. > :44:41.that. If you look at the piece on Scotland's, they have only had two
:44:41. > :44:45.Bills pass this session and they do not have the problems that we have
:44:45. > :44:49.in terms of the system. They have a one-party government and it should
:44:49. > :44:54.be easier for them to get legislation through the system.
:44:54. > :44:58.you go out and talk to people, how can you change the perception?
:44:58. > :45:01.appreciate the perception is there and it is far from ideal what we
:45:02. > :45:05.have. We are encumbered by the system we have. Because you have
:45:05. > :45:08.ministries moving from one party to another, different ministers from
:45:08. > :45:14.different parties will have different priorities and one
:45:14. > :45:17.different legislation. The conclusion of legislation can take
:45:17. > :45:20.two years. There is a lot of legislation in the pipeline and
:45:20. > :45:25.what you will probably see is something similar to the last
:45:25. > :45:30.session where towards the end there will be about 30 bills in the last
:45:30. > :45:34.18 months. That is far from perfect but we have a different system and
:45:34. > :45:38.we cannot move legislation as quickly as a majority government.
:45:38. > :45:41.The perception is exactly as you have identified. This mandate
:45:42. > :45:46.commenced one year ago. Part and parcel of the current problem is
:45:46. > :45:52.the fact that if you cast your mind back, the programme for government
:45:52. > :45:56.was not agreed until March of this year. That was 10 months later.
:45:56. > :46:00.Within that ten-month period, what happened, we had a lock of talk
:46:00. > :46:04.about things that did not affect the individual's life and
:46:04. > :46:07.livelihood and how people go about their lives in Northern Ireland.
:46:07. > :46:12.The First Minister during a debate on the publication on the programme
:46:12. > :46:16.for government, that stated that what they wanted to do was change
:46:16. > :46:20.people's lives. I am assuming that what they wanted to do was change
:46:20. > :46:23.people's lives for the better. No one would suggest for a moment that
:46:24. > :46:27.within the past 10 months anybody's life in Northern Ireland has been
:46:27. > :46:32.changed for the better. We see everything going from bad to worse.
:46:32. > :46:37.That is what the perception and the reality out on the streets is. That
:46:37. > :46:41.is why people are becoming more and more disenchanted with politics...
:46:41. > :46:46.In fairness we have had a missions in the past couple of weeks and we
:46:46. > :46:52.are in tough economic times. What did I hear last week, people were
:46:52. > :46:57.saying, what are they talking in the Assembly? They have a 10 - --
:46:57. > :47:01.they have entertained some monks and some sheikhs. It is perception.
:47:01. > :47:03.They do not seek delivery. If you do not have a programme of
:47:03. > :47:08.government for 10 months and remember what a programme of
:47:08. > :47:12.government is meant to be, it is the context of setting the Budget
:47:12. > :47:16.and the context in which you set your economic strategy if you have
:47:16. > :47:24.one and two investment strategy. Everything has been done, cart
:47:24. > :47:27.before horse. When you're in the Assembly, it was more than down --
:47:27. > :47:32.down and that. There was very little time to do anything because
:47:32. > :47:37.Assembly was collapsing (centre. It think it is unfair to characterise
:47:37. > :47:42.everything that is going on as being an interesting. We were
:47:42. > :47:46.debating health and security issues. These are important people. We are
:47:46. > :47:50.trying our best to turn this country around. The point is that
:47:50. > :47:53.it is not giving delivery. system that we have is a very
:47:53. > :47:57.difficult system and it is distinct and different from elsewhere.
:47:57. > :48:00.have to leave it there, we are completely out of time. Thank you
:48:00. > :48:09.very much indeed. And now for a look at the political headlines in
:48:09. > :48:15.60 seconds. The Attorney-General told the High
:48:15. > :48:18.Court why he is prosecuting Peter Hain over his memoir.
:48:18. > :48:23.That organisation responsible for regenerating Londonderry faced
:48:23. > :48:29.questions about irregular spending. I am confident we will deal with
:48:30. > :48:36.what is going on. We got it wrong and we will put it right.
:48:36. > :48:46.The IRA murders of senior I r -- RUC officers were authorised by
:48:46. > :48:51.Martin McGuinness has been rejected. I certainly would not be giving my
:48:51. > :48:56.opinion that you will go home with no money. Staying with four legs,
:48:56. > :49:01.we have heard of unwanted guests in the Justice Department. Rats,
:49:01. > :49:05.vermin, to have their money through a place of work and the damage and
:49:05. > :49:13.debt that it brings, is not very pleasant at all and is is something
:49:13. > :49:16.that the Department want to get to grips with very quickly.
:49:16. > :49:22.A certain irony in the politicians in Dublin discussing conflict
:49:22. > :49:26.resolution and yet we have had some security alert some problems here.
:49:26. > :49:30.I was in Dublin yesterday at the rugby with thousands of people from