19/09/2011 Stormont Today

Hello and welcome to Stormont Today - all that's worth watching from

the day's proceedings up here on the Hill. And with MLAs still

reeling at Martin McGuinness's big news, we hear from the new Deputy

First Minister as the hours tick down to him taking up his post. But

what will be his style of management? I am going to employ

the tactics of a fisherman - patience! And Jim Allister asks the

big money question. Can you advise the House if while the Deputy First

Minister pursues his project, he will be paid? Plus find out what

surprised the Health Minister Edwin Poots and how the Finance Minister

surprised everyone when he revealed there'll be no cut in corporation

tax for at least four years. To discuss that and more I'm joined by

Is the prospect of a cut in corporation tax here as far off as

ever? While the Chancellor, George Osborne, is poised to announce

whether the power to set the rate of corporation tax can be devolved

to the Executive, it now looks like an actual tax cut won't happen

during this Assembly term. This is what the Finance Minister, Sammy

Wilson, told members this afternoon. One of the reasons why I believe

there has to be very hard negotiations with the Treasury over

the autumn to make sure that we are not getting a bill which is totally

unsustainable for the devolution of corporation tax. The second thing

is, there's been no provision made in the current four-year budget for

the devolution of corporation tax so even if we got it down to a

figure which was manageable, there would still be an impact unless it

is deferred because many people argue that, look, it is the

certainty that the tax rate will be down to a certain level by a

certain time which will influence investment decisions. Since there

is a long lead-in for investment decisions, I don't believe we will

see a reduction within the lifetime of this Assembly. Business leaders

and politicians have campaigned to see the tax lowered from the

current UK rate of 26% to equal the Republic of Ireland's 12.5%, in

hopes of boosting the economy and helping Northern Ireland companies

compete with those in the South. So is this a sign of the times and the

tough decisions that our MLAs will have to make? With me is Neil

Gibson an economist with Oxford Economics. Thank you for joining us.

Sammy Wilson made this announcement at tea time. What do you read into

it? It is a bit disappointing. It sends a message of defeatism almost.

We know there are a lot of political challenges, but to send

out a message - he quoted a high figure for cost. He suggested it

would take a long time to get things through. It does not send

the right message to the business community that our local executive

is ready to get stuck in quickly. That will have been another four

years that have passed. Are we running scared? It does seem odd

that what we are fixated with is what the cost might be. Let's see

the cost and make our decision accordingly. We are almost putting

up problems before they have arisen. We are warning people there might

be a cost, which is a strange concept that anyone out there

should think that any form of economic development will be free

somehow. We are going to have to invest in a better economy. Let's

find out what the cost is and then make our decision. There are no

guarantees that all these companies which we think will come and invest

here in Northern Ireland, it is a gamble for the Executive? Any form

of policy change will carry some degree of risk. We have done some

modelling work and tried to look at what the returns might be. We only

have to look at the Republic of Ireland experience, very

challenging times that they have now. Look at the firms that came

there and didn't come to Northern Ireland. If we could only capture a

small portion of those firms, we would be in a better place than we

are now. The Executive have said we need to incentivise the private

sector. What about how the Government is looking forward. What

advice would you give them? It is difficult in that we are trying to

think long-term. Northern Ireland is dependent on the British

taxpayer continuing to subsidise our standard of living. They may

choose that they have problems of their own, they may decide to

reduce that. We need to think long- term. Can we prepare for a Northern

Ireland economy that is all the things we have talked about -

private sector led? So a bit of long-term planning is what we would

like to see. Stay with us. Well, the other big news of course is

that we're getting a new Deputy First Minister while Martin

McGuinness goes to seek his fortune in the Republic's presidential

election. While the six-week campaign is ongoing, he will be

replaced by the current Education Minister, John O'Dowd, who will

juggle both portfolios. We'll hear from Mr O'Dowd in a moment, but

first here's how the chamber reacted to the news this morning -

or rather, here's what Jim Allister wanted to know. Point of order.

Further to your announcement under Section 16A, can you advise the

House if while the Deputy First Minister pursues his project, he

will be paid as the Deputy First Minister of this House? Order. It's

not a matter for the Speaker. The Speaker has fulfilled his role this

morning. I simply received a letter from the Deputy First Minister,

that letter is very clear, it is correct and I am informing the

House this morning, that is where my role ends. I am sure the

educated member would also know that as well. It's now less than an

hour until John O'Dowd steps up to his new role. I spoke to him

earlier and asked him if he could shed any light on the issue of the

Deputy First Minister's salary, but first was he up to doing two jobs

instead of one. I will be stepping into take over Martin's role as DFM

for the next six weeks. It will be business as usual. There is a

programme of work which requires to be completed for the benefit of the

people whom we represent. I along with my colleagues, both in the

Sinn Fein and with all the other ministers, wish to see that

programme of work concluded. Do you think you can do both jobs

effectively? Six weeks is workable. I have spent the summer reading

myself into the education brief. I am preparing a major speech for

next Monday to the Assembly which will set out a range of initiatives.

I am very fortunate that within the Department of Education, I have an

experienced group of civil servants who know the thinking of the

minister. So that is fortunate. We have a very experienced group of

civil servants and advisors. You couldn't carry out both tasks over

a prolonged period. Are you confident that the important

decisions that need to be made over the next six weeks will still go

ahead? I can assure parents that the Department of Education is in

safe hands. I have spent my summer months reading myself into the

brief, deciding on the next steps in education. I will be setting

those out next week. A full programme of work will be rolling

out. It will involve the Education Library Boards. I will be keeping a

close eye on it. My department knows my thinking on the various

matters. So I would say it is in safe hands over the period. It is

interesting because the Deputy First Minister role is busy and

there are important decisions to be made, not least the programme for

Government? Yes, that is an executive collective decision.

There has been good work done over these last number of weeks. I am

confident that can move on. I am sure we will have a radical

programme of Government in place to set the course of direction. Do you

think Martin McGuinness will win? hope he will win. I believe the

potential that is building up behind his campaign puts him in a

good place. He will be a big loss to the party. If he does win, he is

taking on the President of Ireland. I think in the overall wellbeing of

the peace process, the nation, I think it is the right thing to do.

What about the issue of pay, then? Do you think is it fair that he

keeps the Deputy First Minister's salary and that you don't get any

acting-up pay? My understanding is that Martin won't be collecting any

salary over this period of time. That is my understanding. I'm

notested in acting-up pay. -- I am not interested in acting-up pay.

I'm fortunate that I do collect a wage. Certainly not an extravagant

lifestyle. What about the issues of the past? How do you think he will

handle those? How do you think that will impact on the Sinn Fein

campaign? Martin McGuinness has been a public figure for almost 30

years. His past has been closely examined by the media in varying

degrees, from honesty to mistruths. I have no doubt Martin will be able

to handle any question placed in front of him about his past. I

think it's wrong - and I think the general public sees through this -

it is wrong to pick out an individual or a group from our past.

If you want to examine the conflict, let's examine the conflict in its

entirety. We have set out a process where we believe that can be

achieved. That is our proposal. I think the general public will judge

Martin McGuinness on his merits. He has been a successful politician. I

have no doubt the people of the South will judge him on his

character and the work he has achieved for the peace process in

Ireland. Why do you think the party has chosen you to step up?

tempted to say because I'm the tallest! I'm incensed - I have

taken a number of leadership positions in the party before. I

have a broad understanding of the issues which are currently rotating

around the Executive. It is for a six-week period. I will be relying

heavily on my support team and on my Executive colleagues. That

previous job in the kitchen, are you going to employ any of those

tactics, keeping everybody in order? I will employ the tactics of

a fisherman - patience. I will take one serious piece of advice - have

a wee bit of patience. It is not out of the frying pan and into the

fire? I don't think so. We heard from John O'Dowd. Can he do two

jobs? Is it appropriate to have the Education Minister be the Deputy

First Minister? I think there is certainly a challenge, not least

because he's only into the education brief. It does happen in

business all the time, people leave for sickness, or they are moving on

to another post. So it wouldn't be unusual and as he draws attention

to the fact, it is only for six weeks. It is a tough time. There

are big decisions to be made. It is quite a difficult period in which

he is taking over the role. Stay with us. Thank you. The Health

Minister, Edwin Poots, was under scrutiny at Question Time today

answering questions on fertility treatment and prisoner medication

among other things. First up today, though, was Sammy Wilson and who

was waiting to ambush him but that man again - Jim Allister. The TUV

leader wanted to know why he had agreed a pay rise for special

advisers when a pay freeze for civil servants is already in

operation. Well, the member seems to be very interested in everybody

else's pay but really doesn't - I could take that from some other

members in this chamber. But I could take that from some other

members... He doesn't like this. But this is the member, this is the

member who goes to court to keep his own pay... Order! Order! Just...

Order! The Minister has been asked the question and the Minister is

giving his reply. Can we have order, please? Minister? I think you see

the member doesn't like the truth being told. He loves the point the

finger, he loves to posture. He loves to blame everybody else and

identify what he believes are the faults of everybody else. I would

think he would have a bit more credibility if he was prepared to

have some transparency about the money that he gets from the public

purse instead of looking at the money other people are getting or

what he believes are getting. the member take his seat? No points

of order are taken through Question Time. You may raise later if you

wish. Thank you very much. I will be a bit more restrained than

hereto. Question two. OK. I thank the member - we know his customary

restraint. He will not be as restrained in his battle for the

leadership of the party! LAUGHTER am sure he will be fairly robust

when it comes to that. I was going to say I wish him all the best, but

that might be the death knell for him, so I'll not. I will keep that.

LAUGHTER The issue of issuing a bond is something which has come up

time and time again. As part of schemes where we are trying to

identify ways in which we can bring additional spending into the public

sector for projects which we have not been financed through, through

money we can raise by the sale of assets. The difficulty with this

issue - and I have explained this on a number of occasions - the

difficulty is that if we as an Executive borrow money, the

Treasury then takes that as part of the borrowing for the whole of the

United Kingdom and if borrowing targets are set, then they simply

reduce the amount of money which is given to Northern Ireland according

to the amount of money which will be borrowed. Questions to health

next. I would have concerns about that,

Mr Speaker. We do intend to look at that particular issue. We have the

problem - we have people who are getting prescriptions for things

like Ibuprofen, for things you can easily buy over the counter at low-

cost. We have already given guidelines on these. I should make

it clear that this Executive, this Assembly and this country spends

around �460 million per year on pharmacy. That is almost as much

money as the entire Department of Regional Development spends. We

need to get better efficiencies into the system. We need to get

value for money. We need to eradicate a lot of the waste of

drugs that we are buying and we need to maximise the amount of

generics we are using. There is a lot of work to be done on this

particular issue. There is a lot of savings to be made on this

particular issue. Community pharmacists offer a very important

role into the delivery of Health Service in Northern Ireland. We

don't want to make them the fall guy. We do need to make

considerable savings. The Minister gets annoyed at people failing to

attend hospital appointments. Introducing these measures, will

you take into account particular circumstances and particular cases

such as people with bad eyesight and in terms of appointments going

out, would it be standard, or is it standard to have them in large

print? Well, those are issues and I accept that sometimes when people

don't turn up it is not necessarily their fault. However, 61% of people

who didn't turn up had forgot, 16% of people who didn't turn up felt

embarrassed about coming to the outpatients and another 13% didn't

think it was important and another 10% tried to cancel but couldn't

get through. So I think you can take from those figures that the

main core of the problem is people who fall into the category of

forgetting or who didn't think it was important. Drugs in prison are

a long-standing problem but what about prescribed drugs? How many

prisoners are on medication? levels of prescribing up to three

Northern Ireland prison establishments, 80%, 58%, 38%,

these levels of prescribing reflect the fact that prisoners tend to

have poor physical and mental health in the population at large.

Healthcare service is provided at the three prison sites. I am sure

prisoners' needs are appropriately met. I think thank the Minister for

his answer. There is obviously doctor-patient confidentiality.

Does his department have any view or do they put in place any

monitoring process to ensure the high level of drug use in prison is

monitored? I will have to say that I am shocked by these figures. So I

welcome the fact that it's been brought to our attention. I

certainly will be asking questions as to whether this high level of

prescribing drugs to people in prison is necessary, or whether

it's suitable because prisoners are camera as a result of it. Prisons

are reform institutes. If people are coming out having received

large quantities of prescription drugs, as opposed to overcoming

their problems, there is some degree of failing. Agreeing a

programme for Government has been one of the trickier tasks up here

on the Hill. Today the Ulster Unionist Party released its own

plans for the economy and party leader Tom Elliott joins us now.

Thank you for coming in. We have had an election this year, your

party manifesto was there. What is the reason for publishing this

Dockham document? It was indicated to the two main parties that we

needed a programme for Government. We had set a bung et in March but

we suggested that the programme for -- budget in March but we suggested

that the programme for Government was done before the budget was set.

We do need a programme for Government. Just last week, we

witnessed the student fees project having to be changed and that's

changed to the budget already, only a few months into this budget. What

we are saying is, there are probably going to be many more

changes throughout the four-year period. Let's have collective

Government. We have come out with our own proposals. Before we get on

to those, just looking at the reasons for having a programme for

Government, was it not the case the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists sat

on the outside of discussions, so again what is the point in doing

this right now? I think you sit outside if you are kept outside.

The Ulster Unionists and SDLP weren't involved in that process

because we weren't invited to be. We have come forward with our own

proposals, hopefully that we can set up a stage for the next four

years so we can make decisions together and hopefully make a

better decision-making process. is about joined-up Government

rather than any idea of opposition now? What we are doing is putting

forward our proposals. The proposals that we have put forward

today are very reasonable. They are workable within a Government,

within an executive of Northern Ireland. I am sure that all parties

won't find too much wrong with them. I hope it will set a basis we can

work to. We need to get that collective Government and hopefully

that we can do that now. It's not an easy task. We do know the two

major parties are dominant in the Executive. Quite a lot of the time

they want to exclude the SDLP and ourselves. Just reading through the

document today, it is a wish-list. But some of the proposals seem a

bit woolly on some reading of it. Reduce poverty by 2015 and

completely by 2018. Almost half the population is in fuel poverty, is

that realistic? What we want to do is set this as a basis for

discussion document. There may be some other proposal that will come

forward from the other parties. We are inviting that. If they want to

come forward with their proposals, we are happy to discuss those

issues. But unless we get progress on corporation tax - and I noted

Sammy Wilson's suggestion today in the Assembly that it appeared

somewhat ambiguous as to whether we would move forward in this term or

not with at least the powers to reduce corporation tax and then

hopefully that we would do it. I also noted that he said that he

didn't know what the meaning of "enterprise zones" were. Enterprise

zones, you may be able to give tax breaks, business start-ups, for

certain individual projects. The North West could be a tourist

enterprise zone. Briefly, Martin McGuinness said that victims'

feelings are being whipped up around this issue of him running

for Irish President. What do you think about that? Well, it's up to

the people of the Republic of Ireland who they elect as their new

President. The point I would make is that I don't have to whip up the

fears within the victims' sector. That tension is there. There is a

frustration there. There is a traumaisation there. --

traumatisation there. I think it is time that he came clean. I think he

should stop trying to justify the 30-year campaign of terrorism in

Northern Ireland. That is the one thing that continues to niggle the

victims of Northern Ireland. Thank you very much. We've already been

talking about the programme for Government. As our political editor,

Mark Devenport, told me earlier it's also on the agenda tomorrow.

The SDLP has a motion which will be debated tomorrow, calling for the

Executive to get together a new programme for Government,

criticising the delay that there has been since the election in

having that. That has in turn been criticised by Sinn Fein who argue

the SDL is disingenuous, that you can't brush aside the budget that

had previously been pushed through. The challenge facing the Executive

parties will be can they get through a programme for Government

when John O'Dowd is acting up? Will all the parties buy into it? Or

will we see a breakdown where the bigger parties may go one way and

the smaller parties go another way? Martin McGuinness has already been

facing questions about his past. Of course, Mark, the past is very much

the backdrop for all of the political debate up here? Yes. It's

going to be a question which will be coming back again and again in

relation to the Irish presidential campaign. It is something he is

used to. So many of the debates here - we had the debate on the

Police Ombudsman earlier on today. Various speakers were harking back

to that image of a young Martin McGuinness as a self-confessed IRA

leader. I think this is something that which we will have to get used

to. Martin McGuinness isn't the only politician who is on the move?

No. He's going south. But certainly a number of politicians, four

members of the regional development committee and the regional

development ministers are off to France, for a shorter period of

time, just for a couple of days. They are going to look at the bus

way in Nantes in France to see whether that might form some

example for the much talked about but so far little actually built

bus way that's been talked about in relation to Belfast. So, four of

them will get to make the trip. A number of them won't. But here is a

sight of what they are missing. Thank you. Neil, Sammy Wilson

laughed off that question about public sector pay. It could

potentially save the Government a huge amount of money? Absolutely.

Although it was a loaded question, the sentiment behind it, it

shouldn't be laughed off. We talk about the need to implement cuts

and how difficult the climate is. The public sector pay bill is the

biggest element of our expenditure. So you can make quite a significant

saving. That is really the world we are in now. We need to talk about

things like welfare reform, public sector pay. These are very

difficult subjects. Thank you very much. That's it from the programme