19/11/2012 Stormont Today

Hello and welcome to Stormont Today. It was another busy day up here in

the House on the Hill and just as in big brother, the possibility of

an eviction was on everybody's minds. Mr Wells must acknowledge he

went overboard, crossed the line on this issue and could have quietly

made amends for his actions... any suggestion of a further delay

to the reform Bill was given short shrift by the Social Development

Minister. This is not about welfare reform, this is about a squalid

little squabble between the SDLP and Sinn Fein. And joining me with

her thoughts, our Political Correspondent Martina Purdy.

The day got off to a live lively start with a report on the

committee on standards and privileges calling for the

exclusion of Jim Wells for seven days following comments he made

last year to the Sinn Fein Culture Minister and her adviser.

I take no satisfaction whatsoever in asking the assembly to do this.

However, I do think that the assembly has a duty to respond to

the breach of the code of conduct that has been identified by the

interim commissioner on the committee of standards and

priflinls. All members have received a copy of the report on

the complaints about the conduct of Mr Wells -- privileges. They were

made by Miss McCullen and Miss McCardle. They complained about

separate encounters they had with him in 2011. The complaints were

investigated and members also have received a copy of the reports. Mr

Wells must surely acknowledge he went overboard, crossed the line on

this issue and could have quietly made amends for his actions. Of

course, Mr Speaker, Mr Wells wasn't the only one outraged at the

appointment at that particular time. We were all outraged. Mr Speaker,

why is it so difficult for cup members and perhaps others in this

assembly to say sorry -- DUP members. Disappointed to learn this

morning that there was a petition of concern, another misuse of the

mechanism of this House. I simply ask and indeed urge

members to support this motion this morning. Thank you. This motion

does nothing to protect the integrity of this House. Mr Speaker,

let me put on record my reasons why I think this House should be

opposing the motion as is on the order paper today. This is not a

proportionate response. The issue here is that the member has been

found in breach and it's in the report. I have to laugh when I

heard him because I've experienced Mr Wells in the previous committee

and mandate and I've never heard Mr Wells in my time mumble anything.

He's very articulate in everything he puts across, I'll give him that.

Other members who're mandated and represent the communities here also

signed up to the Good Friday Agreement. This institution on

how... This institution and the formation of the institution and

they're here to respect that or they're not, so they're either

going to follow the rules and regulations of it or they're not.

Put the victims first by asking them what do they think about this.

Here is an interesting fact, Mr Speaker. Anne Travers feels guilty

about what's happened in this chamber today. I don't need to tell

Sinn Fein this. They get it immediately. But for the rest of us,

the point is this. A part of Anne thinks it's her fault that we are

having this debate, that if, and these are her words not mine, if

she had not "Made such a fuss about Mary McCardle being promoted by

Carol McKinle, we couldn't be doing this". I asked Anne if she had any

advice and she said three words "Support Jim Wells". It has to be

pointed out and maybe Mr Wells needs to know this, many members

around the committee table tried to avoid this day. We didn't want to

bring this to the chamber, mainly because we didn't want to give Mr

Wells another platform and all the other people. We offered Mr Wells a

way out. We offered him a way out. Mr Wells was offered to provide an

apology to the offended parties which he refused to do and now we

are here today so it's on Mr Wells why this is being debated in the

House today. The bottom line - I'm sure you will have your say, Mr

Wells - the bottom line is that it's income bent on everyone in

this house to treat each other with respect, whether you like them or

not, whether you agree with them or not or whether you are in

Government with them or not, you have to treat each and every

colleague in this House with respect. Miss McKiln said she found

it unsettling with Mr Wells. I wonder why I for 14 years have

treated Sinn Fein in a particular way and there's never been a

complaint. I wonder why there's never been a complaint. Have people

got the stomach for a complaint or do they not want to complain?

What's the problem you have with placing a complaint?! This is not

about political opinion or religious belief. This is not about

what happened in our kunflict in the past, though Jim and his mates

might try and dress it up about that -- conflict. This is about

misogyny and sectarianism. Misogyny. The definition of misogyny is

hatred or dislike of women and girls, and that is what Jim Wells

has done here and been found guilty Sinn Fein will not tolerate

bullying behaviour. We won't tolerate inequality. We certainly

won't tolerate misogyny and we won't tolerate anyone being treated

as a second class citizen. If Mr Wells thoughts he could intimidate

two strong women, he has another thing coming. We are here in a

situation where people are described as being offended and

hurt by a comment Mr Wells made. And we are here today about

misogyny and about the hatred of women coming from here. What hatred

of women was involved when someone saw fit to pump full of bullets Tom

Travers and his daughter Mary. That is a real hatred of women. To

demand that Mr Wells on the other hand should apologise, for doing

what? Waving his finger! It's not good enough if you actually wave

your finger but it's all right if you put it on a trigger.

community was outraged because they felt McCardle was rewarded for her

murder of the totally innocent young woman by being given this

very important post. Now, that caused outrage. I was angry. The

community was angry. I was concerned. Having a right in a

democratic society to express that concern - yes, because if I don't

have the right to express that concern forcibly in a way that can

even cause concern, that even can cause upset, then there is no

freedom of speech in this building. I have to have that right and I

exercise that right. I make it absolutely clear. I accused Mary

McCardle of murdering Marie Travers because it's true and I said she

was unfit to be an adviser. debate has descended in the way it

has into name-calling and abuse across the chamber and to some

extent disrespect from both sides of the House when we are here to

discuss the code of conduct of members and how we should act

respectively towards each other. It seems to me incongruous that the

DUP on one hand wish to sit in Government with Sinn Fein but then

believe it's OK to name call. I believe that it's disrespectful,

not only to the member who you abuse in that way, but to these

institutions which all members in the House to some degree have to

accept when they take their seat in this chamber. The Green Party's

Stephen Agnew. The motion was rejected and Jim Wells survived to

fight another day. Martina Purdy, the vote was very close? You can

see from the film that the House was sharply divided so it was a

close vote, 51-49 against, effectively evicting Jim Wells from

the House for a week, from Stormont. They had a device called the

Petition of 7 concern which forces both sides of the House which would

have had to agree to punish Jim Wells and would have given the DUP

a veto which they didn't need in the end. Jim Wells didn't say sorry,

we are clear about that. Do you think perhaps he regrets the

incident? As we have heard, he says he's not sorry for what he said. I

would say he regrets the amount of time this incident's taken. I mean,

it's been hanging over him for almost 18 months. And when the

Standards Commissioner starts to investigate something, there's a

lot of correspondence going back and forward between your office and

the commissioner. You are also dealing with a lot of lengthy

questions and inquiries. So he could have done without it. I

suppose other members looking at this will say to themselvess if

they have something to say that's robust, they might decide to say

nit the House. The controversy is not about to go away however?

Although Mary McCard sell no longer a special adviser, she's moved to

another post, the legacy of that appointment goes on because Jim

Alastair's table add private members Bill seeking to disqualify

anyone who's served five years or more in prison from that. That bill

is with the Finance Committee for scrutiny and Anne Travers whose

sister was murdered 30 years ago and Mary McCardle served time for

that, she'll give evidence to the committee this week so it will run

and run. It will be a public discussion. It's an issue that will

remain on the agenda for the foreseeable? It is. It's a very

controversial appointment, at the time it was controversial and

indeed Anne Travers' complaints to the assembly and to the media

caused such a controversy it actually spilled over I think into

the Irish presidential race when Martin McGuinness was standing, so

it had repercussions beyond this assembly for sure.

Stay with us because that debate wasn't the only frank exchange

today. The controversial Welfare Reform Bill and the bid to set up a

committee on equality and human rights prompted testy exchanges.

Alex Maskey spelt out why he thinks it's needed. It was equally made

clear why it was felt that it was not needed.

I assure the minister and the department that the purpose of this

motion is not about delaying, it's about making sure we max mews the

scrutiny available to this House on its concern about human rights. The

Human Rights Commission made it clear that they had not been

involved in proper consultation with the department over the whole

process of this Bill thus far. The equality commission also had a

number of kshs. -- concerns. None of the assurances have been

realised. The Human Rights Commission and the equality

commission comes to me and tells me they are not satisfied A with the

degree of consultations that's been had with them or that their

concerns have been addressed, I will ensure that this House will be

given the full benefit to make sure this Bill complys with the human

rights. My department carried out a detailed analysis of the proposals

contained in the Bill for the conformity with the requirements,

including, I might add, a public consultation on these same

proposals. It was on the 5th September last

year, more than a year ago, that the department published its draft

equality impact assessment on the proposals contained within the Bill.

It's worth noting that neither the Human Rights Commission, nor indeed

the SDLP bothered to respond. The fact is that if this process

proceeds in the direction indicate and it's taken away from the DSD

committee into an ad hoc committee, the matter is then stalled until

that ad hoc committee's finished its work. We are already operating

under a very tight timetable and framework. If we go beyond that,

and that would be the result of what is proposed. I noticed the

chair said that it was not the intention to delay, but the fact is

that it will delay. Let's look very clearly at the implications of that.

If we delay this by ten days, and I take the figure of ten days because

30 days is the normal period set out for an ad hoc committee, but if

we delay it by ten days, the cost to the budget in Northern Ireland

is �4 million. �4 million for a ten-day delay. If it was the full

30 days, it would be �13.1 million. And if we go beyond that and, if

you look very carefully at the timetable, it might well go beyond

it, it would run up to �28 million. Now, the fact is, there's no need

to squander that money. There's no need to waste that money. Because

it is possible for the mittty itself, the social development

committee, to explore fully the issues around equality and human

rights without the sort of delay that they are contemplating. This

is not about welfare reform. This is about a squalid little squabble

between the SDLP and Sinn Fein where the SDLP want to be able to

say and it all came out in the press statement this morning from

Mr Durkin, they want to be able to say we led Sinn Fein by the nose,

we pulled them along, we are the people who did it, we got them over

the line. This is about an internationalist squabble.

The social and development minister there. Martina, the minister isn't

happy with this move to put the Bill before an ad hoc committee for

scrutiny. What do you understand to be his concerns? His concern is

that he says there is a tight time frame for this Bill to pass by next

spring and if the executive doesn't pass the Bill swi matching

legislation already passed it to change our welfare and to really

give it a radical overhaul to change the way credits are paid

every month, that if they don't make that deadline, he says the

Treasury that the Government could penalise the block grant and the

figures he gave today were that, for example, a ten-day delay could

lead to �4 million cost to the block grant here. Now, his concern

is that if this goes to an ad hoc committee to examine whether the

Bill meets equality and human rights standards, that the social

development committee which was looking at the bill and doing its

job of scrutinising it has to stop its work while the ad hoc committee

does its work. He's concerned about delay and his reference to the SDLP

Sinn Fein dates back to the executive and where Sinn Fein

delayed agreing to bring the Bill before the executive finally did,

but the SDLP objected saying the Bill needs more work, so he's

saying Sinn Fein is dancing to an SDLP tune. So it's not been

resolved? No, Alex Maskey isn't happy with the remarks the minister

made in the chamber today and I'm told he button-holed the minister

afterwards to quiz him on the figures he gave saying they want

the figures that he gave him at a meting last week. Sinn Fein is

saying we have to get this Bill right and Alex Maskey isn't

convinced the Government will penalise if there's extra time

taken to ensure this Bill does meet equality standards, so Sinn Fein

are determined to go ahead. They've tabled the petition of concern and

so this is coming up for a vote tomorrow. OK, thank you very much

for now. The possible introduction of 20mph

zone and their role in protecting cyclists was raised with the

regional development minister Danny Kennedy during Question Time this

afternoon. First he had to deal with the clever question linking

roadworks. Indication about how much funds has been transferred

from the A5 pot for road maintenance for us? Very ingeniusly

delivered question by the member! I have made plain that whilst the

In relation to reprioritising the alLe Kateed fund and we very much

hope the situation can be resolved. I still believe that it would be

possible to bring forward the A5 scheme hopefully at the earliest

possible point. Thank you, Mr Deputy speaker.

Question six, please? Mr Deputy speaker, I want to begin by saying

that I fully appreciate the concerns and frustration of

cyclists caused by vehicles parked within cycle lanes during their

operational hours. Motorists should be mindful and considerate towards

cyclists when using our roads and should not park illegally in cycle

lanes. However, my department road service Hadad viezed a traffic

attendant can issue a tenlty charge note toys a vehicle park -- has

advised that a traffic attendant can issue a penalty charge. However

one can not be issued unless other parking restrictions apply, for

example bus lanes or clearways. The traffic observant, when he notices

that, the appropriate enforcement action will be taken. The beginning

of Road Safety Week, Mr Deputy speaker, could the minister

indicate to the House whether he'd be willing to strongly consider the

merits of introducing 20mph zones on a statutory basis or supporting

the private members Bill for the house in the coming months to do

so? I'm grateful to the member for his supplimentary and I recognise

him as a keen cyclist and a very good cyclist. Can I say I'm aware

of the private members Bill and also aware of the representations

made by those in favour of introducing 20mph schemes. While

not being opposed, it seems to be the issue is one of enforcement and

how such limits are to be enforced while they're not PSNI committing

to necessary resources or whether people responsible, motorists and

vehicle users, will be prepared to accept the restrictions that are

placed upon them. I think it's an ongoing disRussian that I'm having

with my officials -- discussion that I'm having with my officials.

We'll see what emerges. unemployment figures were released

last week and it remained unchanged. MLAs wanted to know what the

Minister for Employment is go doing to help get people back to work.

Here is what he had to say. return to work programme is due to

end on the 31st March 2013 when the current contract force delivery

expire. Steps to success is being developed as the successor to the

outgoing programme. The public consultation exercise outlining the

high level design of steps to success ended on 12th October,

resulting in over 80 responses from a wide and varied range of

organisations. This level of interest in the programme is very

encouraging. My officials are now collating and evaluating the

responses received and will use this feedback to inform the design

of the programme. A summary response to the consultation

exercise which will include recommendations on the way forward

will be published once this work has completed. It's planned to

commence procurement for the plan in February 2013 with an

anticipated start date of February 2014. There must be some connection

between welfare reform and universal credit. I wonder if you

could identify what that is for us? Well, in Northern Ireland, we have

had the steps to work programme as the main employment programme. That

itself was a successor to the new deal and even without welfare

reform taking place in Great Britain and now in Northern Ireland,

we would have been in the aichwaition where we would have had

to recontract and to redesign our main employment programme --

situation. Obviously an employment programme is important because it's

critical to enabling people who've been out of work for a prolonged

period of time to assist them to return to work. Obviously,

universal credits themselves are designed to improve the

employability of people and to incentivise people who've been on

benefits to find work itself more attractive or a combination of

benefits and work and also to address the catchment that many

people find themselves on benefits of not finding work being

beneficial and paying its way. What we do in terms of the work

programme is critical to maximising the employability prospects of

people who are on benefits today and on unit universal credit. My

department through the redundancy advice service is working in

partnership with the social security agency, further education

colleges, HMRC and other agencies to provide 15 clinics across all

three FG Wilson sites affected by the announcements. At vice was

provided on job advice and mentoring, entrepreneurship,

education opportunities and creating advice, as well as

benefits and taxation issues. The service was delivered free of

charge to employees fashion redundancy. In addition, Dell

arranged six job and training affairs and again these were

delivered across all three sites. My officials worked proactively to

target and identify over 30 companies who expressed an interest

in attending the jobs fares with 28 attending the larn event, 16 in

another area and 16 in yet another area. We worked in partnership with

industry experts, employment and careers councillors. There was

access to opportunities and pathways into a different career.

welcome the clinics that have happened and the training fairs et

cetera, but is the minister able to indicate what the outcomes have

been in terms of the number of employees, whether agency workers

or permanent employees of FG Wilsons who've been able to get

alternative employment? I thank the member for his sum plimentry. We

don't have the precise figure yet of the placements and jobs that

have been filled as a consequence. It's very much a work in progress -

- supplimentary. The number of people to date who've been affected

by the redundancies are 490, broken down to 108 agency staff, 332

hourly production staff and 50 salary and engineering staff.

employment and learning minister. Martina is with me once again. A

lot of interest for the cross Border Edgecation debate tonight.

How did that turn out? That was brought under a private members

business. The minister is concerned ability the announcement last month

that he and his Dublin counterpart were serving families on the board

tore ask them about provision for schools and it's been noted that

this is taking place. The concern is that it's a very narrow area of

Northern Ireland that's been surveyed. He's concern tad the

minister should get his priorities right that there are more pressing

issues that the minister should be focused on. David Ford has some

decisions to make. We know about the future of McGilligan prison. He

was lobbied on that difficult issue today? That's right. Finlay Spratt

lobbied the minister with a petition of 5,500 signatures. There

is concern about jobs and the future of the prison. It was

recommended that the prison should close and to have another facility

close to Belfast perhaps. The minister is looking at the issue.

He is going to make an interim statement next week and a final

decision in January. If McGilligan stays open, I think there will be

changes to it but the minister hasn't closed the door all together.

One last thing. Opposition, much discussion about that in the

corridors up here, we know. The SDLP ended up talking about it at

its conference two weeks ago. John McKallis ter, the Ulster Unionist

MLA, we understand, is making a speech about how our position might

work tonight, do we know anything about that -- McCallister?

didn't win his argument but he's going to look at other ways of how

to press the issue. There are issues, he agrees there should be

an opposition but he has to get Sinn Fein's agreement. For example,

they wouldn't necessarily need to Leggett at Westminster to have an

on zition - orb opposition. You could try for some opposition

rights. Jim Alastair accused the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP of

being door mats, saying they should pull out of the executive. I don't

think we are at that point yet but until we get opposition, we'll hear

a lot about it. Thank you very much indeed. That's it from all of us