28/11/2011 Stormont Today

Hello and welcome to Stormont Today. With the First Minister telling his

party conference he wants an end to the them and bus -- us mentality,

is it touchy-feely politics? glad to see I can still get under

the skin of Sinn Fein. And this statement... I believe the current

system of teacher training is neither affordable nor sustainable,

this is why I believe it is essential to carry out the study

and produce objective analysis of the financial stability of the two

university colleges. My guest throughout the programme is Sandy

Smith from Enterprise Northern Ireland. The Chancellor is due to

make his Autumn Statement tomorrow, that is on top of the discussion

about Arrow programme for government. Small and medium-sized

businesses are flavour of the month but how much will the measures

help? Sandy Smith, we had a discussion lastly, programme about

some criticism about the programme for government not emphasising

enterprise enough, do you think that is the case? We welcome the

programme for government and we would like to see something in it

about enterprise strategy. Our response to the programme for

government will be to help the assembly to put something in place

that will stimulate enterprise and that a bigger proportion of our

budget will go into specific issues. Will the fund not go a long way to

helping small and medium-sized businesses either expand or get off

the ground? It would be if that money did get his way to small

businesses, but under the current budget there is a very small

portion of the Budget that gets to small businesses to help them, both

in terms of capital to work with and in business start-up. The

programme we have been operating over the last few years is of the

order of a couple of million pounds, and what is in the budget currently

will be something of that order, whereas the overall budget is

something like 180 million so a very small proportion is spent on

stimulating small businesses. the government not emphasise and

put its eggs in the basket of foreign investment because they see

that as were the big job numbers come from? They do, but is that

where the big jobs come from? I suppose if you were developing a

business model, you would be saying out of the entire budget a third of

the money might going to growing businesses locally, and a third of

the money going into stimulating new business start-up. No economist

really has come up with a total solution to an economy like ours,

but if there are three possible ways of generating business, I

think a reasonable suggestion that at least something approximating

one third of the Budget should go into each of the three pocket.

with us. There was good news for mountain bikers and lovers of

nocturnal wildlife at question time today as the agriculture minister

Didier U-turn over closing forest at night, and the plastic bag tax

was back on the agenda. He was the new policy in response to Sam

Gardner. I wish to see forests used widely. Section 1 of the Forestry

Act creates a right for users subject to bye-laws. Those rules

should make clear to when these are suspended, for example when there

was a risk to health and safety. That Wright should also be

suspended when there is anti-social behaviour, when there is damage to

the forest, or officials are being obstructed. There is a need to

adopt a less restrictive by-laws and suggests most people behave

responsibly for their own safety but also their attitude to other

forest users. After consulting with the agriculture committee, I am

proposing to relax the restriction of night-time used by pedestrians,

to allow the continued use of forest roads after dark, and I also

intend to put cycling and other recreational facilities across as

much forest land as possible. ask her why she is proposing to

relax the situation, could she give a commitment to the house that she

will also be very happy to reveal with a view to increasing the

number of designated mountain biking and cycling routes within

forest parks? I have a meeting in the next few weeks with the

mountain biking Association. I have met them informally before just so

we can work in partnership more together. Our strategy set out that

we need to work in partnership more for recreational use, so that is

one of the issues I am actively working on. Egg producers have been

complaining the ban on battery eggs is not being complied with by many

other states in the EU so what is the minister doing to ensure a

level playing field? Many states are in a position to comply with

the ban on battery eggs. A legal production could adversely affect

stability and fairness in the sector which is important to our

economy. I have been working closely with ministers regarding

the implementation of the laying hens directed. We have pressed the

commission to agree a way forward on enforcing the new rules that

will protect our producers who are compliant from disadvantaged. There

is also an agreement that would allow eggs from legal cages only to

be processed in the state, and a plan to see how they will reach

full compliance. I have made it clear I want any proposal brought

forward by the Commission to have guarantees built in, and for any

legislative amendments to be brought forward as a matter of

urgency. The plastic bag tax is not as straightforward as it might seem

- it's actually a single use carrier-bag Levy, and the

complications don't end there. the minister does bring forward

this tax, could he tell the House how it would be collected, who

would be collected, the cost of administration of that collection

and how his department would be able to know how many bags

retailers were handing out? Could I thank the member, and those are

matters that do occupy my mind at the moment. The simple model in

terms of collection would be for her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

to collect on behalf of the Northern Ireland government. They

do so in respect of all other taxes including VAT at the point of sale,

and it seems to me that is the right model going forward. That

where you would be able to mitigate the bureaucracy and expense and the

upfront cost in introducing this levy on the single bag users. So

far however, HMRC have declined that offer, but I welcome the fact

that you have written to the Treasury to ask that they would

further consider putting into their IT systems a mechanism whereby this

levy would be collected by them. I hope they will accept that proposal

because the alternatives are either end in-house or out house model is

likely to be more expensive, more bureaucratic, reduce the amount of

income that would come to our own Exchequer arising from the single

bag levy. I hope the HMRC recognising that tax affairs are

changing, that administrations will look for flexibilities in the

future and they could use this particular intervention as a model,

adjusting their financial mechanisms and tax collecting

mechanisms in a way that helps devolved administrations going

forward. He would have thought the public administration would provide

light relief? Responsibility was handed out of the blue-eyed boys,

irrespective of their ability to carry out duties. Can the Minister

assure the House that in this new 15 member council that members will

in fact have the capacity training and will honestly earned the

additional money that they may receive? Because that is not what

happened in all cases in the past. Last time I looked my eyes were

green, not brown. It is only Margaret who thinks I am the blue-

eyed boy. Let's not go there! more serious note, a quick appeal

to Alex Attwood and Paul MLAs, please speaking to the microphone.

The employment and learning minister says there should be a

single teacher training system in Northern Ireland. He says there is

no reason why teachers should be trained in five separate

institutions and he told MLAs he remains committed to a merger

between strong mayor teaching College and Queen's University.

desire is to facilitate and agree a shared system of teacher education.

I'm not going to be prescriptive of the type of sharing and integration

that may be recommended by the study. Areas for consideration

should include services, facilities and teaching. This is regarding an

- issues like quality of access. I believe the current system of

teacher training is neither affordable nor sustainable. This is

why I believe it is essential to carry out the study and produce

subjective analysis of the financial stability of the two

university colleges, but I think it does also need to be undertaken an

informed debate of the funding in the future. I'm convinced the best

way forward is to develop a fully integrated education system

comprising an integrated system of teacher education. However, I know

I can't deliver this by myself and the views of others, including in

particular the stakeholders, are critical. Why it is this

announcement only about two and universities? Is the Minister

In April 2003 a joint study was begun by the Department of

Education into teacher education. It went out to consultation last

year and consultation closed a year ago today. I wonder if the minister

could tell us what is the future of that strategic review and why this

is not a joint review being conducted by his department and the

Department of Education? Does he not except that in page five of his

statement when he talks about Strang moors College managing its

affairs as best it can? At the outset of his statement he said

that he talked about the values and traditions of colleges. Can hire --

can I ask how he can guarantee that the unique heritage of that college

will be preserved in such a merger? With me is the chair of the

employment and learning committee. We are talking about them and us

politics and the debate sounded very much for them and us. Yes, it

was disappointing. The key point is that we are producing too many

teachers and we are going to have to rationalise. Sooner or later we

will have to put the three of them into one. Are you not guilty of

them and us as well by calling for the merger? For me it was pure

economics that if you are �2.5 million down and you do not have

any money you have to do something. The real problem is that only 10 %

of the teachers we produce our getting full-time jobs when they

leave. If you are producing and that many teachers, there is

clearly something wrong. Why not rationalise with the two colleges

merging and look at the St Mary's issue further down the line? There

is a concern that if you go down one brute that Rolls will be

changed. What is important in the society in which we operate is that

there should be one rule for everyone. You can look at the

balance sheet and say that you need to take action now. What has

happened with this decision is that strangles has been hung out to dry.

It will lose money and it will be difficult for the staff and the

students and I do not think it will be much better for St Mary's.

don't think this is a case so far as Sinn Fein and the lining up to

support St Mary's? At there are obviously tie is in this area but

that does not mean you can't rationalise the situation. More

dialogue would be better. I can say to you that we are taking a very

impartial point of view. As a party we have accepted that it is not the

case that strangles has a Protestant ethos, it takes students

of all denominations, and we are trying to get the best training for

our teachers. What about your committee? There seems to be a

state of some disruption there. You were off on your trip to Paris last

week and in your absence this decision was taken about when

stayed's strike and you returned it today. It has been claimed that

that was undemocratic. It certainly was not undemocratic. The way you

deal with things in any committee is that you publish the agenda and

if you have any minor bits you can deal with them in any other

business. Today's meeting was done properly. Notice was given in

advance, here is what we are going to discuss, everybody had a chance

to have their say and we had a democratic vote. Barry was being a

bit opportunistic, shall we say, when I was away, which is politics,

but I have made sure that the vote has been regularised. FE are you in

charge, given what happened in the sand by Diego trip? -- San Diego.

chairman is there to chair meetings. I only have two of votes.

Everything is done by consensus. The issue with San Diego as a

disappointment because I thought that was blown out of proportion. -

- is a disappointment. This was only a proprietary negotiation and

it was only going to go ahead if everybody agreed and I will be

showing two members of committee when we meet again is the

transcripts of the meetings at which they agreed to it. Thank you

very much. Sandy Wilson may have had them in stitches at the DUP

conference on Saturday but his comments have angered some Sinn

Fein members. My primary function is to

scrutinise the work of the minister. I found his remarks at the weekend

disgraceful, speaking as a former prisoner. I found that they were

demeaning to him as a prisoner and to the entire executive and I would

go as far as to say that they eat demeaned the audience at home.

Those remarks bear absolutely no relation to what he still got to

say. I am glad to say that I can still get under the skin of Sinn

Fein. It pleases me but I have the response from them but I do. --

about I have. -- that I have. The imagery her children being placed

in a long creche is not something I made up. They were the people who

called the nursery long creche. By simply followed up a bat in a jury

and I am sure many people across Northern Ireland will be amused. --

followed up goes comments. -- those are. I assume they agreed with all

of my comments about the former education minister. Staying with

the DUP conference, conferences are full of people trying to get their

case across the politicians. I met one campaign on Saturday he has

been highlighting the plight of patients with learning difficulties

trying to get rehabilitated into the community. A lack of resources

means that we will take some years for all of these patients to be

rehabilitated. You have more freedom in the community. You can

go to your local shop, the cinema, the opera house, you can visit

museums. So it is an issue of independence? Yes. A bit more

freedom to do things. People in -- what do you think people need?

need places where there is freedom to come and go but where they can

be looked after at the same time, where they get meals cooked for

them. That shows that everybody is looking for money for all kinds of

campaigns. What can you say to the government to prove to them that

you do a good job and you are creating jobs? All of the

performance indicators do we have met and that is very important. We

met with a group of MLAs today and we showed them what we have

achieved. The other interesting statistic is that for every small

business you start each one generates almost three jobs and

over the period of the last seven years of the programmes we have

been running we have generated almost 20,000 jobs. That is a very

important statistic and a very good use of the resources. If we had

more resources we could continue to produce those outstanding

achievements. What is in a name? Quite a lot, it would seem. What we

call things or people could have serious implications so what should

we call people over the age of 60? It is an issue that clearly matters

to 1 m l a, as we look at our regular look at the work of the

Stormont committees. -- MLAs. you adopt the terminology of senior

citizens instead of older people? Don't put those people down. They

don't want to be referred to as being old, even at 100 they are

senior citizens. We would not call anybody old. You talk about

services far older people. People are comfortable about being

described as that. There are mixed views on senior citizens, as long

as they are not called the LED -- the elderly! The old people's home

is probably something we should ban. It just shows how vexed our

language is. They resented. -- and they resent it. In terms of the

public perception, there is clear damage being done to the minister

and the Department and in terms of the perception of a lack of

transparency and this is not the first time that such an allegation

has been labelled against this minister, so it is very important,

if this committee asks the minister to appear before it, to get some

clarity on what is going on and how this process came about, where a

five-year licence to give one company be exclusive rights to

extract gas from 750 square kilometres of countryside included

a farm holding belonging to the minister's husband. I think the

committee should invite her to appear before the committee.

accusations are coming from Mr Flanagan but it comes no surprise

to those of us to have been watching his activities over the

past few months. Any opportunity he gets to have a go at the minister,

he has a go. It is very unfortunate that we, as a committee, are

hearing such wild accusations. he tells us that there is no

conflict of interest and there is nothing to declare, he can say that,

but we need transparency. Myself and the deputy chairmen meet with

the minister with a beauty trying to understand what his position is,

and also extending the invitation to attend the committee.

necessarily next week. I think the import is that she would attend

next week. That committee is due to meet again later this week and if

the minister is there we will bring you the highlights. Another appeal

to MLAs - please turn off your mobile phones so that we do not get

that buzzing. You can keep up with just about everything going on in

the Chamber by going to our democracy live page.

We heard earlier how Peter Robinson used his conference at the weekend

to call for an end to sectarian division but any end to them and us

politics does not seem likely if today's business is to go by.

At the weekend Peter Robinson's vision was for an end to them and

us politics but there was a lot of it around the building today. In

the teacher training to belt we saw the Alliance Party coming under

fire from both nationalists and Unionists as he tried to to work

towards a joint policy. If this is the problems about a single shared

education system, it is not a good omen.

There was more them and us about policing. There was never going to

be a meeting of minds about this. The nationalists were asking for --

former police officers to be compelled into co-operating with

investigations into past wrongdoing. The DUP effectively put a blocking

motion into place, meaning but the nationalists would need a cross-

community agreement. -- and meaning that. The support is very extensive

across Northern Ireland. We have expert access to bore facilities

for people wanting to start up businesses and there is a massive

support network for people with businesses. You can get space and

use workshops. Yes, and we would like to see new businesses coming

in to the areas available. More importantly, the expertise that