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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. In the 48 minutes available before the wind-up, four hon. Members wish to catch my eye. That should not be impossible with a bit of co-operation.
11.58 pm
Rev. William McCrea (Mid-Ulster): I shall bear in mind the time, and not repeat much of what has already been said. I join with all hon. Members who have mentioned the action for community employment scheme. I have been lobbied by quite a number of community organisations which feel that it is of vital importance that finances are made available for the continuation of the original ACE scheme.
I am sure that the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) realises that one of the biggest problems in Northern Ireland is the roads infrastructure. I had the privilege of hosting Baroness Denton of Wakefield in my constituency at the weekend. Her visit was most welcome, and I know that she understood the difficulties of getting there. Unfortunately, we are told that to solve part of the
problem we must attract industrialists. We have to compete with the other areas of the Province that are close to air and sea ports.
For the likes of Omagh district or Castlederg, the great difficulty is transporting people and products between their businesses and the air and sea ports. I ask the Minister, therefore, to implore his colleague to ensure the upgrading of the road from the end of the M1 at Dungannon right through to Ballygawley roundabout, Omagh and Strabane. That is a major section of the road. The Minister said that perhaps private finances should be considered. I ask the Department to take whatever actions are necessary to get us a road that will enhance the prospects of industrial development in an area of very high unemployment. We are sincere when we say to the Minister that that is one of the essential ingredients.
Another necessity is the conclusion of the Omagh and the Cookstown bypasses. If we are again faced with terrorist activity, God forbid that the business people should again have to suffer being held up by the security huts near the security base in Cookstown. We urgently need that bypass. The Magherafelt bypass is equally important to enable us to get industrialists into the area and products out as quickly as possible.
Grants have been mentioned. The staff of the grants office seem to be totally disillusioned. They do not know what to say. They simply have to give us the old, old story and spin the record again, saying that there is no money that they can hand out. Many of the applications are long term; yet the papers are still filled with encouragements from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive for further applications. It would at least be something if the executive would stop giving the impression that if one makes an application one will get an answer. There is no money for the long-standing applications at the moment. We urgently need more money for Housing Executive grants and to pay for the long list that are still in the pipeline.
The health cuts will hurt the service for patients and clients in my constituency, which is to be condemned. We do not need further health cuts. The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) mentioned the cuts of the past three years. One can only cut a service so far before one goes right to the bone. Unfortunately, the further cuts that are being forced on the boards are destroying an excellent health service and once again bringing disillusionment to the staff, who are trying to provide essential services without adequate finances.
My colleagues and many other hon. Members are concerned about the education boards, which are part of the Minister's brief. It is not right for there to be any change in the boards. They should not be juggled around. Time should not be wasted trying to get rid of some of them. It is the will of the people that they should remain as they are. Only if there were an Administration in Northern Ireland, in which the elected representatives could sit down together and discuss the whole problem of education, should that be considered. The Government should stop fooling around with that issue. It is about time that the Minister told us that the boards are not going to change and that they will remain.
The other problem that faces many of us is the proposition of the 16-year-olds-plus having to pay to continue in education. That has certainly sent a shiver up the spine of many firms. As usual, those who are caught
in the poverty trap and who have to pay so much because they are just over the line and cannot get the benefits will have to face great bills. That is totally unacceptable within the community.
I want to ask the Minister about Orlit houses. There was a report on the rules--do we have it? The report has been conducted for a long time--what is the answer? Homes that should be properly repaired are not being repaired because of a report that has been commissioned somewhere in England. We have not yet received an answer.
We have heard that 144 jobs in the Unipork bacon factory in Cookstown are to be lost. That has caused tremendous dismay among my constituents. Two weeks earlier we heard that a package of £11.5 million was to be invested; now we hear that 144 jobs are to be lost. That matter needs to be considered. It is important that the pig industry and the factories ensure that the farmers receive a proper return for their work. I am sad to say that for two solid years the farmers were working simply for the bank rather than for their families, and they were falling deeper and deeper into debt. It is important that factories should be willing to give a fair return to farmers and not take their labours for granted. We must resolve the problems: where farmers have gone to the wall there is now a lack of pigs for the factories in the Province.
I want to give other hon. Members the time that is due to them to mention their constituency problems, so I shall mention only briefly the Tyrone and Fermanagh hospital. It is an excellent site, and it would be an excellent university campus site if the Department were willing to take it up as such. It has been wasted, which is disgraceful. Its buildings are second to none, and the Minister should consider the site afresh to see whether it would be possible to use that excellent facility in a profitable way, for the betterment and education of our people.
Local representatives are certainly demanding that planning should be returned to their hands. Instead of officials saying that they have conducted some sort of consultation process--which is often merely an apology for such a process--and then dictating what is to happen, it should be the other way round: the officials should make the recommendations and the elected representatives from local government authorities throughout the Province should make the decisions.
Mr. Roy Beggs (East Antrim):
Like other hon. Members, I should like to refer to vote 3 in the Department of Economic Development. While I welcome the continuing decline in unemployment in Northern Ireland and the enthusiasm of the Minister with responsibility for the economy for attracting new investment to Northern Ireland, I do not think that there has been a sufficient drop in unemployment to justify the
My Northern Ireland parliamentary colleagues, of all parties represented in the House, agree that the schemes have benefited the long-term unemployed, who have obtained places on them. They have also been beneficial because the community service provided by ACE schemes met the local needs of the most disadvantaged groups in Northern Ireland. The great pity is that there was not a proper assessment of each ACE scheme prior to the announced cuts in order to ensure that the schemes, which included a significant training element and were raising the skill levels of previously unemployed participants, remained fully funded and protected. ACE schemes that provided work activity rather than raising the skills of individuals should have been given 12 months' notice to improve to a preset standard or forced to close down and those on the scheme assimilated into a more acceptably managed scheme that had a significant training element.
I recently attended an evening club meeting of the Physically Handicapped and Able-Bodied, PHAB, in Carrickfergus in my constituency. It was good to see young and older people of all religious groups mixing naturally in a friendly, caring, secure atmosphere with their local leaders.
PHAB Northern Ireland is based in north Belfast. The ACE scheme managed by PHAB has an excellent record. In the past year, it employed 34 persons, of whom 14 have gone into permanent employment and six into higher education. That is a good record, but no allowance has been made for quality schemes in areas with high unemployment and social deprivation. The 25 per cent. cut announced by the Training and Employment Agency targeted all schemes equally.
Nevertheless, I welcome the announcement today by the Minister responsible for the economy that £2 million will be released to soften the swingeing cuts. It would have made more sense for the TEA properly to evaluate each ACE scheme and secure those that met community needs while improving the skills and prospects of the long-term unemployed in their areas. The £2 million will ease only part of the pain that removal of £12.5 million from ACE expenditure will cause. Like other hon. Members, I appeal to the Minister to hold the Training and Employment Agency accountable for that disgraceful decision and endeavour to find further funds to minimise the damage to the schemes.
Vote 3, Department of the Environment, deals with sums granted for expenditure on water, sewerage and related services. A "Green Guide" is published in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), will pay attention because the "Green Guide" is for suppliers of goods and services to the Northern Ireland civil service. On page 15, regarding asbestos, it instructs readers:
"Do:
take every precaution when working on Government premises to avoid disturbing any asbestos remaining in the fabric of our buildings;
ensure that asbestos of any type is not used in the composition of products supplied to Departments."
19 Feb 1996 : Column 136
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