| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
6.6 pm
Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down): Thank you,Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in the appropriation debate. I should like to touch on one or two aspects of some of the headings of expenditure which are before us this evening, beginning with the Department of Agriculture. My first comment is a fairly modest one about the problems facing agriculture and fisheries. Will the Minister take on board the suggestion that what was known as the sub-programme for agriculture and rural development should be reinstated? The scheme was suspended in March 1995 because of over-subscription and insufficient finance, but that showed the very need to continue the programme, which has not been reinstated after more than 12 months. For the uninitiated, SPARD is a scheme to assist farmers to update and modernise the facilities on their farm. My request is modest, but reinstatement soon would be welcome assistance to the farming community of Northern Ireland.
Under the heading of agriculture, two major problems face Northern Ireland. One is the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis, which has been dealt with in considerable detail, and with eloquence, by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) on the Front Bench. It would not be to the benefit of the House if I repeated all that he had to say. I simply underscore one or two points by way of brief sentences.
As my hon. Friend said, the problem is much more severe in Northern Ireland than it is in Great Britain because 70 per cent. of our production is exported, whereas only 10 per cent. of British production is exported. Recovery of home consumption, which I understand has progressed to 85 per cent. in Britain, does not touch the problem in Northern Ireland. It would not do so even if home consumption recovered 100 per cent., because of our export dependency. It is important that, in the negotiations that are now taking place, a decision be taken to treat Northern Ireland as a special case, in view of its special history, of the lack of prevalence of the disease and of the computerised tracing system, which can trace an animal from any beef, dairy or other herd right back to its source.
Such a tracing system is not available anywhere else. I do not think that it is even available in Europe. It gives us the facility to identify immediately that which is capable of eradication and the measures that will have to be applied if the present suggestions do not produce immediate success.
In the meantime, one or two issues, such as the storage of carcases between slaughter and rendering, must be addressed. The existing rendering facilities must be examined. I reaffirm what my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central said: there must be a continuation of the top-up supplement that is paid for steers and heifers--and it should be extended to beef bulls. If those matters were addressed on a day-to-day basis, it would help to alleviate some of the problems.
Another problem facing agriculture in Northern Ireland is the harvest from sea fishing. The recently published Lassen report gives a benchmark to the Northern Ireland fishing industry of minus 40 per cent. In other words, the European Commission is asking Northern Ireland to reduce its fishing fleet by 40 per cent., and it has already been reduced. I know that Baroness Denton has an active and productive interest in representing the interests of the fishermen. The latest suggestion is at variance with the requirements of the fishing industry in Northern Ireland--and it is contrary to scientific evidence.
All sides--the fishing industry, the processors, the Department of Agriculture and the scientific advisors to the Department--consider the Lassen report to be based on a false premise. The benchmark of 40 per cent. refers to nephrops, or prawns, and the other species that are caught incidental to them. It would be horrendous if the fishing industry were cut by 40 per cent.--it would kill the industry.
It is frustrating that the evidence in the report is contradictory. The report says that nephrops are not an endangered species, yet they are being used as the reason for the 40 per cent. reduction. I hope that the Department of Agriculture is represented in Brussels, as we speak this evening, and that it is putting the case for the fishing industry. The fishing industry and the farming industry in my constituency, and in many other constituencies, will be devastated economically.
Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry):
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if we have anything like the cut in the fishing fleet that is demanded, the on-shore infrastructure will also disappear because it could not be supported by the smaller number of fishermen coming ashore? Does he further agree that there is an abundance of haddock in the Irish sea and that it will not be harvested if the cuts are implemented? Does not the Hague preference militate against the Northern Ireland fleet, but help the southern fleet--which cannot catch the quota that it already has?
Mr. McGrady:
I agree 100 per cent. with the three points that the hon. Gentleman raised. With respect to the Hague preference, there is a non-Hague official swap between the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Ireland fishermen on the various catches. The downstream job creation from the fishing industry is fundamental to the economic welfare of my constituency and to other constituencies in Northern Ireland.
The people who hope to provide the infrastructure for tourism in Northern Ireland are frustrated. The Northern Ireland tourist board and the Department of Economic Development deal with tourism, but they do not have a cohesive policy. There was a huge upsurge in tourism to Northern Ireland during the ceasefire--and it has been sustained because of the de facto ceasefire. The immediate problem was the creation of bed accommodation for the tourist industry.
My constituency is a tourist-orientated and scenic part of the country--all hon. Members are welcome to visit it during the summer. Tourists were turned away and had to be sent to the Republic of Ireland for accommodation. The people who are now trying to provide the infrastructure, and who can do it quickly and efficiently, are not getting any assistance or encouragement because of the lack of policy of the Northern Ireland tourist board. That situation must be addressed quickly. I understand that there is a target development strategy and that the Northern Ireland tourist board has identified that, between 1995 and 2000--just four years from now--we shall need a 59 per cent. increase in bed accommodation.
Up to April 1996, the board's policy was to concentrate its entire budget and effort on three or four big hotel projects. However, tourists--as distinct from those attending conferences--want to stay in small, family-run hotels that are convenient to their places of pleasure. I mean that in the sense of amenities, seasides and mountains, rather than the city types of pleasures to which other hon. Members would be more accustomed than I. The tourists want small, well-run, high-class hotels and guest houses.
I know of two hotels in Warrenpoint, which is a tourist area, and of two in Newcastle, one of the biggest tourist centres in Northern Ireland. They could produce 50 beds within a matter of months, but they cannot get any assistance because of the absence of a policy. We need a policy to address the accommodation needs of our tourists.
I shall deal with job provision against the background of my constituency's inability to cash in on the tourist industry, of the terrible problems in the agricultural industry and of the problems faced by the fishing ports. During Northern Ireland Question Time, the Minister gave us some information about the economic upsurge in Northern Ireland. He said that 4,800 jobs have been created over the past three or four years. In the past week, 1,800 jobs have been created in West Belfast, Newtown Abbey, Larne and Cookstown.
I find it puzzling that, fiscal year after fiscal year, only 6 per cent. of first-time visitors to Northern Ireland, and only 5 per cent. of repeat visitors, come to an area that is covered by the three council districts of Banbridge, of Down and of Newry and Mourne, which includes all of my constituency and another constituency. Not one single inward investment job has been created.
That statistic is repeated year after year--and year after year, I ask the same question and I am assured that this is accidental. At some point, statistics have to be believed and someone has to say, "There is a flaw here; there is something wrong here." We are accessible: we are 10 miles from the harbour of Belfast in the northern half of Northern Ireland, and there is the relatively new Warrenpoint in the southern half. The problem spills over into industrial site provision. The Industrial Development Board was to close the Warrenpoint site. The acquisition of the Downpatrick site has gone for on six years without any sod being acquired by the board. I can no longer consider those matters to be entirely accidental.
Against that backcloth of economic difficulties in the fishing, farming and tourist industries, I ask again for a review of the siting of jobs because, as I have often said, if we are to have equity and justice, job location is just as important as job allocation.
An item in the programme of the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland--a simple one involving the written test for driving licences--might seem a small matter to raise in such a lofty debate. People in the whole of Northern Ireland are being asked to go to six separate centres. In his reply to my letter on the subject, the Minister said:
Primarily, teenagers will be taking the driving test. They are students, trainees and the unemployed and they will have to travel 50 or 40 miles to do a half-hour written test. It is a bit ludicrous. They will have to have a driver with them, to take a day off school, training or work, and to flake off to those places.
People cannot get from where I live to the nearest driving test by public transport. We do not have trains in my constituency and we have an infrequent bus service. The local institute of technology can say, "Here is our examination hall. We will charge you £35 a session all in." What more economy would the Government want than that? Therefore, I ask the Minister again to consider closely the provision of some more centres, which will be more economic.
I shall quickly move on to the Department of Health and Social Services, to echo what the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir J. Molyneaux) has said about Mr. Tom Nolan and the services that he has rendered to education. I urge the Department to give the authorities a direction as to whether they must fill the post of chief executive, which expires, I think, in August this year. It is ludicrous that they are not able to move one way or the other.
I echo what my colleagues have said regarding the Minister's statement of 12 February that there would be a 3 per cent. cut in funding. He announced a £54 million increase, but said that a 3 per cent. cut was required in efficiency. I give him one credit, and I have said this publicly before. He said that there would be a 1.5 per cent. cut in finance and a 1.5 per cent. cut in services. That was the first time I heard a Minister say, "Services will be cut." They certainly will be.
The community care budget of the Lisburn and Down trust has been cut by 30 per cent. in one go. That means 10,000 man hours. Remember what those man hours are. They are spent not in an assembly line or a shop, but with old, invalid and physically disabled people. A total of 1,200 visits have been cancelled in my constituency. That affects the most vulnerable and dependent parts of our communities. It is scandalous.
To be fair, I know that the Minister or the Department did not intend that to happen. Some of the gurus, whiz kids or whatever they are called nowadays--consultants
perhaps--in the Department of Finance and Personnel got their sums wrong. As a consequence, people are suffering. If, as anticipated, there is a 3 per cent. cut in 1997-98 and in 1998-99, I assure the Minister and the House that the health service will totally collapse in Northern Ireland. That is not an alarmist statement, because we see what is happening in the service.
An anomaly is hidden within all this. The 3 per cent. cut is across the board in terms of hospitals, irrespective of whether people are efficient or a fat cow, as I say. My local hospital has been credited as being one of the most efficient and cost-effective. With due respect to my other colleagues, city hospitals seem not to have the same degree of cost-effectiveness, yet they will both be penalised in the same way.
"While the theory test contract provides for fewer theory test centres than there are practical centres, this reflects both the differences between the 2 types of tests and the necessity to maintain the theory test fee at a reasonable level for all candidates . . . Adding additional centres to cope with only 30,000-40,000 theory tests a year would be an uneconomic proposition and would require a significant increase to the theory test fee for everyone."
I do not know how the Minister obtained that information because, as I understand it, the new agency is hiring new offices, new furnishings, new equipment and new everything else, although hundreds of education institutions are willing to provide this service for as little as £35 a test, however many people are in that test. Therefore, it has nothing to do with economics.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |