Oral Answers to Questions |
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Lady Hermon: Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on the fact that we had a long-running industrial dispute among civil servants last year? It was not handled particularly well by the Northern Ireland Office nor, specifically, by the Minister. The issue of a civil service that is demoralised must be taken into account when one considers absenteeism. Mr. Lidington: I agree. Management needs to be rigorous and of such a quality that it provides leadership to people working in the public sector, so that morale improves and people are more likely to go into work. Management must be a mixture of inspiration and clarification, including that there are penalties when absenteeism cannot be justified. Another example is that of the Planning Service. The Northern Ireland Institute of Directors reported that staff numbers in the Planning Service have risen from 400 in 1999 to 800 at the end of 2004, but that planning applications were still taking an average of 17 weeks to process. The Government’s target was to reduce average waiting time from 17 weeks to 15 weeks by 2008. I have to question whether that target is sufficiently ambitious and does justice to a problem that seriously concerns business in Northern Ireland. Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the planning situation in the farming community? Special legislation has been passed in Europe and a lot of planning has to go into dealing with sewerage. How, in the name of goodness, are the planning departments going to have time to do all that and then make progress on the real issues? Mr. Lidington: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I suspect that many of those pressures on farmers will flow from the nitrates directive that is being implemented by the European Union. I certainly hope that the Government, in their proposals for the future of planning in Northern Ireland, will recognise that farmers need those decisions to be taken quickly and efficiently, and that that must be done without compromising applications from individuals and businesses elsewhere in Northern Ireland. I want to ask about the plans for a number of Departments, starting with the Department of Education. Nowhere in the budget document or the text of the order could I find any clear acknowledgement by the Government that their plans to implement the Costello report are likely to be costly. The clear implication of the report is that there will be fewer schools and that the schools service will be reorganised. In my experience, any reorganisation costs money. The Government want all secondary schools to provide for a broadly based entitlement curriculum, involving quite a large number of subjects. Certain schools will presumably need not just staff, but laboratories and classrooms in which to provide those
I was also concerned when I looked at the Department of Education’s efficiency technical note and saw that the Government were assuming, as part of their projected savings, that £2.1 million would be saved from school amalgamations. Is that a net or gross figure? Is it a net saving that has been offset against certain capital expenditure that the Government might be planning, or is it a gross saving of £2.1 million from amalgamations and closures? Whichever of those two explanations happens to be true, how many schools are we talking about? The Government mentioned a detailed figure in the efficiency technical note. They must surely have some idea of the number of schools that will be amalgamated under that plan. Similarly, in the same efficiency technical note, there is a proposal for savings of £8.6 million from what is described as a reduction in the fixed-cost elements of school budgets, such as lighting, heating, rates and so on, “to reflect demographic decline.” We all know that the number of young people of school age in Northern Ireland is falling and is projected to fall still further. I have nowhere seen an explanation of why a smaller number of pupils in a class or in a school would reduce heating, lighting or rates bills. It is a complete non sequitur to say that a reduction in pupil numbers will lead to a reduction in school overheads, let alone a reduction that will deliver £8.6 million of savings. In fact, the one thing that we do know is that there will be an increase in school overhead costs in the next few years with the introduction of water and sewerage charges. The Minister must explain how the sums in the Department of Education’s ETN add up and what they mean for the bills that individual schools will face. It looks like a notional saving, not one that can actually be delivered by head teachers and governors. Rev. Ian Paisley: There are other matters that need to be considered. For example, there is a bullying problem in the schools, and a constituent of mine committed suicide because of it. The problem is widespread, and the Government have to spend money to get children safely on and off buses. If that is taken into account—it is necessary to do so because children’s lives are at risk—the Government will not save what they tell us they will save. Mr. Lidington: The hon. Gentleman’s point reinforces the need for the Government to explain with much greater clarity how changes of policy will affect the savings listed in various documents. He referred earlier to the pressure on the library service in Northern Ireland. The ETN published by the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure projects savings of £4.1 million from the rationalisation of the public library service. It is not good enough for the Minister to say that this is all a matter for the education and library boards. That figure is in the Government’s ETN, so they have a responsibility to
Mr. Stephen Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab): There is a correlation between capitation and cost in schools, but it is finite. A reduction in the number of school pupils can have a commensurate reduction in management and maintenance costs. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would understand that if he were to think through the logic. The point is that the Department’s budget will increase by £30,999,000. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am suspicious of any figure that ends with 999,000. One always assumes that it is the end of the financial year. Regardless, the bottom line is that there is nearly £31 million extra. Surely that is the headline figure, and he should thank the Minister for it. Mr. Lidington: The hon. Gentleman’s problem is that, like so many in his party, he reads no further than the headline. Someone who wants to understand the Government’s economic policy must look very carefully at the small print, the footnotes, the annexes and the stuff that is published only on websites. Where the hon. Gentleman may be going wrong is in forgetting that the overwhelming proportion of any school’s budget is committed to staff costs, and that the amount of money that any school, particularly a small primary school, has to spend on overheads such as heat, light, maintenance and rates is small. I hope that my concern is misplaced, but the reductions that the Government are seeking can be notched up by the Department in the list that it presents to Ministers which conceals the fact that school budgets will be severely stretched, especially in small primary schools that serve rural areas. I want to obey your strictures and conclude my remarks, Mr. Amess, so I will not go through the full list of Departments that I might otherwise have mentioned. I conclude with the following point. I was disappointed that the Government’s priorities and budget document were not linked to the review of public administration that has been simmering on a back burner for too long now. I know that it is the Minister’s intention that that should be published later this year, but it is surely essential that the Government’s expenditure plan for the next three years should be closely linked with whatever they propose about the shape, structure and delivery of public services within the Province over the same period and beyond. I would hope, for example, that the Government have not closed their mind to the idea of withdrawing the Government from certain areas of activity altogether. In Great Britain, vehicle testing costs the taxpayer nothing because it is all done in the private sector. In Northern Ireland, vehicle testing costs the taxpayer £1.4 million, plus whatever capital
We know from what has been said about the health service that good quality public service is not just a matter of spraying extra money at a problem, although I will not deny that money is of key importance. The high per capita health spending in Northern Ireland has left us with a health service that, sadly, in many respects delivers a service to the people of Northern Ireland that is less than they get in other parts of the United Kingdom. I welcome the Appleby review, but once again I want to know in what way its conclusions, when the review is available, will be linked in to the expenditure plans for health and social services laid out in the Minister’s document. The Government’s budgetary policy for Northern Ireland is full of good intentions. However, some signs in the small print warn us that all is not necessarily what it seems. I still question whether the Government are sufficiently ambitious and radical in their strategic thinking about the need to restructure the economy of Northern Ireland to give the private sector a greater role in the medium and long term, because that would be in the interests of all the people in the Province. 4.13 pmRev. Ian Paisley: This debate gives us in Northern Ireland an opportunity to discuss matters of utmost importance in the priority of spending. I trust that today, in this short debate, the Government will listen to the voice of the elected representatives of Northern Ireland constituencies—elected, not chosen because they were favourites with the Minister’s office and his nominators. I have a crow to pick with the Government. We have many bodies for Northern Ireland that not one member of my party is ever nominated to or allowed to take part in, but we are told that they are all fair and upright. In the elected field, we have an opportunity to put our views. Would the Minister care to comment on the PricewaterhouseCoopers inquiry into the cost of business in Northern Ireland? Is he not alarmed by the finding that the rising cost of business is forcing one fifth of local businesses to consider or to make cutbacks? Does he realise that the inquiry report also says that relocation outside Northern Ireland is becoming a real possibility for businesses that have been the backbone of Ulster’s economy? Does he not understand that a further 15 per cent. of businesses are considering what they are going to do about future investment plans that they have already announced? Those three matters are ones that we should all be concerned about. Manufacturing business is at a low level. Ikea, a multinational retailer, has just decided to relocate its concerns in Dublin and take its business out of Northern Ireland completely. That is a serious blow to the local economy. It is a symptom of a growing trend: the culture of objection to any development is causing
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) (UUP): I share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment that Ikea has so far decided not to locate in Northern Ireland but has instead been attracted by the greater assistance and faster planning procedures of Dublin. However, there is still some hope that it might come, thus rendering unnecessary the journey to Glasgow that people from Northern Ireland have had to undertake to reach Ikea. Rev. Ian Paisley: All I say is that these events are putting up red lights in the way of our economy. We must be concerned about them. I put on the record my welcome for the new housing growth figures. They are very welcome to me because the constituency that I represent, North Antrim, has done well. I wish that all our other constituencies were doing so well. Ballymena has seen an increase of 58 per cent., Moyle a staggering 42 per cent. and Coleraine, which is not in my constituency but is close to it, has seen an increase of 26 per cent. We can take some hope from those new housing growth figures, but we should not rest on our laurels, especially in respect of the areas that have not benefited by large percentages. I know that the Minister cannot answer me today, but I ask him whether he can give me contrasting figures for other constituencies, so that we can see exactly where matters stand. I am going through the issues quickly because I know that other Members want to speak. I have been a member of this Committee for 35 years—I was a member before it was called “Grand”, when it was just an ordinary, non-Grand Committee. I used to feel sore because everybody spoke for a long time, so some people did not get to speak. I remember that, so I want to be as quick as I can. I return to the issue of farmland planning, which I mentioned in an intervention to the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington). Planning is central to farming. I need not tell the Minister, because he has met deputations from agriculture on the issue, that the applications for the large-scale plans that will be needed are moving at a slow pace. Will we be able to meet the European demands on us with such slow planning procedures? David Burnside (South Antrim) (UUP): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the planning process in Northern Ireland is exemplified by the case of the international business park at Corr’s Corner called Global Point? There cannot be any inward investment to local companies in that park because it is awaiting the outcome of a public inquiry on the Belfast metropolitan plan. None of the investment in that industrial park can take place. Is there not something seriously wrong with the planning system in Northern Ireland if public inquiries are blocking investment and growth? Rev. Ian Paisley: I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman. We need a public inquiry into planning in Northern Ireland, because the process is terribly slow.
With regard to water charging, I should make it clear that my party never agreed with the break-up of the regional rate, yet we are now suffering. The sad trouble is that the Government are saying to people, “You will pay twice for water.” I know their argument that the infrastructure is bad and it will be a difficult to get it up to standard—but who let the infrastructure go bad? The people ought to reply, “You have been ruling us from Parliament. You could have handled the matter when it was not so serious, but you took care not to. Now you suddenly come and say we are going to remedy it, but who pays?” The Minister has to face up to that. In Ballymena, in my area, ratepayers face enormous charges—an increase of almost 31 per cent. in their annual bills. That is a colossal amount to add to people’s bills. They have already had a charge put on their regional rate, but now they will have to pay another 31 per cent. In all, 133,000 homes will face water poverty as a result—they will not be able to pay. Of course, at the end of the day the law-abiding citizen will have to pay. Mr. Trimble: Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the quality impact assessment conducted by the Department on its proposal to base water charges on capital values of property, on which the rates are based, which the quality impact assessment has said will bear disproportionately heavily on elderly people and on Protestants? Rev. Ian Paisley: The right hon. Gentleman agrees that the charges are going to go up, and that they will go up unfairly. People who have a stake in the country and have always paid their bills will pay, but others who have boycotted rents and rates in the past will continue to do so and if the PSNI has no access to such areas, how will the money be collected? There is a tremendous problem. Column Number: 27 I regret that I must bring all my troubles to the Minister today, but these are matters of public concern and public debate everywhere one goes. He and I know that once an election starts, everyone believes that it is time to get their politician by the ear and bend it to them. The Government need to make clear statements. Mr. Nigel Dodds (Belfast, North) (DUP): My hon. Friend is raising an extremely important issue. Does he agree that the decision taken against our advice to break the link between the regional rate and payment for the Water Service in Northern Ireland was a mistake, and that, if water charges are introduced, the way out must be a commensurate reduction in the rates paid by householders and ratepayers, since they are already paying for their water through their rates? Rev. Ian Paisley: I agree. I trust that the Minister will not only give us a reply, which no doubt will be very short, but that we will be able to take these issues to him and have this argument in another place, where we can really get down to trying to find a way of solving some of the problems. The Minister did very well on library closures, but like the Israelites in Egypt, he had no straw with which to make bricks today—he did not even find any stubble to get into those bricks. Library services are being cut off, yet the Minister says that that is because they are evolving. I am not an evolutionist, but I thought that evolution meant growing—not only growing, but jumping great spaces between various sorts of seeds and seedlings. Yet here we have a man who tells us that the library service is growing. It is not growing, it is shrinking, and it will die. The undertakers are gathering. The Minister says that the Government are consulting. Will he tell us how many consultations he had with the North Eastern education and library board? I read a statement from the board in yesterday’s papers that it was not properly consulted. Now, the whole board is saying no. As the Minister knows, it is not very often that one achieves consensus in Northern Ireland, but there is consensus on the fact that library closures are a terrible tragedy. Everyone agrees with that. Libraries are not only about books; they are community spaces, where people have meetings on subjects that are part of the wellbeing of the community. That will be taken from them. I have taken up as much time as I dare. The Minister has many things to think about. I do not want simply to criticise, but I want him to face the issues. I am sure that every elected representative here would be happy to talk to him and to put to him some of the proposals that our constituents have made on dealing with those issues. 4.30 pmDavid Burnside: I want to concentrate on one area. We do not have time this afternoon to deal with every area of government in Northern Ireland covered by the draft budget order, so I shall pick as a priority education, which is the departmental responsibility of
The state of education, including in budgetary terms over the next 12 months, is one of the major crises facing Northern Ireland. The Minister with responsibility for education recently announced with enthusiasm that schools funding would increase by more than 9 per cent. next year, saying that that represents an extra £79 million, which will go directly to the classroom. Less than a month after that announcement, schools and education experts across Northern Ireland have dismissed the funding increase as totally unreal. What the Minister declined to mention in the announcement on 15 February was the fact that the 9 per cent. increase includes pension fund increases—teachers’ superannuation costs have doubled from 7 to 14 per cent. since last year and local government superannuation costs have increased from 4.6 to 8.5 per cent. It also includes—this is a rather contentious issue in the Northern Ireland education system—the so-called Chancellor’s money, which is an increase in the direct payments made to head teachers that was announced in the 2004 Budget. The Minister will no doubt be aware not only that the extension of the Chancellor’s money is a year late, but that what is offered is substantially less than that paid to head teachers in England. In some cases it is 50 per cent. less. Moreover, the 9 per cent. increase must also pay for the increase to teachers’ salaries. I would appreciate it if the Minister, or his colleague who has responsibility for education, dealt with the provision and timing of the Chancellor’s money. I hope that the Minister can see that, taking into account all those extra payments, not much of the 9 per cent. increase will be left for the classroom. Recent concerns arising in a couple of education boards include the announcement last Tuesday by the Southern education and library board that the 9 per cent. increase to the funding allocated for schools will, in real terms, amount to only 1.8 per cent. Some schools will have to operate on less than they had last year, despite the Government’s budget increase. Mr. Trimble: My hon. Friend is making a valuable point, but I want to add to his comments on the Southern board. When the increased costs that the board would face in several areas were worked through, the immediate consequence of the budget allocation was that the board needed to find savings of £4.8 million. That will result in a substantial reduction in the service available to people in the Southern board area. What appears to be an increase is in fact a savage cut. Column Number: 29 David Burnside: I agree with my right hon. Friend. As he has given an example of his constituency interest in the Southern board, I shall give a breakdown of examples in my constituency, covered by the North Eastern education and library board. The Minister also announced a 6 per cent. increase in the allocation to the centre budgets of education and library boards, supposedly representing an extra £19 million to support the core services that the boards deliver. Here, as ever before, the 6 per cent. increase means, in real terms, something in the region of 1 per cent. for most boards. Again, boards must take account of increasing superannuation costs and special education costs, and, as has already been mentioned, increased business costs such as rates, transport and other costs. The Southern education and library board referred to the serious shortfall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) mentioned. It means that services such as catering, transport, advisory and support services, resource centres, music services, special education, school library provision and school maintenance will all be affected. This is a serious crisis. Yesterday, at a meeting of the North Eastern education and library board, board members discussed how they could save money and remain within budget. This is frightening. Recommendations include cutting £200,000 from the catering services budget, meaning a substantial cut in the provision of milk and meals in schools. The cessation of school crossing patrols—lollipop men and women to us—would mean a saving of £480,000. That would clearly present a physical danger to our children, but it was being discussed seriously by the board only yesterday. Music services are to be cut by £250,000, and special educational needs services—including child psychology, educational welfare, special schools, education units and classroom assistants—will be cut by £870,000. If that was not bad enough, to keep the board above water a further cut of £3 million from the maintenance budget is necessary. That can be applied, with different variations, across Northern Ireland. Education boards and education are facing a financial crisis. The bottom line for the North Eastern education and library board is a grant of £71,664,000 under the 2005–06 budget, but it needs £80 million to run its services effectively. I shall give examples of schools in deficit in my constituency. The hon. Member for Brent, North is very good at blaming local schools, but that is buck passing. Mallusk primary school has a deficit of £34,800 and Ballyclare primary’s deficit is £42,400. The secondary school sector fares no better: Glengormley high school is in deficit by nearly £63,000 and Massereene community college is nearly a quarter of a million pounds in deficit. That is a disgraceful state of affairs. The Northern Ireland Office needs to wake up to the clarion cry “education, education, education” and to face up to the budgetary crisis for our schools at both primary and secondary level. Column Number: 30 |
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