NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY
Monday 5 November 2001 (continued)
I also want to correct a rumour that has come out of the Department. When Mr Hume and I, as Members of the European Parliament, met Commissioner Byrne, he told us that European money was available. Of course, that money would have to be matched on a retirement scheme. It has been put out by the Department that that could not be. I would have thought that the Commissioner would know more about Europe than any member of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development or the Minister herself. The Commissioner did tell us that money was available. There were four witnesses - Mr Hume had someone with him, and I had my friend with me. Four of us heard it, and we had quite a discussion about it. If that is the case, there should be a move. There seems to be a tremendous hold-up when one mentions a retirement scheme.
I feel strongly about the fishing industry, and I regret the state that it is in. It is disastrous when men are put out of their livelihood, that their ships, with all the money that was spent on them, must be burned, battered and broken up, and nobody gets a penny. That is an utter scandal. If a man who has a boat leaves the business, why can he not sell that boat? It would not be used for fishing; it could be a residence or some sort of shed for use in the fishing industry However, he cannot do that. No matter how many thousands of pounds have been paid, the boat must be broken up, and the fisherman must pay back the money that he got to repair that boat originally. I am glad that even the Alliance Party agrees with me on that one. I am thrilled to bits - [Interruption].
Please do not transubstantiate yourself, or I might change my mind.
These are real wounds in the heart of the society of Northern Ireland, both in agriculture and in fishing. The Minister had to be Scrooge-like when he handed out his money, and I understand that. If the money is not there, he cannot hand it out. However, if we do not make some real moves to deal with these matters, the plight of agriculture and fishing will be even worse and it will be even more difficult to extricate the fishermen from the mess they are in.
Dr O'Hagan:
Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I have some general points on the draft Budget, and my Colleagues will make more specific ones.
We are tied to the budgetary plans of the British Exchequer, which for generations has had an obsession with cutting taxes. We need a real increase in investment in public-sector infrastructure. Preoccupation with tax cuts, ahead of the duty to schools, hospitals, pensioners and a whole raft of issues, is part of being tied to the political philosophy of the British Exchequer.
Our departmental expenditure limit allocations, as set out by the Treasury, show a rise in public expenditure in 2002-03 of 5·8%, or about 3% more than inflation. However, many of the costs that affect public services are rising at a faster rate than inflation. The allocations for 2002-03 build on the 5·5% real terms increase in the 2001-02 Budget, which has allowed Departments to initiate the work started on the Programme for Government priorities.
The Barnett consequential that is used to calculate the block grant is unfair. It is a headcount that takes no account of need or of any meaningful adjustments to population structure. We have an ageing population, a high proportion of young people, higher levels of ill health and rural problems. There is an immediate need to increase spending on infrastructure, health, education, housing, roads, rail, and power, as well as on information and telecommunications technology.
Throughout the North of Ireland, and with the Dublin Government, we must find funds to build not just a North/South economic corridor, but an east-west, cross-border corridor. We do not want to see the good work done in the Assembly with the return of local democracy being undermined and undone by a parsimonious British Chancellor. An inflation-busting increase in the regional rates for the second year in a row will leave many businesses and households running for cover. Although businesses have been spared the worst of the increases with a 3·3% increase for the second year, householders have been hit by yet another 7% rates hike, also for a second year.
It is clear that the Minister of Finance and Personnel and the entire Assembly need to unite and put that matter to the British Exchequer. There is a legacy of underfunding. We have a need that is not reflected in the headcount of the Barnett formula. We are a society emerging from conflict.
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Sinn Féin would like to see the creation of an all-Ireland economy. That is the only way that this island's economy can be more successful. The first step towards that goal is tax-varying powers for the Assembly. Unfortunately, we are not currently in a position to have those. In the meantime, we need a co-ordinated strategy to deal with the flawed and unfair Barnett formula that allocates our block grant. We need to ask why the massive British war machine expenditure has not been redeployed to support our transition to a more peaceful, stable, prosperous, fair and outward-looking society. The Assembly should also negotiate with the Irish Government for an increase in their commitments to expenditure on cross-border programmes and services, and on all-Ireland bodies through the North/South Ministerial Council.
We should work towards eradicating community differentials, ending discrimination and tackling disadvantage. We need to spend much more on the community and voluntary sectors, instead of starving them of resources. Their dire situation is compounded by the twin problems of the gap in the European funding that supports so much of those sectors' work, and the retreat of mainstream funding. The community and voluntary sectors deal with problems such as drug and alcohol abuse by giving advice and practical assistance. They are a vital community resource, especially in the most disadvantaged and marginalised areas. Thousands of people employed in those sectors face job losses because of the lack of gap funding.
The regeneration of towns and villages is also a victim of the Budget, with annual allocations being slashed by 4·4%. Given the millions pumped into the Laganside project in east Belfast, expenditure on town and village regeneration should be given priority in order to create a level playing field.
Rather than tinkering around the edges, we should be developing a comprehensive plan to deal with the flawed and unfair Barnett formula that is used to work out our block grant allocation. There is also an onus on the Irish Government to spread the benefits of the "Celtic tiger", and we need to put pressure on the British Government, not only about the Barnett formula but on the provision of the peace dividend.
The peace process has been in place for a number of years, yet we are still waiting for the money sucked up by the British war machine to be redeployed. We are a society emerging from conflict, continuing to suffer the social and economic consequences of that conflict. No adequate provision is contained in the Budget or financial estimates for the legacy of discrimination, inequality and injustice in the north of Ireland that needs to be redressed as a matter of urgency. Go raibh maith agat.
Mr Close:
I do not wish to use the opportunity afforded by this debate on the draft Budget to criticise the allocation of money to the various Departments. I am sure that the Minister will be pleased to hear that. Nor do I intend to rehearse the old arguments about the iniquity of increases in the regional rate that are above the rate of inflation. I am sure that the Minister will be doubly delighted to hear that. Rather, I shall use the opportunity to question the whole concept and methodology of our Budget process.
It has been three years since the Assembly first met, and in many respects we are still slavishly following customs and practices of the past. Although such practices may have served society well in the past, they ignore the stark realities of the present. The money that we are spending is not the Government's money; it is not the Executive's money. It is taxpayer's money. That money is departmentalised - it is locked away in particular Departments. It is spent by Departments, and each is hell-bent on ensuring that it gets its percentage increase year on year oblivious to, or without concern for, the stark realities of life that exist outside.
The sums of money allocated and the percentage increases awarded can be justified when viewed in the context of a particular Department. For instance, who could question that more money needs to be spent on roads, transport, water and sewerage services. However, the justification becomes less meaningful when viewed against what must be the Assembly's number one priority: the health of our people.
The Executive say that they prioritise expenditure, and to a small degree that is true. However, words have not yet been backed up with sufficient resources. The Assembly and the Executive pronounce publicly that health is the number one priority, but do Members mean what they say? Do the Ministers and the members of each Statutory Committee feel in their heart of hearts that health is the number one priority, and do they treat it as such? Is their own Department their number one priority? Do they not clamour year in, year out for more of that finite resource called money for their Departments? Ultimately, that is at the expense of health. Everyone wants his or her extra pound of flesh.
To say that there is a crisis in the Health Service is no exaggeration; it is an understatement. It is not an exaggeration to say that people are dying because of lack of resources. Thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, are waiting for proper coronary care. The new cancer unit has been further delayed. There is a shortage of surgeons, nurses, beds, et cetera. Members could rehearse the problems and they could beat their breasts. However, there is a huge void when it comes to doing what is necessary.
Over the past number of weeks I have tried to ascertain what the word "priority" means in the Assembly. I have asked each Minister to release at least £10 million from their budgets to alleviate the crisis in the Health Service. Such a move would increase the health budget by at least £90 million. I met with some interesting results. In a number of cases my questions were ruled inadmissible. However, I was not told that by any Minister: I was told it by others who appear to rule on whether a Member may ask a question on behalf of his constituents. That is a strange form of democracy.
Some of my questions were referred to the Minister of Finance and Personnel on the grounds that it was his responsibility. That is an interesting concept. The Minister of Finance and Personnel apparently decides whether the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Department of the Environment, or any other Department, can release money. That is what I have been told. In one case I got a straight "No". The Minister in question acknowledged the pressures on the Health Service, but said that transferring £10 million would have severe implications for his or her Department.
So much for priority. So much for those citizens crying out for urgent health care. So much for those who are waiting on trolleys. So much for those who are dying. In the overall scheme of things, is it more important to save a life or to spend an extra £300,000 in support of the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission, or an extra £500,000 on veterinary services? Is it not more important to resource more nurses and surgeons than to increase expenditure on accommodation or give an extra £5 million to the Environment and Heritage Service?
Is transport more important than cancer care or community care packages? We are the guardians of the public purse. Our management of that purse must reflect the real and pressing needs of society - the taxpayers. Would a businessman or businesswoman continue with an expensive advertising campaign if that meant laying off production workers because of scarce resources and a cash flow problem? Would the parents of a terminally ill child spend money on redecorating their home or buying a new car, or would they keep money in the bank if that money could save their child's life?
How can the Assembly justify keeping tens of millions of pounds in Executive programme funds for future spending, when people will die because that money is not being spent now? The draft Budget fails to give meaning to the word "priority". It fails the people. The Assembly has proved adept at changing rules over the past few days. I suggest that it put the same effort into changing practices of the past and give a real and meaningful definition to the word "priority".
Mr Watson:
During the opening debate on the draft Budget on 25 September, the Chairman of the Environment Committee questioned the Minister of Finance and Personnel on the justice of the proposal to cut £2 million from the resources grant payable to those councils with the weakest rates base. Neither the Minister of Finance and Personnel nor the Minister of the Environment has explained the logic of that proposal. It takes £2 million from the weakest councils to pay for compliance with EU legislation that is primarily on waste management, which will benefit everyone, including people in the strongest rates-base councils.
I ask those Ministers again - and Members - how that stands with the key policy theme in the Executive's draft Programme for Government of targeting social need and the promotion of equality of opportunity. The Environment Committee has received letters from 14 local councils protesting against the £2 million cut and highlighting the unfairness of targeting the weakest rates-base councils. The Committee has forwarded those letters to the Minister of Finance and Personnel and the Executive, and has asked that the proposal to cut the local government resources grant be dropped from the 2002-03 Budget. Those letters show that the £2 million cut will have a major impact on local government services and rates in some of the poorest and most socially deprived areas of Northern Ireland. I ask the Minister of Finance and Personnel to give this matter serious and urgent consideration.
The Chairperson of the Committee for Employment and Learning (Dr Birnie):
I want to focus on two main areas in relation to the draft Budget; first, adult basic skills, and secondly, research and development spending, particularly regarding Northern Ireland's universities.
I want to address the policy response to and funding of adult basic literacy and numeracy. The Committee for Employment and Learning was pleased that additional money was granted to that area in the first round of Executive programme funds. However, the sum granted at that time was less than the 30% that the Department had asked for. No additional funding has been provided since then. Those problems are sufficiently serious to warrant further funding. This is a fundamental social problem that has implications for individuals' employability and state of health and has an impact on general economic growth and productivity.
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We welcome the fact that the most recent draft of the Programme for Government placed increased emphasis on that area. One quarter of the adult population here falls into the category of the lowest measured level of ability to either read or count. Along with Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and the United States, Northern Ireland languishes at the bottom of the international league with regard to adult basic skills. This seems to imply that something systemic has gone wrong with basic education - particularly primary education - in the English-speaking world. That has happened in the past. Our priority is to ensure that this problem will never be recreated for future generations in primary and secondary schools. We also need to deal with those currently in the labour force who have a tragic inability to read or exercise basic numeracy. We appeal for additional moneys in that area.
My second concern in respect of employment and learning is R&D, as based in universities in Northern Ireland. The issue of the contribution of the training and education system to industry was given prominence in our Committee's report about three weeks ago. Subsequent to that report, the vice-chancellors of Queen's University and the University of Ulster gave evidence to the Committee in the strongest possible terms about what they saw as the inadequacy of the funding provided for R&D in general, and university-based R&D in particular.
There is a strong positive relationship between the proportion of R&D spending in any country or region as a percentage of regional or national gross domestic product (GDP) and the subsequent economic growth rate. It is worrying that Northern Ireland lies at the bottom of a second league table: that of Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. We fall in the class occupied by countries like Turkey and Hungary. We have an R&D spend of only 0·6% of regional GDP, compared to 1% in the Republic of Ireland, where the spend has increased rapidly over the last five or six years, and roughly 2% in the United Kingdom as a whole. Thirty per cent of the R&D spend in Northern Ireland is carried out in universities, compared to under one-fifth in the UK as a whole. The universities will therefore have a pivotal role in increasing the level of R&D spend in Northern Ireland.
When presenting their evidence to the Committee, the two vice-chancellors argued very similar cases, making the point that the Welsh and Scottish Administrations have substantially increased the level of public support for university-based R&D since devolution. Locally, that has yet to happen to the same degree. It was also noted that a continued decrease in university-based R&D would have a negative knock-on effect on the economy and on society. The private sector would suffer from a resulting reduction in the numbers of so-called spin-off companies. Many of these are high-growth and high-tech entrepreneurial companies. There would also be implications for the public sector generally. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, which rely heavily on the universities to do background research to aid the development of future policies, would find resources less forthcoming.
Both universities anticipate improved performance in the current research assessment exercise. Sadly, as things stand, there will not be enough money in the kitty to reward those university departments that have improved their measured research output with a commensurate increase in funding. This will remain true even if the bid for £4·5 million extra for university-based R&D is realised from the current round of Executive programme funds. Northern Ireland's universities, through no fault of their own, are slipping further behind their counterparts in Great Britain as initiatives and funding announced in London are not being read across to Stormont.
Other Departments may be able to make more apparently striking cases for extra money. However, the long term as well as the short term must be considered. The crucial point about R&D spending is that it is an investment. There is no doubt, according to the available evidence, that it helps increase future economic growth. For instance, it provides additional resources that could be used to provide funding for the health sector, which Mr Close talked about.
In a sense it is a partial answer to Mr Close's point about asking each Department to give £10 million to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety. That action might provide some short-term relief as regards waiting lists, but it would do nothing to generate future economic growth. That is the only sound and sustainable basis for an adequate level of health, social or educational spending in the Province. Unless the Northern Ireland Executive face up to the challenge of matching the commitment to R&D already being shown by their counterparts in London and in the other devolved Administrations in Cardiff and Edinburgh, devolution will fail to lay the foundations for a more prosperous future here.
I want to close by making some more general points about the Budget. To do so, I remove my Employment and Learning Committee Chairman's hat. I commend the Minister of Finance and Personnel on his stamina. By the end of the debate he will probably feel that he has heard many of the speeches before, and he is likely to hear similar speeches again in the future. That is the nature of such debates. Certain matters are so important that they deserve to be returned to again and again until the Executive deal with them adequately through the Budget and the Programme for Government.
The 2002-03 Budget is designed to deal particularly with changes in spending and to focus on areas that are deemed by the Department of Finance and Personnel to be new or inescapable commitments. It is not about a fundamental review of the baseline of expenditure and of the annual growth rate of expenditure of each Department. Such a fundamental review is projected for the following year's Budget. However, given that such a review of baselines is so necessary, I suspect that we will be treading constantly in that territory in the debate. Perhaps that is no bad thing.
In a debate such as this, many Members will yield to the strong temptation to bash the Treasury, for example, on the Barnett formula's inadequate funding of public expenditure here. In that context, I suggest that when Dr O'Hagan of Sinn Féin speaks about tax-varying powers, it must be recognised that that will almost inevitably mean substantial tax-increasing powers. We must be clear about that before we ask for it. The danger of asking for gifts is that you will be given them and that, sometimes, they are not really gifts at all.
On the point about the island economy and the alleged desirability of it, we must be clear about what is being asked for. The level of public spending in Northern Ireland is substantially greater by several billions pounds per annum than the level of tax revenues received. Therefore, if stress is being put on the so-called all-island, or all-Ireland, dimension, it must be asked whether Sinn Féin has asked the Minister for Finance in the Dublin Government, Mr McCreevy, whether he would be willing to contribute such several billion pounds, especially as his own fiscal position has become more difficult since 11 September. I am pretty sure what the answer would be.
As I understand it, the Executive programme funds were designed to engineer innovative areas of spending additional to what would have been spent anyway. Moreover, the funds were to encourage the so-called joined-up pattern of Government expenditure that we have so often been encouraged to promote, particularly interdepartmental initiatives. It is a real source of regret that, as of yet, there have been relatively few such genuinely inter- or multi-departmental initiatives. Overall, there is not much evidence that the funds have been leading, at least so far, to genuinely additional, innovative or joined-up measures. There is a great danger that they have simply become a contingency fund for public expenditure in Northern Ireland by another name.
I support the motion.
The Chairperson of the Committee for Culture, Arts and Leisure (Mr ONeill):
I thank the Minister and the Committee for Finance and Personnel for their combined efforts in ensuring that the budgetary process has, this time, allowed Committees to scrutinise the draft Budget allocations for their respective Departments more effectively than previously.
(Mr Speaker in the Chair)
I have put it on record before that my Committee welcomed the additional allocations for the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, which totalled some £4·7 million. However, the Committee still has several major concerns about the level of underfunding that continues to inhibit the Department's activities. I am required to mention a few of them on behalf of the Committee.
The first is the safe sports grounds scheme, which was warmly welcomed by the Committee and the House when it was introduced. Unfortunately that scheme received only £1 million, when there was a lot more to be allocated in that direction. It is interesting and concerning that, of all the bids for sport in our departmental budget, that was the only one that received any recognition at all. The money received was below what was expected.
There was also great disappointment among the Committee Members because of the failure of the arts bids, which totalled some £4 million. Sometimes other Committees and those who sit on them forget that the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure has a very small budget indeed. If £10 million were taken out of it, as Mr Close suggested, that would be almost one sixth of the budget. Compare that with some of the higher-spending Departments - for example, one sixth of the health budget would amount to £250 million.
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Like-for-like calculations do not apply. We are working with such small amounts of money that often, if the figures for our projects were to be rounded up by other Departments, they would be "lost in the roundings". That would make a tremendous difference to our objectives.
It is important to bear in mind the need for serious action in the arts sector, particularly in the light of the launch of Belfast's bid to become the European Capital of Culture 2008. That campaign is exciting and has captured the imagination of many, but it must be based on certain fundamental building blocks. One of the most important of those, which, in general terms would be considered a small bid - £1 million - is the Grand Opera House development scheme. The project would be a key plank in Belfast's application to become the European Capital of Culture, and recently the Committee was very concerned to note that there was a competing interest in the site. The Grand Opera House cannot bid for the site because of a lack of funds, and the expansion programme could be in jeopardy. A unique opportunity to enhance the arts infrastructure of the city would be lost, and it would be difficult to explain that in future.
The Committee is also concerned about such important institutions in the Department's responsibility as museums, the Armagh Observatory and the Planetarium. Recent research revealed that the budget for museums was cut by 8% in 1994. That historic underfunding has been inherited; the situation has never been rectified, and institutions have been trying to exist on a drastically reduced budget. The seriousness of the position is illustrated by the proposal to sell off Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland (MAGNI) property, at least in part, to meet the deficit. The Committee was concerned to learn about that proposal.
Our concern is that we will have to strip the assets of our arts and culture sector in order to survive. I place on record the fact that the Committee's deep concern was reflected in its strong opposition to such an approach.
The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure has inherited a problem as a result of a library staffing review which was initiated by the former Department of Education for Northern Ireland at a cost of £10 million. The Department's bid for the £10 million to cover the cost of the review until the current year is OK, but, should its in-year bid fail, the Committee would not expect the Department to find the money from its own resources. That would also be our position on any in-year bid in 2003 for the additional £2 million that is still unmet in the draft Budget. The situation was not of the Department's making, and the Committee for Culture, Arts and Leisure would not support any attempt to fund a pre-devolution review from the Department's already inadequate resources.
However, the Committee expressed pleasure that the Department's bid for additional staffing had been met. That staffing is fundamental to departmental organisation, the creation of a proper corporate structure and the improvement of its services to customers and to the Assembly.
The Committee has known for some time that staff shortages have meant that progress on many important areas of work, which would have had a considerable social and economic impact on the community, have had to be deferred. It hopes that the additional resources for staffing show that some recognition is being given to placing the funding requirement for the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure on a proper footing.
Leaving aside my role as the Chairperson of the Committee for Culture, Arts and Leisure, I wish to ask a question on a matter: that several Members mentioned: the all-Ireland economy. As we move to an integrated economy in Europe, has the Minister any comments to make on how Budgets, particularly in a cross-border setting, could be affected by the introduction of the euro? I represent a border constituency, and I know the concerns that many people have about the ordinary, everyday changes that will come about as a result of the euro's introduction. Has the Department of Finance and Personnel made appropriate plans to cope with any problems that may emerge?
Mr Shannon:
Dr Paisley spoke about the fishing industry. He made the point about the shortfall and the need for support, especially this year, for the cod recovery plan. However, other issues must be reiterated.
The first issue came to the fore in my constituency in the past month. Complaints about health services apply across the Province, not just in Strangford. The worrying trend in Newtownards is that the trust intends to reduce the amount of time that home helps spend with pensioners and with the handicapped. That causes concern in my constituency and is a result of the stress and contraction of the budget that is allocated to the community care side of the Health Service. It is totally inadequate to deal with the needs of people in the area.
Several elderly constituents have contacted my advice centre. They were distressed because their home helps, who previously made their meals, had been replaced by meals on wheels, which the trust has said is more cost-effective. The trust has failed to acknowledge the therapy - I purposely use the word "therapy" - that home helps provide the people on whom they call. They do not simply make a meal; they spend 15 minutes to half an hour talking to the senior citizens or the handicapped people, who, in turn, are made feel that despite being infirm they are not completely divorced from the rest of the world. We must address the despair and isolation that many elderly people feel, because, ultimately, that will lead to health deterioration and depression.
Last week, I met the chief executive of the Ulster Community and Hospitals Trust. Although he sympathised with the home help situation, he felt that it was the latest in a catalogue of budgeting blunders that have left the National Health Service, both in Northern Ireland and in the rest of the United Kingdom, at a loss. He reiterated that the necessary budget is not there to cope with the demands. Last year, the Ulster Community and Hospitals Trust provided nine additional complex care packages. Members will know that there is now a greater demand on care packages; higher levels of need exist. This year, the trust has 60 extra cases, which compounds the issue.
The fact that the elderly population in Strangford is rising also adds to the problem. The population there contains 75% more elderly people than any other area in Northern Ireland. We have lost some nursing homes, and many residential homes cannot cope with the pressures that the system places on them.
In my trust area, we have been told that £500,000 would be needed to provide the appropriate level of home-help and care-package assistance. If we multiply that figure across the Province, we shall find that the issue needs to be addressed in all community trusts. It is hard to understand the situation here when we find that £300 million is available in England and Wales to get people out of hospitals and into the community. That money will dramatically reduce waiting lists. Why is the same emphasis not placed on solving the problem in Northern Ireland? Is Northern Ireland, once again, the poor relation in the United Kingdom?
Disabled sport is also affected by the draft Budget. We all remember the last Paralympic Games, and one would imagine that everyone would be behind our disabled sportsmen and sportswomen. Instead, we find that a paltry sum of £30,000 is set aside to appoint a development officer to an umbrella organisation. Nothing has been contributed to the Special Olympics. Given that our disabled athletes can bring home more medals than our able-bodied ones, the lack of funding is scandalous. Northern Ireland has many disabled sportsmen and sportswomen who were injured as a result of the troubles of the past 30 years. Often, the only release that those people can find from the frustration and anger that they feel towards those who caused their injuries is through sport. We should make every effort to ensure that disabled people who want to be involved in sport have the opportunity to do so.
The Chairperson of the Culture, Arts and Leisure Committee mentioned the details of the bids. Looking down the list, I see that almost every bid was unsuccessful. It is frustrating that the Culture, Arts and Leisure Committee has been unable to achieve the level of support needed to deal with many of the matters that fall within its remit.
It is disappointing that the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety seems more intent on spending money to promote the Irish language and her culture than on spending it on health provisions that everyone wants.
A bid for £500,000 was put forward for languages, but it was unsuccessful. I am concerned, given the failure to provide money for languages, that Ulster-Scots will not receive adequate financial assistance. There has been a great resurgence of interest in Ulster-Scots, but not enough money is being allocated to it. The BBC has an Irish programme on the radio every night and an Irish television programme several times a year. However, we are yet to see an Ulster-Scots programme, and I would like to see that happen. I know that that does not fall directly within the remit of the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, but perhaps such programme development is something that we should all work towards. The BBC must work towards it too.
Money must be put into the programmes that people want, and into language programmes, which are clearly needed. The failure to allocate sufficient money to the Ulster-Scots language is widely recognised. Such inequality and inequity is a bitter indictment of some people's lack of understanding about the rights and cultural identity that I share with many people in the Province.
I am disappointed that the bid for motor sport safety improvements was also unsuccessful. Only one bid out of about a dozen was successful. The Committee tries to promote and ensure improved safety at road-racing circuits. Although £100,000 was set aside for that previously, the Committee is concerned that this year's bid for £100,000 has not been successful.
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Road racing is a unique sport in Northern Ireland. Indeed, it is unique within the British Isles. Road racing clubs and followers are keen to promote their sport, and it is important that the sport be encouraged and that it can progress. That can happen only if money is allocated for the necessary safety improvements. The clubs and the road racing enthusiasts are keen to see improvements in the circuits and safety standards. It would not take much money to improve the circuits in the Province, but I am concerned that the £100,000 needed to ensure the short-term and long-term future of motor sports will not be provided in the Budget. About 100,000 people follow the sport - it is truly a sport for everyone and it needs help.
Ms Ramsay:
Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Personnel Committee has asked us to take note of the draft Budget announced by the Minister in September. Several Members have mentioned the problems faced by the Health Service as a whole. As a member of the Committee for Health, Social Services and Public Safety, I shall give some detail of the problems faced by the Health Service daily.
Various groups have told us about the state of the Health Service. We have heard stories from children's organisations, the elderly, homes and hospitals, and we have heard about many problems from waiting lists to trolley waits. Everyone agrees that the Barnett formula is fundamentally flawed, that it is merely a headcount that must be changed. The formula does not take into account our high levels of ill health and the many children at risk, our ageing population and long waiting lists. I could go on - the list is endless.
The Committee for Health, Social Services and Public Safety was informed that the Department's draft Budget bid was £275 million. The Committee was told that that was the amount needed merely to maintain the service as it is with its high waiting lists, trolley waits and so on. A plaster was put over them. However, the Department did not receive that amount. The amount received fell £121 million short of the original bid. I should like to ask the Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Finance and Personnel Committee and the Minister where that will leave the Health Service.
I totally agree with Seamus Close. I accept that this is a test for the Executive as a whole - they must tackle this problem, and by the Executive I mean every Minister in the Executive. This is a real test for collective responsibility.
Several weeks ago the Health Committee sent out letters requesting meetings with the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister and the Minister of Finance and Personnel. It might be easier if we could meet him when he wears both hats. This is not only the responsibility of the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and the Minister of Finance and Personnel; there is collective responsibility in question.
The Finance Minister acknowledged that the proposed allocation to the Health Department would, at best, only allow it to maintain the provision of services. Critically, key commitments in the Programme for Government will have to be deferred. Given the serious situation which all parties have agreed exists, there must be a fundamental review of the allocation of money to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.
Members said earlier that if it means withholding funds from other Departments, so be it. Mr Close did point this out, quite rightly. Perhaps we can take on board what one Member from the Ulster Unionist party said about the Executive programme funds - allocate them to the Health Service to try to alleviate some of the pressures it is facing and the pressures it will face through the winter crisis.
I also sit on the Public Accounts Committee. Many who have spoken here today are criticising the Budget, saying there is a need for additional money for whatever Department or Committee they sit on. It is my view, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee over the last year, that public money has been wasted in various Departments. I need not rehearse the arguments because people have seen the media stories and have read the reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee. We must look closely at giving value for money and at saving money from Departments rather than always crying out for additional money.
I stress that we need a review of the budget for the Health Service. Taking on board what the Deputy Chairperson has said, I shall take note of the Budget. However, I also take note of the present state of the Health Service and call for a fundamental review of its budget. Go raibh maith agat.
Ms McWilliams:
I am glad to hear that the alarm is finally being raised in the Assembly about the disappointing increase in the health budget. Unless all Members and, indeed, all Ministers in the Executive come together and agree this as the number one priority, we will bring disaster on those overstretched services, overstressed workers and demoralised staff - never mind what we are doing to the patients.
A real increase of only 7·2% was bad enough but it will be even worse, going down, not up, to a 5·4% increase for 2003-04. I do not know whether any Assembly Member can walk into a local hospital or healthcare centre and tell people what he or she is going to do. They are cutting, and cutting and cutting. We need only look at the level of hygiene, the waiting lists, the patients on trolleys and the stressed-out workers who are just walking away. They feel - and they told us - that they cannot meet their professional standards.
This is not what people were promised, and I know that it is not the fault of the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety. It is time that we stopped leaving it at the Minister's door. I am also aware that the Minister of Finance and Personnel has done all in his power to deal with these matters. However, I ask him and the Executive to look at the matter again. We await the outcome of the September monitoring round.
I would also like the Minister to know that the Health Committee is trying to save money - he may not hear that too often. We are carrying out an inquiry into why 9% of outpatient clinics are cancelled, as that clearly wastes money. We are trying to find out if some of that money can be recouped for the Health Service. It has quite a lot to do with consultants cancelling appointments at short notice - I hope that it does not happen in psychiatry, Mr Speaker, but I hear it is happening right across the board.
I agree with Mr Shannon that we could also save money in community care. The statistics speak for themselves. If we had enough packages, we could immediately start to release some of the 150 patients who are in hospital beds only because they cannot move into the community. The Committee has calculated that, as the average stay in hospital is one week, 50 additional patients could be treated each week, which amounts to 7,500 patients a year. We must think about cost-efficiency and get a proper plan in place to co-ordinate services, save money and to put it back into the service, rather than constantly demanding more.
Are the Minister and the Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Finance and Personnel satisfied with the Executive funds? I can see neither rhyme nor reason to them, and I cannot understand how some of those headings and bids ended up where they are. They could equally come out of mainstream departmental funds, and we could explain them much more easily. They do not sit easily under their current themes or with the infrastructure funds, in which substantial funds are set aside for the development of hospitals or schools. Those moneys are welcome, but they should not be part of the Executive funds; they should be in the departmental bids, so that we could scrutinise those budgets properly. Only three of the funds were up for bids this time; the other two were not. It is difficult to keep the entire Budget together, and Committees find it hard to see what Departments are doing.
The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has fared badly, and I look forward to seeing whether the new cancer hospital at the City Hospital site will get funds under the infrastructure bid, which now seems to be the only bid that still has substantial funds in it. Perhaps, the cancer hospital should not have been funded from that bid in the first place. I would never support salami-slicing the block grant in that way.
To what extent have the Minister and the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Personnel Committee been able to make criticisms of the waste highlighted in audit reports? Have Departments been asked to explain themselves? One example of such waste is the huge amount of compensation that was paid out by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development after the Department allowed its own herd in the research centre to become infected with brucellosis and had to replace it. That was a scandal that should not have happened, as the Northern Ireland Audit Office stated clearly in its exemplary report. Has there been a proper inquiry? Our Departments would have welcomed the £22 million that was spent on that, rather than seeing it go on something that will not even produce any benefits.
There is also a question over some departmental running costs. Why did the Department for Social Development need an increase of £20 million - 12% - over last year's figure? There may be a reason why the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure might require a 21% increase - it is still a new Department - but why would an established Department require such a huge sum for administration or running costs? I have already said that that Department wasted £1 million this year on unpublished consultancy reports. Neither Assembly Members nor the public had the benefit of knowing what was in those reports.
There are still major concerns, and we have a long way to go to get it right.
5.00 pm
To offer the Minister some sympathy: I supported his call - and I continue to support it - to address the issue of rates seriously. If the Assembly is to be responsible and mature it can no longer expect to meet departmental bids if it does not, at the same time, ask people to address the issue of rate increases seriously. I take issue with Seamus Close - he cannot ask for money while simply saying that there should be some tax-varying power. I hope that such a proposal could be sold to people if the Assembly could show where the money was being put, particularly if it could explain that a certain percentage was going directly into health and education. I have no doubt that that would make our jobs much easier.
The Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development (Mr Savage):
I have listened to the debate, and for the first time everyone agrees about one thing - they are all looking for support from the Minister. I agree with what the Chairperson of the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee said about the draft Budget and how it affects the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, particularly regarding provision for the implementation of an action plan for the agrifood industry.
There is one area that he did not cover - the prospect of an early retirement scheme for farmers. Members will know that it is a subject that I care deeply about. The Committee has also frequently stated its position that there is a genuine need for a retirement scheme and new entrants' scheme. As recently as 6 July, the Committee put down a marker that assistance could be sought for such schemes through the Executive. As the Chairperson said, Executive programme funds are likely to be oversubscribed and in big demand. There is no provision in the draft Budget for the introduction of a retirement scheme, which is necessary if farming in Northern Ireland is to be successfully restructured. The vision group, which has been working this past six months and which was referred to by the Chairperson, does not support a retirement scheme. Any funds ultimately secured for implementing the group's recommendations will not, therefore, go towards a retirement scheme.
There remains the hope that the Minister will be convinced that a retirement scheme is a constructive way of managing structural change. When the Committee met with the Minister on 12 October she explained that she had commissioned research on it that should be available next year. A year is a long time. I trust that the research will be closely considered. Retirement schemes are run in parts of the EU, such as Holland and France.
One of the main objections to such schemes is the cost. In June, the Minister quoted a figure of £30 million for a scheme involving 750 farmers. That is nonsense. There are schemes taking place in other countries and they are self-financing. All such schemes need is the backing of the Government and the Department of Finance and Personnel. Cheaper alternatives are a fact and must be pursued.
If, and it is a big "if", the Minister agreed to implement a retirement scheme, the main funding for it would come from modulation moneys, together with Treasury match funding of those amounts. This is money that has been skimmed off farmers' direct subsidies and is matched pound-for-pound by the Treasury. It would effectively have no impact on the overall Northern Ireland Budget.
However, if there was a shortfall and modulation funding was insufficient to cover the cost of a scheme, I suggest that money could be found from the Budget. I am sure that fellow Committee members and other Members who understand farming would agree with me. In every other sector where recruitment difficulties are being experienced, such as teaching and medicine, the Government creates special financial facilities such as cheap, interest-free loans for housing for key workers, et cetera. A recent news bulletin reported that such incentives are being introduced to rectify a shortage of key sector workers in an area of England. Why should farming be treated differently? Farmers do not want anything for free, and they are prepared to pay back any money that they might borrow under a long-term low-interest loan scheme - they are not scroungers.
If the farming industry is to meet the demands of a growing European market, it must receive the support of the Government. Primary producers and the manufacturing sector are too often ignored, yet they are the basic wealth producers on which the service industries rest. If that attitude is not supported, economic decline will be inevitable. The vision group has called for
"a dynamic, integrated, innovative and profitable agricultural industry".
However, we cannot achieve that without the restructuring of farming. Only the loan scheme proposed by our Committee will achieve all that, and it is accepted that loans must be paid back. Farming needs the protection and the backing of the Government. For too long this matter has been kicked into touch by the Minister. We debated the matter last December, almost a year ago. The Committee has now decided to initiate a study by a team of academics, which will bury a live issue in a committee of so-called experts. As I said last year, we need action. The matter should not be put on the back burner - we need action today. The rest of Europe has no problems with such action, so why should we?
I welcome the improvements that will be brought about by budgetary increases. If we do not do enough to help the industry, we will only be playing about, tinkering with the side issues. Mr Speaker, given your farming background and your interest in the industry, you will know that if farmers do not achieve support we will be in trouble. Although many Members do not think very much about farming, it must be remembered that if one of the aeroplanes taking part in the terrorist attack of 11 September had hit its target there would have been a big dependency on agriculture. We must protect and take pride in the agriculture industry.