Northern Ireland Assembly

I should declare at the start of the debate that I am a councillor. I have no difficulty in differentiating between the work I do as a Member and what the Executive does. I had no part in what the Executive, in its wisdom, decided with regard to the Budget. Parts of it were, I am sure, not considered in the round. One of them is the rating system. Councillors are more acutely aware of that than anyone else.

The British Government should pay the extra money. It is a small amount, about £20 million. Someone said that it was insignificant; but it is significant to ratepayers and retailers in Fermanagh, where many are finding it difficult to survive. Some of the retailers may not be small, but they bear the major part of the 8% rise on top of annual increases.

Perhaps my own county is not in the same dire straits as some others that are trying to deal with the rise. Some areas will face much more than that this year and next year. It is unfair to burden ratepayers who cannot do anything about the predicament faced by business in their areas. Business is bad in some rural areas, and businesspeople are being asked to pay a significant amount of money. This Budget seems to depend on ratepayers paying such significant amounts.

We should have told the British Government to increase the block grant, which has been underfunded and reduced. We could raise the 8% here only to find that the British Government does not replace it in future and makes it a saving from the Exchequer. That is a possibility.

There is room for major savings in all Departments. It would not be hard to save £20 million. Farmers can see where major savings could be made in the expenses of Departments with which they are involved. The Barnett formula is another example. We must deal with people who talk about being treated equally. Unionists are not treated equally here, although they talk about equality with the rest of the UK, as they call it.

The British Government have saved billions of pounds from the conflict budget, yet they do not reinvest that money in an economy that they have ruined. Unionists can hardly regard that failure to reinvest as equal treatment.

Costs here are much higher than in England; electricity, for example, is much more expensive, and that affects people who must deal with cuts every day of the week. Those are our problems. We should not ask those people to come up with the money. It may be insignificant in the overall Exchequer funding from the British Government, but it is very significant locally.

The cross-border bodies are a vital part of the Good Friday Agreement. They are essential to the running of our island economy. Anyone with any business sense must admit that Ireland must be run as one island. Those who oppose it do so for purely political reasons; they know that it is not practical to work without cross-border co-operation.

An addition of £7·6 million has been made to the health budget. Will it be used to replace some of the gynaecological services that have been removed from the Erne Hospital? Other services, such as mental health day care, have been removed or are underfunded - not by very large amounts but by a few thousand. Many people depend on that, but the boards have not come up with it. The trusts blame the boards, but local people suffer because the money has not been drawn down. I seek the necessary extra funding.

Travel for the elderly is grand, but those in rural areas with very little rail or public transport will not gain by it. It suits cities, but we shall be asked to contribute to it without benefiting from it.

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has received an extra £2 million for the LEADER programme and for disease control, both of which consist largely of administration. Its budget has been increased to £192 million, as well as £2 million and modulation money for farmers. What will the Department do with it all? How much of it is directed to Department administration rather than being drawn down to farmers? Farmers will have great difficulty in seeing its effect on farms.

The Budget does not provide for any of the schemes that we asked for: the environmental scheme, installation aid for young farmers, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development equality schemes, the vision groups and an increase in animal disease compensation. Although it may be necessary to help disease control at first, that budget would fall if effective disease control were achieved. How effective has the eradication of brucellosis or tuberculosis been if such increases are necessary? It is vital that these funds be properly and effectively used rather than exploited, which may happen.

The Department of Agriculture's administration budget is being increased while many can no longer afford to remain in farming. That is indeed a stark contrast. Will the extra money be eaten up in administration; will nothing be directed to farmers? Modulation funding is farmers' money, but they have no say in where it goes. They are asked to pay yet they get no return. It starts at 2·5% in the first year and increases to 4·5% year on year for the next two years, yet farmers have no say in where it goes.

The effect that the increase of the £26 million as well as the £7 million and the modulation money will have over the next two years is questionable. BSE is still mainly to blame for farmers' predicament. They will not be allowed to use meat-and-bone meals, and that will create an extra expense for farms. They are not allowed to use it now in feeds because the United States used genetic modification in the production of soya, and retailers will no longer accept it. Therefore, farmers must look elsewhere. How can quality beef schemes be implemented, given the farmers' situation? That will become clearer in the weeks to come.

The money that has been given to the electronic portal and to farm business development may benefit farmers, and I hope that it solves their problems. How much of the Budget has been designed to help farmers out of their difficulties - the stress and financial problems of having to go to the banks to restructure loans? The Budget must deal with that, but that may be the decision of individual Ministers and not of Mr Durkan.

Mr Speaker, I am sure you will be relieved that at this time of night I have thrown away the Irish and Ulster-Scots versions of my speech. However, you will not be surprised to know that I cannot miss the opportunity to start by discussing the regional rate.

I do not propose to repeat everything. Those of us in this corner of the Chamber who talk about the need for tax-varying powers are frequently criticised by Ministers who oppose that principle. However, even Sammy Wilson adopted Mr Close's terminology and referred to the introduction of a "stealth tax". Of course, the major benefits are that, first, it is not seen and, secondly, if it is seen, the councils get the blame. I must warn the Minister that the councils are starting to fight back.

No doubt he has plenty to read: he may read the Derry papers but not necessarily the 'Coleraine Chronicle' every week. I draw his attention to an article in the edition of 21 November. A motion proposed by Alliance councillor Bill Matthews expressing concern at the rates rise and asking the council to write to the Minister of Finance and Personnel, the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister was passed unanimously. Interestingly, among the councillors reported as having spoken on the issue was a Cllr Dallat, whom I see nodding to the Minister. [Interruption.]

DUP Members should wake up. They are a bit slow.

Cllr Dallat expressed some very interesting views, which I am sure Members wish to hear - they may inform SDLP Back-Benchers on the debate. To my knowledge, no correction was published in the edition of 28 November, so I presume that this is correct. Cllr John Dallat and Cllr Eamon Mullan agreed with the Alliance Party proposal. Cllr Dallat also reminded the council that this is a notional rise - 8% may not be the final figure. If we are worried about 8% it appears that there is a hotline straight from the council offices in Coleraine to the Department of Finance and Personnel in Bangor; it informs us that it will be March before we know the final figure. I hoped that the document the Minister presented to us and that we are debating today would give us the final figure.

The council unanimously accepted the Alliance Party's position - a precedent I recommend to the Assembly on every occasion. Similarly, I was informed by the 'Good Morning Ulster' programme this morning that Mr Close was getting the credit for running a "one-man campaign" against excessive rises in the regional rate. It is clear from the reaction to it that the "one-man campaign" appears to have won the majority opinion in the Chamber. Clearly there is some unity on that point.

All this has happened because the regional rate rise was shoved through. It is the bluntest possible tax, unless the Minister is proposing to introduce the poll tax next year. All that has been gained is about £10 million for next year, a sum that will be well covered by the increases in departmental running costs across the 10 - or is it 11? - Departments. I can never remember which.

Indeed, it could be covered by what I understand to be a significant underspend in the Assembly's running costs this year; money that can presumably be reallocated. It is time that the Minister told us whether he intends to play catch up with the council tax in England and Wales - or Yorkshire and Humberside, if those are the regions to which we are compared. If he does propose to play catch up, for how many years - not just the three years in this plan - must we have an excessive rise in the regional rate to facilitate it? Is that fair to those who are only slightly above the poverty line in Northern Ireland?

Free travel for pensioners also impinges on the rates. We used to complain in the bad old days of direct rule that Ministers made commitments while councils had the job of implementing them without the necessary funding. I suppose that we should be grateful for getting three quarters of the funding. However, the other 25% will lie as a charge upon the district rates. The Minister of the Environment has cut the district rate as part of his rates support grant, which is being funded by an increase in the regional rate. That is toytown economics - it does not add up.

Public service agreements were referred to but not dealt with. The Budget proposes including them for each Department. Obviously, we welcome the greater accountability in delivering Government services. However, it is a clear example of putting the cart before the horse. We ought to have had a Programme for Government first. We should have costed it, and then we could have had public service agreements followed by a budget. Instead, it is being driven in the wrong direction. In referring to "Departments" the statement is unclear whether it means the 10 statutory Departments or the 11 effective Departments - the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister seems to have an ever greater say. Will the agreements apply to the whole public sector? How will they be introduced? Into whose bailiwick will the enforcement of public service agreements fall? Are they a matter for the Department of Finance and Personnel? Is the Minister of Finance and Personnel being put up to speak on them for the Executive when they are yet another matter being centralised in the economic policy unit of the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister?

Of course, there is talk there about value for money. We all know that we have limited resources - limited not least because of the refusal to consider tax-varying powers. We all know what has happened in Northern Ireland over recent years with the introduction of the private finance initiative (PFI) and the change to public- private partnerships (PPPs), which seem merely to change a few initials without changing the principles very much. The Minister is well aware from the Adjournment debate a few months ago that I do not entirely oppose the concept of PPPs. Indeed, I can see benefits for the Antrim town centre development.

However, it is time for the Executive to tell us their proposals on them. Will they repeat the disastrous mistakes made with PFI on aspects of public services that did not sit well with the private management of public services? I have in mind the kind of problems that have arisen in hospitals, and in the Health Service generally, in parts of Great Britain. Given the problems of funding Translink -the railways, Ulsterbus and Citybus - will there be a proposal to sell it off? Will the Executive tell us soon about the virtues of private profit in maintaining rail safety or will they wait until the Hatfield news fades a little?

It is time for the Executive to make proposals that are more than a pale imitation of Gordon Brown's. For example, it could consider the proposal for a bonds issue; that is attracting considerable support with regard to the London tube. We should take a more imaginative look at leasing rather than accept the threat, which is implicit in how value for money is presented, that privatisation is the only option.

The proposed amendments, apart from adopting the Alliance Party's views on regional rates, seem to have different flavours. The DUP amendment opposes North/ South bodies. Interestingly, it has also chosen to drag in the Civic Forum. It is unlikely to attract support from across the Assembly - and certainly not from my party - in its attempt to put its political point into the Budget.

Sinn Féin has chosen to attack the Executive programme funds.

That surprises me. We must take a more imaginative look at this, although not, I hope, as imaginative a look as Mr McElduff's. The Executive programme funds are very different from the old direct rule proposals. They are an opportunity to make progress. Although it remains to be seen how well they work - they certainly do not attract carte blanche approval yet - they should at least be given a chance. We shall not support a proposal to remove money from the Executive programme funds as the only way of keeping the regional rate down.

Everyone knew from the beginning that the DUP would try to distance itself from the Executive as soon as it took its seats there. I find it bizarre that, although Sinn Féin participates fully in the Executive, its Members did their best to distance themselves from Executive policy.

On the whole, the Minister has got off lightly with his Budget proposals because of the proposed increase in public expenditure across the United Kingdom. This may have more to do with the prospects of a Westminster general election than with the needs of the Assembly. However, the Budget has demonstrated the failure of the Executive to set priorities. I did not support devolution merely to have a pale imitation of Gordon Brown's policies implemented without real regard for our society's needs. I certainly did not want a Budget that would lead to a sectarian dogfight. The Assembly should get away from such sectarianism and cheap motives. I appeal to Members to do the right thing and say "The Budget as it stands is not acceptable; it does not meet our constituents' needs. It should be opposed".

I welcome Northern Ireland's first Budget in 30 years. Local people are delivering a way forward in difficult times. The acid test of any legislative Assembly is its financial clout. Representative bodies are often judged by the potency of their spending power. The result of the Assembly's spending power has been a concentration of much effective decision making in local hands.

However, one great question lies unresolved at the heart of Mr Durkan's Budget. It is a question to which the Ulster Unionist Party would like an answer. I refer to the Barnett formula, which governs our relationship with the sovereign Parliament at Westminster or, more accurately, with the Treasury in Whitehall. The Treasury is known for its meanness; and the present incumbent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's office is noted for a canny approach to public spending characteristic of his Scottish prudence. Coincidentally, of course, this has resulted in a massive war chest, which the Labour Government will use through public spending to attract voters at the next general election.

It is time to deal with the Barnett formula properly, using all the emphasis that the Assembly can muster. I note that point 35 of the Minister's statement on 12 December says

on the Barnett formula. Our approach must be more formal and more aggressive. The Assembly must formally address Her Majesty's Government and the sovereign Parliament in Westminster, because they govern the relationship between the Assembly and the Executive and the Westminster Parliament and the Government of the day in the only issue that really matters - finance.

In the Minister's statement of 12 December I read with mounting concern that the practical effects of the Barnett formula are on European Union funding. Only one European Union programme, Peace II, is outside the operation of the Barnett formula. This is the only money that we receive directly from Europe. In paragraph 14 of his statement last Monday the Minister detailed the extra financial burden that he must meet in order to deliver the contents of European Union programmes effectively and appropriately. There is an extra £15 million in 2000-01, an extra £20 million in 2001-02 and an extra £20 million in 2002-03. That is £55 million over the next three fiscal years. This should not be. Those community programmes were designed to meet identified needs.

Whitehall should not be pocketing the money for itself, yet that in effect is what is happening. The Minister agrees with this - he said as much in paragraphs 14, 34 and 35. Clearly, the operation of the Barnett formula irks him, as it does any right-thinking person. The Minister should tell us whether this European slippage is the only adverse effect of the Barnett formula. The key issue must be, of course, how much the loss of money through Barnett reduces our effective spending power.

Our approach to dealing with this matter should be formal rather than causal. The issues must be publicly and transparently aired. After all, Mr Blair's Government often tells us of the need for transparency - let us now see some of it.

I wish to comment on the additional money, some £2 million above the figure given by the Minister in October, which is being allocated to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. In a statement on 12 March the Minister said that the money was to be used for animal health programmes. No one disputes the importance of those programmes, but, as I have said before and will say again, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is much too consumer- orientated - it should be more producer-orientated.

The additional money should be used to tackle the real drop in rural development spending that augments so many farm incomes. This is at a time when the incomes of farmers and fishermen are dropping steeply - a point I made in a debate on the agriculture industry two weeks ago.

Only last week we heard about the severe cuts in the fishing quotas. This is the latest serious blow to an industry already reeling from disasters. For every fisherman who works on a boat another five are employed elsewhere in the industry. We must have equity across the whole agriculture and fisheries sector. We must also do something about farm incomes.

The only subheadings in the Budget which I can see effecting farmers' incomes are "Food & Farm Policy" and "Domestic Agriculture Policy". Together they represent about £55 million - only a quarter of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development's total budget. That means that more than three quarters of the Department's budget is being spent on administration and not directly on farmers' incomes.

That is where the real crisis is. We must tackle new issues with new money and not continue to do more of the same. That is the essence of the proactivity spoken of in the agriculture motion unanimously agreed in the House on 5 December. Three things that people want are a reasonable education, a good job and to be able to own their own home. We politicians must create an environment where those things are possible. Farmers, farm workers and fishermen should not be excluded or ignored.

Section 2 on key Budget messages mentions an increase in health spending. We are all aware of the overcrowding in our hospitals and we are very lucky not to have been hit by an epidemic. Other important features are an increase of nearly 10% for agriculture and rural development, railways, provision for the first phase of the investment needed to make the network safe and action on vital environmental measures.

Those are only a few of them. I believe that the 8% increase can be spent wisely on important services that affect our everyday life, such as our hospitals and schools. I do not like the 8% increase; but if it can make a real difference where it matters it will be welcome. Those matters must be tackled. I hope that, as the Assembly makes progress and if the Budget is passed today, they will not be brushed under the carpet. They are real issues that affect us all.

It is not every week that the Alliance Party in Coleraine has an initiative, so it would be remiss of me to ignore it. It does have occasional initiatives on money. The debate in Coleraine took place before the Minister of Finance and Personnel announced an extra £31·7 million for Departments to achieve goals that I passionately believe in - goals that Mr Ford and his Colleagues in the Alliance Party have no time for. It is a shame that the Alliance Party wants to turn its back on the socially deprived. Where is its vision for a future in which all people will be equal?

The Alliance Party motion was penned in one of the most affluent electoral wards in Coleraine, a town that also has the poorest electoral ward in Northern Ireland. On that matter, I rest my case without apology.

Will the Member give way?

I certainly will not. I have long experience of that.

The proposals in the Budget reflect broad agreement - [Interruption.]

Mr Speaker, you must control your party Colleagues.

The Member's remark is wholly out of line. The Speaker is now outside party politics and has scrupulously maintained that position. He does not have any statements from inside or outside the Chamber to which other Members can refer, as has been the case here.

Mr Speaker, that was an historical reference. The proposals in the Budget reflect broad agreement among the main parties and reflect how the Assembly should spend its money over the next year. This is by any yardstick an historic occasion, as it represents the end of 30 years of direct rule and the disadvantages of absentee landlords. It also represents the beginning of direct accountability for how money is targeted, how it is spent and how waste can be avoided. I shall return to that when I speak in my role as Chairman of the Audit Committee.

There will be much disagreement, but that is in the nature of politics. Nevertheless, all Members must be honest with themselves and, more importantly, with the electorate in outlining where money can be saved if they believe that a particular Department should be prioritised. Last Friday, the Minister of Further and Higher Education, Training and Employment, Dr Seán Farren, announced his proposals on fees and other aspects of support for part and full-time students in further and higher education.

The package received broad agreement from the Executive and general approval in the wider community. Some matters must be clarified over the next few weeks, and I have no doubt that they will be. However, when the Further and Higher Education, Training and Employment Committee discussed the package of reforms I was taken aback by a remark of a Sinn Féin member. He told us that he was not concerned about the views of his Colleagues in the Executive, Bairbre de Brún and Martin McGuinness, who helped to approve the package.

I do not mean to tell tales on the hon Member for Mid Ulster: he has already said that there are no pontiffs in Sinn Féin; nor do I wish to rubbish his independence as a Back-Bencher. I raise the matter to illustrate how strange it is to make demands that all of us could and would support in an ideal world but which cannot be delivered while funds are finite. In such circumstances it is right and proper that scarce resources be targeted at the socially disadvantaged. How can a budget ever be agreed if everyone does his own thing?

Although I do not share the political views of Minister de Brún or of Minister McGuinness, I am very concerned that they should have the resources to fund their Departments just as I want Dr Farren to have adequate funding for student finance. I hold the same view with regard to every other Minister, including the two absentee Ministers of the DUP. I take no pleasure in reading about Gregory Campbell's being stuck in a snowstorm on the Glenshane Pass or stuck in a traffic jam in Toomebridge.

Returning to health and education, I do not want to see a repeat of an incident last week when one of my sick elderly constituents had to be transferred by private car from Altnagelvin Hospital to Coleraine Hospital because there was no ambulance.

I want to see an end to the serious problems of poor literacy and poor numeracy, which, according to the latest provisional figures, are getting worse. Can anyone justify the fact that one in four people leaves school with serious problems in reading and counting? I think not. Term workers in schools who are not paid during holidays and who cannot receive benefits face problems. I want to see those problems resolved. I want that section of support staff to enjoy stability so that the children who need them most are not disadvantaged.

When we make demands and roar from rooftops or from open-deck buses let us keep in mind that while resources are scarce we have a duty to target social need and to protect the rights of the poor. We also have a duty to view the big picture when the resources are not adequate to meet everyone's demands. By and large, the Executive have done that in an equitable manner in spite of the unacceptable behaviour of the DUP, whose Ministers refuse to participate in the Executive. It seems strange - puzzling even - that any individual should abandon the principles of equality and targeting social need. I consider these principles to be much more important than any others that we may wish to see implemented when resources are more plentiful.

'Making a difference' is a fundamental theme of the Programme for Government to which the Executive are committed. That difference will be seen in the proposals contained in the Budget for the services for which the Executive and, ultimately, the Assembly are responsible as we decide upon the allocation of the resources available. That difference must be measured against new targeting social need (New TSN) and equality requirements, which are fundamental to the Good Friday Agreement. In practice, they oblige us to target the needs of the poor. In other words, the needs of the poor must have priority when we allocate funds.

We must also make our allocations with due regard to the equality provisions of section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. This means ensuring that we not only avoid discrimination on the grounds of religion, politics, gender, race or disability, but that we actively promote equality.

The DUP amendment is not worthy of serious debate and the Sinn Féin amendment is also disappointing. The Executive programme funds are a product of devolution. They allow us to get more out of the Government by making Departments more accountable for their expenditure and by forcing them to be more imaginative when they seek funding. The Executive programme funds are about giving back to the people what the Government have taken away in the past. These amendments are informed more by the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' than by serious and responsible representative politics. One cannot accept power without accepting responsibility. It appears that Sinn Féin and the DUP want, just as the literary character did, to live one life inside Government and another outside it.

Mr Maskey proposed taking resources out of the Executive programme funds. He suggests that we remove resources designed to tackle social exclusion, to deal with the needs of our children, to regenerate rural and urban communities and to improve public services. I am not prepared to see priorities that have been neglected over 30 years of direct rule put on the back burner once again.

I could go on but I have made my point. There must be an holistic approach to the spending of scarce resources, and that means that not everyone will be happy. That does not mean, however, that improvements cannot be made, that better ways of delivering services cannot be found; that is the task of Assembly Members, individually and collectively. It does not mean that I do not aspire to the abolition of fees or that I cannot work towards that as an individual or collectively with other Members.

Finally, the Public Accounts Committee or the Audit Committee that I referred to earlier may have to ask for funds to finance extra scrutiny.

It is interesting to follow Mr Dallat. He spent the first three or four minutes of his speech apologising for how he voted on the rates in the Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment Committee and in his local council. I hope that tonight, after one of our longest debates, he will know exactly how he is supposed to vote and will not make any mistakes for which he will later have to apologise. I also hope that he tells Dr Farren who Mr Robert Louis Stevenson is. In a recent radio interview the Minister seemed to be unaware of some of the literary giants to whom Mr Dallat referred.

Several Members are also members of local authorities. Whenever a council set a scrupulously low council rate it wrote to the relevant Minister asking him not to take advantage of that to strike a high regional rate. I understand that Mr Durkan, when a member of his local council, followed that practice. I hope that tonight he will hear the plea of the people and accept that we should not take advantage of low council rates to set a high regional rate. I support wholeheartedly the comments of my Colleagues, the Members for North Belfast, Mr Dodds, and East Belfast, Mr Peter Robinson, who moved the amendment. The amendment shows that some cuts could be made to the Budget to untie the Minister's hands and to put the money into a better budget.

I also listened to the whingeing of several IRA/Sinn Féin Members; it serves absolutely no purpose. Mr John Kelly, the Member for Mid Ulster, opposed the DUP's argument on "North/Southery" and our objections to spending money on the North/South bodies. Of course, Mr Kelly's party and its other wing - the Provisional IRA - have for several years been engaged in cross- border activities. One of the most recent was blowing up the heart of Omagh, killing 29 people. On several other occasions the IRA executed people and fled across the border.

We must object to the bloodthirstiness at the heart of Sinn Féin's cross-border policy. Its members read us a homily about supporting cross-border initiatives, although their party has used the border to hide from justice. That is a sick joke, and everyone will see through it. However, the hypocrisy of Sinn Féin Members caps it all. They are first in line with the begging bowl, asking for watchtowers to be ripped down and asking the British Government to stop spending on security for the people of Northern Ireland. Their hypocrisy is blatant.

The Budget is really all about who gets what and what they do with it. No one underestimates the difficulty of the Minister's task, but it would be irresponsible to give him a lap of honour and to heap praise on him when there are still serious problems with his Budget.

The Budget has totally failed to stop the waste that lies at its own heart. We are all aware of the waste on the part of some Departments, namely Health and Education. We all know that every month the Health Minister wastes approximately £2,500 on completely unnecessary duplication and translation costs. We all received the Health Department's 'Building the Way Forward in Primary Care' document this week; it had been translated and published in Irish. How much did that cost? How much more waste of resources will the Executive tolerate before they stop it at their own heart?

The same Minister wasted £3,300 on a non-existent cross-border meeting in Enniskillen; money should not have been wasted in such a manner. That Minister's decision on maternity services is now subject to a judicial review; that is yet another waste of resources by her Department, for she took what was a blatantly political decision. Now she is wasting money on primary care publications.

This waste, this rottenness at the heart of government must be eradicated. It exposes Sinn Féin/ IRA's real agenda in all this, and that agenda has nothing to do with contributing to the good government of Northern Ireland. It is about one thing and one thing only - bleeding Ulster dry, and if it can use the Government into which it has been put to achieve that, it will not hesitate to do so. All this condemns those who thought that it was a good idea to put these bloodsuckers into the Government of Northern Ireland.

The debate raises the issue of the structure of government, and to some degree the report of the draft Budget for 2001-02 deals with this. The structure of government means that the Minister's hands, whether he likes it or not, are excessively tied. In many respects, this Government is a shambles. It is a shambles because there are too many Ministers, too many Departments and too much government, and for all the government that we have in this place there is very little legislation.

The DUP has shown that the structure of government lies at the heart of many of the Finance Minister's problems. When the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister introduced proposals to increase government to its present overwhelming size, we said that it was a political decision to give jobs to the boys. We said that it was excessive and wasteful, and today we have been proved right. There are people on the other side of the House who agreed in principle with this massive government who now see the folly of their ways. I see that my Colleague from North Antrim, Mr Leslie, is here. I noticed in a local newspaper that he called for a review of the size of the parties. I welcome that; it shows that some people realise that government here is too big and must be reduced. He also says that the only thing in favour of the DUP Ministers' non-attendance is that a Committee of 10 is probably easier to work than a Committee of 12. However, a Committee of five or six is considerably easier to work than a Committee of 10. It shows that this Government is excessive and that the Minister's hands are tied with regard to his Budget.

I found the Committee Chairpersons' comments in the report of the draft Budget very interesting - so much for a united approach. The Chairpersons of various Committees - and not just DUP Chairpersons, but Ulster Unionist, SDLP and Sinn Féin Chairpersons - all criticised the Budget proposals. The exceptions were the SDLP Chairperson of the Health Committee, who did not bother reporting to us for various reasons; and the Chairperson of the Social Development Committee, Mr Cobain, who is too busy writing articles for the 'Shankill Mirror' to report his concerns on the matter.

Every one of them talked of excessive shortfall and of their acute disappointment in the Budget, which Dr Birnie mentioned, its inadequacy and its lack of provision for victims. That shows that the Budget and the House are by no means united.

Therefore we should have a cost-cutting exercise and we should endorse the DUP amendment.

I want very briefly to concentrate on the waste that lies at the heart of government because I think that this waste -

The Member will have to be brief as there is only one minute left.

I shall concentrate on a couple of points. Time and time again I have tried to plug the issue of waste by asking certain questions. I understand that the Minister of Agriculture is prepared to spend £2,400 on the steering committee on cross-border rural development, although all its work could be adequately performed by her Department.

However, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development's pièce de résistance must be its recent decision to spend money on a peace maze at Castlewellan. A peace maze is well and good, and it might even attract tourists - there is, of course, no business programme for that - but this project cost £138,000, 25% of which came directly from the Department of Agriculture. Indeed, her Department contributed the other 75% or £103,500.

This waste, and that which is replicated across all Departments -

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