Alex Attwood: 20 months to shape 20 years
2012 and 2013 is the key time to shape policy for the Northern Ireland’s future, Alex Attwood has contended when outlining the economic context for planning and environmental reform.
Northern Ireland’s prospects over the next 20 years will be shaped by the decisions made in government in the next 20 months, according to Alex Attwood. The Environment Minister, speaking at agendaNi’s seminar on planning, explained how he saw 2012 and 2013 as a unique opportunity for reform.
“People now expect government here and ministers here to stretch themselves in order to move beyond the enormous achievements of the past,” he stated, “and to move beyond this aggressive self-praise and self-promotion that, in some places of our politics, passes for politics.”
Attwood again expressed his admiration for the Scottish Government, particularly Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth Secretary John Swinney, whose remit includes planning. Swinney commands a high level of respect from officials and his assumption of the planning portfolio indicates its economic importance.
“We’re in a timeframe where, if we’re up to it, we need to redefine who we are in order to shape the next 20 years,” he noted. The 2013 City of Culture bid was, as another MLA had said, Derry’s “moment to reach out to the globe” and the same was true across the province, as shown by the Titanic centenary and Irish Open.
For him, ‘getting planning right’ means thinking strategically about the next two or three decades, rather than just managing the environment. The Minister outlined his thinking across three themes: resources, legislation and employment.
The Executive has to undertake a “strategic shift of resources” in order to meet the challenge of protecting and developing its natural and built heritage. This would require more investment in indigenous job opportunities, including in tourism. The Programme for Government aims to increase tourism revenue from £368 million in 2011 to £676 million in 2014.
However, that argument “might not be fully understood around the Executive table” and he claimed that it would not be taken on board if his “partners” outside government challenged it: “It’s hard enough. There’s resistance enough. “There’s little money enough.”
This appeared to be a reference to the National Trust’s legal challenge to the Runkerry development, although Attwood did not refer to it by name as the case is before the courts.
The second prong of his case was legislation to help recover opportunities lost over the Troubles, and indeed since the 1994 ceasefires due to the length of peace process. Time was short and progress in the next 18-month timeframe, in his opinion, was a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Attwood had four priorities:
• providing for a marine management organisation in the Marine Bill;
• national park legislation (approved in principle by the Executive);
• an independent environment agency “outside the internal workings of government”;
• a climate change Bill with rigorous, challenging targets (on the Scottish model).
Attwood sees an “economic imperative” in getting the legislation passed, which explains his third point.
Unemployment currently stands at 60,000 but University of Ulster academic Eileen Evason predicts that it will reach 105,000 over next 2-3 years, partly due to welfare reform. The economy, he believes, is being held back by the fiscal limits of devolution and limited all-island marketing.
In 2008, Strategic Investment Board Chief Executive David Gavaghan told Attwood that Ireland had 10 years to get North/South co-operation right. By 2018, Ireland would be “squeezed” between the emerging economies in the Far East, India and South America (especially Brazil). The island therefore needed to establish a real competitive advantage before the gap closed.
By contrast, Attwood complained that the North/South Ministerial Council had produced “not one piece of paper” on extending its scope since it was restored in 2007. After the St Andrews Agreement review, ministers are taking forward minor extensions to the Loughs Agency and Food Safety Promotion Board remits.
“We’re going to deploy every possible asset at our disposal in order to recognise there’s going to be 100,000 people unemployed, and one of the assets that we have is our natural and built environment,” he added. “And if we’re going to protect it on the one hand and positively protect it on the other, we need to put infrastructure into it. That’s the bottom line.”
In his view, the end goal was not achieving a balance between the economy and the environment, but integrating the two, to ensure a good quality environment and dignity i.e. providing jobs.
