Assessing the new Assembly
An agendaNi seminar considers the prospects for Stormont over 2011-2015, from the perspective of MLAs and analysts.
“Positivity, strategic thinking and collective thinking” are needed in this term, according to SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone. He had no time for “silly debates” over accepting £400 million from the Irish Government for roads. People on the ground need hope, he emphasised, citing a school leaver whose family could not afford to send him to unvirsity.
A shared future needs to be taken seriously, Alliance’s Chris Lyttle contended: “This is not an aspirational issue. It’s a real problem. It has serious human, financial, reputational costs for Northern Ireland.”
He wanted to introduce a duty on government departments to co-operate; Alliance proposes a Governance Bill to bring this about.
“We are absolutely obsessed with process with no focus on outcomes,” new UUP MLA Mike Nesbitt said of the system of government. Invest NI spends 10 per cent of its year managing end-of-year finances rather than encouraging economic development. He wanted to see a change in language, from “promoting” interests to advancing them. A debate was also needed on “what does success look like in 2015?”
In the Q&A session, all three MLAs said there was more scope for North/South co-operation.
Nesbitt saw lower corporation tax as a “huge risk” but one worth going for. As a Victims Commissioner, he found that civil servants were focused on ticking boxes on public service agreements. The last Environment Committee found a “total absence of read-across” on climate change policy, McGlone remarked.
DUP and Sinn Féin MLAs were invited but were unable to attend.
Reviewing the Assembly election results, Dr Sydney Elliott said there is “no current political threat” to the St Andrews coalition. The DUP and Sinn Féin are well ahead of the UUP and SDLP, the TUV lacks support and dissident republicans did not contest the Assembly election.
The campaign itself majored on bread and butter issues apart from the First Minister issue. The difference in turnout between east and west did not necessarily match the nationalist-unionist divide. Unionists in the west tend to vote better than those in the east.
Going forward, he said some key questions included:
• Is it necessary to have 105 of 108 MLAs as members of governing parties?
• Can committees exercise opposition where the chairs are dominated by the main parties?
• Is declining turnout a reflection on the parties, devolution or disinterest?
A cut in constituencies (from 18 to 16) would reduce the Assembly from 108 to 96 members based on the current rules. However, Stormont could follow the Scottish Parliament’s example which kept its size (129 MSPs) despite a similar reduction.
The political landscape: a preview
Progress on corporation tax and cutting the size of government is most likely, according to Mark Devenport’s “best guesses” for the way ahead.
BBC Northern Ireland’s political editor said it was “highly unlikely” that the UK Government would reject the devolution of corporation tax, having gone so far down the process.
John O’Dowd is a more conciliatory Education Minister than Caitríona Ruane, already talking about academic streaming within schools. While Catholic bishops wanted to end selection, Catholic grammar schools may differ. Devenport anticipated progress on the Education and Skills Authority and local government reform.
On health, Edwin Poots faced a hard decision over the future of Belfast’s A&E units. The DUP manifesto was open to private and voluntary providers, and the Strategic Investment Board was considering how capital could be brought in from elsewhere.
It was hard to see progress on segregation or in the dispute over Mary McArdle as a Sinn Féin special advisor. Owen Paterson preferred historians handling the legacy of the Troubles, rather than lawyers, but the PSNI was seeking
Boston College’s oral history records as evidence. The Irish Language Act dispute may be resolved by introducing a catch- all Minority Languages Act, as Alliance had suggested.
MLAs will enjoy three years without an election, up to the European polls in June 2014.
The sunset clause on justice devolution will return those powers to the NIO in May 2012, unless a way forward is agreed. Sinn Féin prefers d’Hondt while the DUP backs the cross-community system. As a compromise, changes could be deferred until a cut in the number of government departments.
Jim Wells and Simon Hamilton are due to take on the health and finance portfolios, respectively, in mid-2013. The next Westminster poll is due in May 2015 and Owen Paterson’s Normalisation Bill may extend the Assembly’s term to five years, taking it up to May 2016.
Unusually for a legislature, the new Assembly starts with 105 of its 108 members being government backbenchers. Inside the Executive, the two Alliance ministers are seen as “team players” by the DUP and Sinn Féin but the SDLP and UUP face the dilemma of whether to go into opposition.
Cut spin and open up government
Ministers “tend to be wrapped in cotton wool” and need to talk directly to journalists, Noel Doran has stated. The Irish News editor criticised officials’ attitude to the press.
When his paper’s political correspondent Diana Rusk was refused entry to a briefing with Michael McGimpsey earlier this year, other journalists walked out on the Minister and his officials.
Overall, Belfast’s political reporting was “pretty mild” and “polite” compared to the Dublin and Edinburgh press. Doran had attended a 10 Downing Street reception for the regional media but no similar event had been held at Stormont.
Newspapers were in flux and, after the Sunday Tribune’s closure, he expected other Dublin titles to go under. Government hand-outs for papers would take them into “dangerous territory”, implying political control, and should only be “the last option”.
Health had been an example of “how not to run a department,” he claimed. The Irish News’ extensive reporting found a refusal to tell the public “what they really had a right to know”. Disclosure after disclosure therefore followed.
He remarked: “The time has come to move beyond symbolism, important as that may be, and towards solid legislative progress which has been in fairly short supply.”
