Assembly round-up

A Marine Bill was added to the short list of legislation to be undertaken by the Assembly, which largely spent the month debating the Budget and welfare reform.

February’s proceedings began on Accession Day (6 February), with Peter Robinson congratulating Queen Elizabeth on the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne: “yet another remarkable milestone in her reign.” Representatives from Alliance, the UUP and SDLP joined in the congratulations.

Apart from a Budget Bill (which is compulsory) and a Rates (Amendment) Bill, only two bills (Pensions and Marine) have been progressed since the Assembly term began last May. A private member’s Bill which would ban people convicted of an offence carrying a sentence of five years or more from being a special adviser at Stormont is being drafted by Jim Allister. Steven Agnew has also been working on a private member’s Bill that would place a legal duty on government departments to work together to achieve the objectives in the Children’s Strategy (see page 76).

The Environment Committee is to consult on a draft Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill’s measures to tackle drink driving.

Statutory time limits for the justice system to progress a criminal case and penalties for failing to meet them will be introduced within this Assembly’s lifetime, according to David Ford. He is “disappointed” at having to implement the measure, saying: “The plain fact is that we need to do more and go further if we want to tackle delay.” Justice Committee Chair Paul Givan said: “It is an indictment of the justice agencies that the introduction of statutory time limits is necessary. One would have thought that they would, at all times, seek to exercise their functions effectively and speedily.”

Five infrastructure projects will be funded by the £583.7 million saving in the Executive’s capital budget after the Irish Government’s decision not to give
€400 million to the A5 Western Transport Corridor project. While welcomed by the Executive parties, some commentators have criticised the allocations for being political and not based on real need.

Sammy Wilson commented: “There are those who will say that the decisions on the two sections of the A5 were simply political. They were not political decisions; they were made on the basis of good economic judgement and arguments. The infrastructure will benefit the west of the province and help to sustain some of the firms that are already there doing international business.”

The Finance Minister was also in the limelight following his comment on 7 February that he opposed the general principle of tax devolution in the Assembly. When asked by Sinn Féin’s Paul Maskey whether he had had discussions on devolving additional fiscal powers, beyond corporation tax and air passenger duty, Wilson responded that transferring fiscal powers would result in volatile tax receipts and therefore unstable public sector budgets.

Motions, debates and public petitions took up a lot of the Assembly’s time. Each one is effectively an expression of interest in a certain topic. Petitions were presented on the closure of Drumcree College in Portadown and parking in College Park Avenue, Belfast. A motion calling on the Executive to make opposition to welfare reforms its highest priority and to immediately pursue “robust negotiations” with the UK Government, tabled by the SDLP’s Mark H Durkan, was defeated by 44 to 38. Meanwhile, the real debate on the most fundamental reform of the welfare system since the 1940s, takes place in Westminster.

Motions on tackling human trafficking and reducing whiplash claims, which are driving up the price of car insurance here, were resolved.  Employment and Learning Committee Chair Basil McCrea called on Stephen Farry to finalise the NEETs strategy, following a consultation which ended in June last year.

The committees remain busy. Notable ongoing committee inquiries include the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Committee’s on developing the Northern Ireland economy through innovation, research and development, the Justice Committee’s review of judicial appointments and its inquiry into services available to victims and witnesses of crime.