In the course of his remarks about John McCallister’s opposition bill yesterday Jim Allister said:
“Ask any class of 12-year-olds to identify three or four key components of a democratic legislature, and I guarantee that in the top three every time will be the existence of an opposition — it is so elementary. Yet, here, that basic proposition is provoking all the contortions of so many to try to deny the import of that.
“We have one party that would just block, if it could, the entire Bill. Of course, we know that there is a tradition with some that the way to deal with opposition was a bullet in the back of the head, but this is supposed to be a democratic institution, and it beggars belief that within a democratic institution there should even be debate about whether you need, and should permit, an opposition. Yet that is the pitiful situation that the House, after all these years, is still in. What an indictment of this place that the matter still has to be debated and decided upon. It is so self-evidently an indictment of the House that, really, I find it staggering that it takes this debate to allow the subject even to be ventilated, never mind the intent of some to kill it off.
“Of course, Mr McCallister, who has done a huge amount of work on this, has had all these supercilious compliments today from the very people who are about to kill his Bill, insofar as they can kill it. The reeking insincerity of some speaks for itself.
“Let us think about Fresh Start and its approach to opposition.
“It took this Consideration Stage debate on the Bill to get the Executive into gear — yesterday — to produce a motion. It took two and a half months after Fresh Start supposedly embraced opposition for the Executive even to bring something to the House on that concept. I sit on the Committee on Procedures, and, at every meeting since Fresh Start, I have asked, “Is there any suggestion that maybe we, the Procedures Committee, should be looking at Standing Orders to facilitate the supposed commitment to Fresh Start?”. No — nothing.
“I seriously question the sincerity of the commitment in Fresh Start to an opposition, and, of course, no steps have been taken to lay the groundwork and prepare. Here we are within weeks of the end of this mandate, and there is not a cheep to the Committee on Procedures about drafting Standing Orders — not a cheep. The threshold that Fresh Start sets for opposition is pitched as high as they can pitch it: you get into opposition only if you have made the sacrifice of declining the offer to sit in government with those who will deign to give you the right to be in opposition. Only if you meet that threshold will they even contemplate for you lesser mortals the possibility of recognising an opposition.
“Fresh Start is a poor and pitiful proffering in respect of opposition. What about ‘A Fresh Start’ and the sincerity of that document? Fresh Start has something to say about petitions of concern: it tells us that there is a new dawn for petitions of concern. They will be used only in — wait for it — “exceptional circumstances”. When they are used, page 53 of ‘A Fresh Start’ solemnly states:
“where a Petition of Concern is tabled, this should state the ground or grounds upon which it is being tabled and the nature of the detriment which is perceived as arising from an affirmative vote on the matter”.
“That is the Fresh Start pledge. What did the people who made that pledge do today? They produced three petitions of concern. Not one of them sets out the grounds as to why a petition of concern is necessary. Not one of them says what the nature of the detriment is that the petition is seeking to prevent. Even the signatories and those who laud Fresh Start, by their actions, depart from and ignore their Fresh Start commitments and give us three petitions of concern that defy the very content of Fresh Start on that subject. They give us three petitions that simply name the clause, with no explanation that they are going to petition and oppose. I seriously question the bona fides of those who tell us that, under Fresh Start, all these things will evolve and happen when, on the very day that it is first put to the test for petitions of concern, it distinguishes itself by defying those very tenets that are set forth.
“We then have the idea that technical groups must be killed off. Sinn Féin is obviously determined to kill off the idea of technical groups. The DUP is determined to kill off the idea of technical groups, which is really rich coming from the DUP, given that, for 34 years — more than one third of a century — its MEP has sat as a member of a technical group in the European Parliament.
“Yet, when it comes to this House, what is good for the DUP in Strasbourg is to be denounced in Stormont. It is not do as I do, it is do as I say, as far as the DUP is concerned. For 34 years, it has been the beneficiary of sitting in a technical group. Some of the benefits of that are, of course, that members of a technical group get a proportionate share of speaking time. Its MEP has only ever got to speak because she is a member of a technical group and gets a share of that speaking time.
“It does something more: it gives you an input into the business committee of the legislature. In the European Parliament, they call it the Conference of Presidents. Mrs Dodds, by virtue of being a member of the technical group called the Non-Inscrits or the Non-Attached, was the technical group’s representative on that business committee for a couple of years. Yet, the very thing that the DUP has been prepared to take advantage of — and is right to take advantage of, because it is right that it is there — is the very thing that it would now deny to the House. Such seems to be the paranoia about this short corner Bench that it is determined that it will cut off any oxygen that enables this Bench, lest it should be more effective. So there is gathering of vested interests to make sure that the idea of a technical group in the House is killed off.
“I raised this as a member of the Committee on Procedures a couple of years ago. I pushed the proposal, and every one of the other Members from all the parties of the Executive voted it down. So it is quite clear that there is a calculated determination to extinguish the very idea of a technical group, which some parties take advantage of elsewhere. What are they scared of? What are the big parties of this House scared of from a technical group? My goodness, are Steven Agnew, John McCallister and the rest of us who sit here so terrifying that you cannot even have a technical group to give us the opportunity to dare, as six Members of the House — think of it — to have any input into the business of the House and to dare to have a representative sit on the Business Committee? To think of it: that these jumped-up individuals who are members of some technical group should dare to have a basis of equality with the rest of us — very important Members of very important parties. Who do these people think they are that we would allow them to have a technical group so that we would have to listen to them in the Business Committee — the Business Committee? Who do they think they are? That is the attitude, and it is one that speaks more about those who hold that attitude than it does about those they hold it about.
“Some of the practical consequences are that you cannot, in this corner of this Chamber, ever get an Adjournment debate in this House unless some of the bigger parties give away one of their places, because they are allocated only to those parties on the Business Committee. I might have the most pressing of constituency issues that would lend itself readily to an Adjournment debate, but it is not possible because Members in this corner are treated as the second-class Members of this House. That is the way that the rest want it. That is why they do not want to afford the opportunity of a technical group that might be empowering for the collective influence of the six or whatever number it would be in the future who occupy these Benches. I really wonder what it is they fear. Obviously it is something sufficient to cause them to be prepared to suppress the very idea of a technical group in a House where the attitude seems to be that, if you are not in the Government, you do not count.
“In fact, as Mr Maskey almost told us one day in this House, if you are not supporting the Government, you should not really be here. That seemed to be the attitude. I am sorry, but technical group or no technical group, there will be voices raised in opposition in this House. It is a matter for the greater number as to how they facilitate that. They can seek to suppress it as much as they like, but that voice will be heard. They should do the decent thing and allow a technical group. They should allow equality of opportunity, and they should allow parity of esteem in that regard.
“To return to the DUP petition of concern, it is interesting and informative that it was used about the clause that would blow away the pretence that there really are two separate offices of First Minister and deputy First Minister. It was ordered to maintain their own self-delusion that, somehow, the First Minister is different from and better than, and has more powers than, the deputy First Minister. The DUP has tabled that petition of concern because it knows, but does not want the public to know, that, in law and in practice, it is one office politically joined at the hip — one unable to even sign a letter without the other. Of course it is a joint office, and it is a joint office by design. The DUP thinks that, if it can table a petition of concern, it will help to delude itself and conceal from the public the reality that it is a joint office when, every day of the week, it operates it as such.”