Northern Ireland Assembly, 11 October 2011

283 contributions from 57 members. The official report.

Ministerial Statement

William Hay (Speaker, Foyle)

The Acting deputy First Minister, Mr John O’Dowd, wishes to make a statement to the Assembly this morning.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. In compliance with section 52C(2) of the NI Act 1998, we wish to make a statement on the sixth North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) institutional meeting, which was held in Stormont Castle on Monday 3 October 2011. Minister Kennedy, who also attended the meeting, has approved the report, and we make it on his behalf as well. The First Minister Peter Robinson MLA, Minister Kennedy MLA and I represented the Executive. The First Minister and I chaired the meeting. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore, represented the Irish Government.

Ministers had a broad discussion on practical mutually beneficial co-operation in the context of the current economic and budgetary challenges that face each jurisdiction. Among the areas discussed were shared economic challenges, the context of North/South co-operation and co-operation to save money in service delivery. The Council discussed matters relating to the North/South bodies and noted progress on their corporate and business plans and the implementation of cumulative efficiency savings. It noted that a review of the financial memoranda of the North/South bodies is under way, and a report on progress will be provided to the next NSMC institutional meeting.

The Council also noted that the boards of the North/South bodies are due for renewal in December 2011 and that nominations will be brought forward for approval at the NSMC plenary meeting in November 2011. Revised reduced remuneration rates for board members that will take effect from December 2011 were also agreed.

The Council discussed progress on EU-related matters that were raised at NSMC meetings. That included discussions on collaboration to maximise drawdown of EU funds from the FP7 research and development programme. Ministers also discussed progress on current EU programmes and the potential for co-operation on future EU programmes.

With regard to cross-border mobility issues, Ministers were informed that systems have been put in place to resolve delays in the processing of certain Department of Social Protection welfare benefit claims with a cross-border element. The Council noted the continuing popularity of the Border People website — www.borderpeople.info — and that the Centre for Cross Border Studies, in partnership with other organisations, will apply for EU funding for the website, which will incorporate specialist training for the provision of advice on cross-border matters.

Work taken forward to facilitate the comparison of vocational qualifications obtained in other jurisdictions was discussed. That included the publication of a leaflet ‘Qualifications can cross boundaries: a rough guide to comparing qualifications in the UK and Ireland’.

Ministers noted the progress made with regard to the north-west gateway initiative.

The Council agreed that the next institutional meeting will be held in spring 2012.

William Humphrey (DUP, Belfast North)

I thank the Acting deputy First Minister for his statement to the House. What progress has been made as regards saving money in delivery service to North/South bodies?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

There has been a constant review of the financing of the North/South ministerial bodies. The Member is aware of the ongoing review under the St Andrews Agreement, which is looking at the number of bodies and the implementation costs. Both jurisdictions are conscious of the need for savings to be delivered in those matters. We are conscious of the economic pressures bearing down on both jurisdictions, and we want to ensure that whatever work we carry out is effective and efficient in delivering services for people on the ground.

Jennifer McCann (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Given that the Minister referred to the shared economic challenges, will he give us an update on the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA)?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

NAMA was raised at the meeting, and we sought assurances from the Tánaiste with regard to its forward work programme. We also sought assurances that there would be no fire sale of properties in this jurisdiction currently under the control of NAMA and received those assurances. We raised concerns that, although we have a representative on the NAMA northern board, often that representative is given information after decisions have been taken. We sought to ensure that, in future, such matters are fully discussed with our representatives and that they are included in the decision-making process, so that we are kept up to date with all those matters. The Tánaiste noted that NAMA is an arm’s-length body of the Irish Government. However, he will do all in his power to ensure that our interests and voice are heard around the NAMA table and that we are kept briefed and up to date on all its workings.

Mike Nesbitt (UUP, Strangford)

I thank the Minister for his report. With regard to the renewal of the boards of the North/South bodies, what steps are being taken to ensure that the highest quality of applicant comes forward next time, particularly given the view of DUP Executive Ministers, including the First Minister, who, speaking in the House yesterday, offered the opinion that often more can be done by a phone call to our opposite number than by working those formal North/South bodies?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

It is recognised and the report shows that the North/South bodies have carried out a significant amount of work. Obviously, we want the highest calibre of individuals to apply and be appointed to those bodies, and that is something that the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) and, no doubt, the Irish Government will continue to apply when selecting and appointing candidates to those bodies. As with all circumstances, there are instances when a phone call will do and business can be conducted in that way. It is good that Ministers feel comfortable enough to phone each other regularly and to conduct business over the phone. However, longer-term programmes of work need to be carried out, and detailed work has to be carried out to complete those tasks. In those circumstances, you need well-equipped boards with the right calibre of individual to carry out that work. It is not one or the other; we require both to continue that programme of work.

Joe Byrne (Social Democratic and Labour Party, West Tyrone)

I thank the Minister for his statement. Will he update the House on what was discussed with regard to the north-west gateway initiative, given that the people of Donegal and Derry want to see co-operation on health, education and other matters?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

The north-west gateway initiative was discussed. Although we are conscious of the economic pressures bearing down on both jurisdictions, it is proposed that programmes of work for the initiative will continue. Alas, as I said, we are conscious of the pressures bearing down on both Administrations. Some of the work conducted around the north-west gateway, whether interjurisdictional or in each jurisdiction, will depend on the finances available to the Executive or to the Dublin Government.

Trevor Lunn (Alliance, Lagan Valley)

I thank the Acting deputy First Minister for his statement, in which he mentioned vocational qualifications and how they can cross boundaries. Will the Acting deputy First Minister encourage the Minister for Employment and Learning to engage with his Southern counterpart to improve the transferability of vocational and educational qualifications between the jurisdictions? Will he do likewise with his other hat on as Minister of Education?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

Although the Minister for Employment and Learning does not have a formal North/South relationship, I understand that he has been discussing those matters with Minister Ruairí Quinn, whose brief covers further and higher education. Progress has been made on the mutual recognition of qualifications. In my capacity as Minister of Education and as I reported to the House recently, I am aware that the General Teaching Council on this side of the border and the appropriate body on the other side of the border are working more closely together on teacher qualifications. That work is ongoing. Work is also being carried out by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment and the National Qualifications Authority on cross-border recognition of qualifications. That work, too, is ongoing. I also reported in my statement that an information leaflet has been published that allows for greater transparency for employing bodies in recognising work qualifications that are mutually recognised on either side of the border.

Jimmy Spratt (DUP, Belfast South)

I refer the Acting deputy First Minister to his comments on EU funds from the FP7 research and development programme. Will he elaborate on what discussions took place on collaboration to maximise Northern Ireland’s position in drawing down funds for research and development, which seems to be one of the main areas for which EU money is available at present?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

How we benefit mutually from European funding and how each jurisdiction benefits from European funding were raised as issues. The Member will be aware that, even in our Budget discussions, we placed a focus on drawing down European funding to assist our programmes of work, whether they be directly government-led, community and voluntary sector-led or, within that, business-led. It remains a focus of the North/South Ministerial Council and the Executive to draw down European funding for research and development.

Phil Flanagan (Sinn Féin, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chéad Aire ghníomhach as a ráiteas. I thank the Acting deputy First Minister for his statement, and I welcome the progress that has been made on dealing with delays in processing certain welfare benefits that have a cross-border basis. I also welcome the fact that a system for that has been put in place. Many of us have called for such a system for years. Will the Minister provide an update and further details on the system and tell us how it will benefit people?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

I have not got the complete details of the programme in front of me, but the Tánaiste assured the First Minister and me that the problems with social welfare payments, particularly to those based in the Southern jurisdiction, have been resolved and that he has been assured by his Department and his Administration that problems that arose in the past have been resolved. However, I will ascertain whether any further information is available and, if so, forward it to the Member.

Michaela Boyle (Sinn Féin, West Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. How many North/South Ministerial Council meetings have been held since 2007?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

Since 2007, approximately 92 North/South Ministerial Council meetings have been held. The majority of the meetings are now held in our newly equipped headquarters in Armagh, where staff are located and the functions of the North/South Ministerial Council are, by and large, operated.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

I thank the Acting deputy First Minister for his comprehensive report on the meeting. I am interested in paragraph 8 of the statement. There is huge potential for collaboration between North and South and other EU member states in relation to the European Union innovation fund. Do the two Governments have any specific plans to intensify the combined efforts of universities, North and South, to work together with business to really impact big time on the innovation fund? That fund is enormous. Somewhere in the region of €50 billion is available, and access to it could transform the economy in Northern Ireland.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

The Member will be aware that we identified European funding as potential investment in our Budget to ensure that programmes that are operated by government, business and the community and voluntary sector are driven forward. Research and development and investment are part of that programme of work. Those issues were raised during the meeting between the First Minister and me and the Tánaiste, and both jurisdictions are acutely aware of their potential.

As we move towards the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2013, it is worth noting that the Tánaiste has offered our jurisdiction, our Civil Service and our senior officials a place at the table in preparation for that presidency. He has also offered the Civil Service membership of a working party that will discuss the terms of that presidency. Therefore, we will have a direct input at that stage. That shows that there is a good working relationship on EU matters: the Tánaiste is kindly allowing our civil servants and senior officials access to the highest echelons of decision-making in Europe.

I cannot speak on behalf of the Minister for Employment and Learning about the universities. However, through my contact with Minister Quinn as part of my brief as Minister of Education, I am aware that he and the Minister for Employment and Learning are discussing potential work programmes for the benefit of both jurisdictions.

Oliver McMullan (Sinn Féin, East Antrim)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I thank the Minister for his statement. Will he give the House an update on the A5 and A8 projects?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

As I said in my opening comments, Minister Kennedy joined the First Minister and me at the meeting. He raised the A5 project with the Tánaiste, and he outlined the progress that has been made on that project and the time frame in which the work will take place. I understand that Minister Kennedy made a statement to the House yesterday on a number of spends and programmes of work that he is carrying out, and those will have an effect on the A5 project. However, that will be a delaying effect rather than a stalling effect. The Tánaiste offered his reassurance that the Dublin Government are committed to the A5 and the A8 projects.

Jim Allister (Traditional Unionist Voice, North Antrim)

The statement refers to efficiency savings without quantifying what savings have been made in the £100 million per annum cost. Yesterday, the First Minister told us that a reduction in the number of bodies is on the agenda in the efficiency review. Can the Acting deputy First Minister confirm that?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

The review of the workings of the North/South Ministerial Council is open to public scrutiny. I believe that the First Minister informed the Member yesterday that he may have been involved in the negotiations that led to that. I cannot verify that; I am only relaying information that I picked up yesterday in the House — [Interruption.]

Jimmy Spratt (DUP, Belfast South)

He approved it.

William Hay (Speaker, Foyle)

Order. Allow the Acting deputy First Minister to continue.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

Sorry. I understand that the Member actually approved the negotiations on the North/South Ministerial Council.

Jim Allister (Traditional Unionist Voice, North Antrim)

I resigned over them.

William Hay (Speaker, Foyle)

Order. Allow the Minister to answer.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

I suspect that the Member knows right well the answer to his question. The review of the North/South Ministerial Council is open to public scrutiny, and its work continues. Both jurisdictions want to ensure that we have effective, efficient services on the island of Ireland for the people whom we serve, regardless which side of the border they reside on.

William Hay (Speaker, Foyle)

That ends questions on the statement of the Acting deputy First Minister.

Jimmy Spratt (DUP, Belfast South)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it proper for a Member, from a sedentary position, to accuse the First Minister of lying to the House yesterday? That is the word that he used: “lied”. I understand that such language cannot be used in the House.

William Hay (Speaker, Foyle)

Allow me once again to check Hansard. I probably spend my whole life reading through Hansard for points of order. However, I am happy to allow Mr Allister to clarify the position if he wants.

Jim Allister (Traditional Unionist Voice, North Antrim)

I never used the word “lied” whatsoever. I said that I resigned over the St Andrews matter. I never made any allegation about lying.

William Hay (Speaker, Foyle)

I am happy to check Hansard and come back to the House. Let us move on.

Private Members’ Business

William Hay (Speaker, Foyle)

The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for this debate. The proposer will have 10 minutes to propose the motion and 10 minutes to make a winding-up speech. One amendment has been selected and published on the Marshalled List. The proposer of the amendment will have 10 minutes to propose and five minutes to make a winding-up speech. All other Members who wish to speak will have five minutes.

David McNarry (UUP, Strangford)

I beg to move

That this Assembly notes the importance of an effective home-to-school transport policy; believes that the current policy is outdated; and calls on the Minister of Education to initiate an overarching review of the policy to ensure that home-to-school transport is provided in the most cost-effective, efficient and safe manner.

I see that the proposer of the amendment is not in the House. Perhaps, during the debate, you might give a judgement on what that implies.

The current arrangements for the provision of home-to-school transport came into operation in 1996. It is clearly time for a review. Home-to-school transport is a major operation, involving some 110,000 children, with an annual cost of £74 million. About 30% of those children receive free home-to-school transport, and, of those using public transport, 65% are carried by Translink, 27% by the education boards and 8% by private sector operators. In that last category, some £8 million is spent each year transporting pupils by taxi. I emphasise that I do not suggest that taxis for children with special requirements should in any way be disposed of. However, an analysis of costs indicates that Translink and Metro’s costs are significantly lower. That suggests to us all that major savings can be made and that we need to look for greater efficiencies, which, I might add, do not mean job losses solely to reduce costs.

(Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr Dallat] in the Chair)

If all pupils transported by education board buses were transported instead by Translink, it is estimated that annual savings of £6·8 million could be achieved, which is enough, I suggest, to ease significantly pressure on a Department that has lost its fiscal direction. We simply cannot afford to ignore such potential savings. However, the least we can look for is a far better working relationship between the education boards and Translink, for the benefit of the public purse, and look further to see what reductions can be negotiated with commercial private companies, using the negotiating tool of bulk purchase. The Department pays way too much for school transport. Indeed, if we consider Translink to be a private company — it is — why should we not widen the scope of private enterprise to compete for contracts or bundles of contracts, to see what enhancement of community bus services can also be realised on the back of that?

There is another aspect of home-to-school transport that needs to be considered. Clearly, if there is to be a major rationalisation of the schools estate, existing rules will become obsolete. School closures are on the predetermined hit list of recommendations of at least one board. Even in advance of general discussions about that following the audit planned by the Minister, some boards are jumping the gun and are trying to force school closures. Look no further than the South Eastern Education and Library Board, which is taking unilateral threats to parents way beyond the limit in Ballykeigle Primary School in my constituency. Every day we hear of such threats being transmitted in other areas under that board’s control.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry for interrupting the Member, but is it appropriate for a Member of the House to refer to a public body issuing threats to anyone? I do not think that that is appropriate language for the House.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

I remind Members to be moderate and to avoid any kind of controversy, which we do not want.

David McNarry (UUP, Strangford)

Mr Deputy Speaker, after yesterday, I will be the last person to get involved in controversy with the Chair. I respect your decision. The only thing that I will say is that I have been sent here by my constituents, and they have told me that they see those as threats, and it is my duty to report that to the House. That is what I have done, and I hope that the House will accept it in that manner.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

I remind the Member that while he is in the House he should respect the rules of the House, whatever his constituents might think.

David McNarry (UUP, Strangford)

Indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall take it no further.

The point that I was going to make was that, if rural schools are closed by the actions of the Executive and the Minister, he must take responsibility and be held accountable for the financial consequences of his actions. That includes the cost of forcing many more children into a position in which they need home-to-school transport. I contend that that will be more than was hitherto the case. That having been said, in a climate of cost cutting and savings, it is incumbent on all of us to look at the most cost-effective way to provide such transport, which may well involve outsourcing those services to the private sector. There is a good example of such a private service being operated in the County Down area by Down Town Transport Ltd.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you will know, if rural life is to continue and all-age communities are to be preserved in the countryside, good home-to-school transport is essential, not optional. I say that as an MLA who represents the Strangford constituency, where there are many small rural communities, villages, towns and schools. Indeed, that is precisely why I am proposing the motion today: to bring to the attention of the Minister and the public the absolute need to sustain rural and semi-rural life, which is the norm for more than one third of our citizens.

An intrinsic part of sustaining rural life is having good home-to-school transport. It is part of ensuring the viability of the communities that I have talked about. Therefore, we cannot allow that important consideration to fall through the grating in our scramble for savings. The balance between service and costs is crucial, but lowering standards cannot and should not be acceptable.

We know that the Minister has embarked on an audit, which will bring out many stark facts. I hope that the motion, which I trust the House will support, will add weight to the proposition that, in the audit or as an important attachment to it, the Minister will factor in the delivery of school transport. He should do that not just as a cost but as a service and an intrinsic part of a level of servicing necessary for a shrinking schools estate, bringing in its wake, I hope, a great deal more home-to-school travel than was needed before.

I look forward to the debate. I commend the motion to the House and ask Members for their support.

Steven Agnew (Green, North Down)

I beg to move the following amendment: Leave out all after “Education” and insert:

“to work with the Minister for Regional Development to create an holistic and sustainable school transport policy which will ensure that school transport is provided in the most cost-effective, efficient and safe manner.”

I must apologise to the Member and his party for my lateness and for missing the start of his introduction, but I was caught up in school traffic.

I tabled the amendment because I am concerned that the motion focuses too narrowly on a cost-benefit analysis and does not look at the huge array of benefits that investing in sustainable home-to-school transport can bring. The Member mentioned the costs that are involved, and it is right that we look at them, given the financial constraints. However, as I said, we must equally look at the benefits and, perhaps, at how we can spend money more wisely without reducing sustainable transport options for pupils.

It is estimated that congestion costs the economy £250 million a year. As anyone who drives will know, a large part of that congestion is caused by the school run, that is, children travelling to school. Many drivers dread the end of the summer when the schools come back and traffic congestion increases. Therefore, it makes sense that we look at the benefits that investing in sustainable transport would bring to the wider economy and that we look at the wider benefits of that, as opposed to the same indirect benefits.

Other benefits include safety, which is mentioned in the motion. Buses are the safest form of transport that pupils can use to get to school. The pack that the Research and Information Service provided to Members shows that there were no deaths on school buses between 1996 and 2005, while, during the same period, 17 deaths were attributable to other modes of home-to-school transport. Good work is already being done to improve bus safety, but we must now look at improving the safety of other forms of home-to-school transport. If the motion is passed and the Minister accepts the recommendation to initiate a review of the policy, it must not only focus on safety and cost-efficiency, which, of course, are important, but have sustainability at its core. Part of the reason for my tabling the amendment was that I felt that that was an important omission from the motion.

A policy is needed that focuses on active school transport. Too many of our children get to school by private car. In some cases, that may be necessary. However, I argue that, in many cases, it is not. A policy is needed that has targets to reduce the number of children who get to school by private car. Such a policy should seek to increase the number who cycle and walk to school, because those methods have many benefits.

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

I thank the Member for giving way. Most people would appreciate the tenor of his comment that the policy should aim to increase the number of children who walk or cycle to school. However, does he appreciate and understand that many parents are concerned that, if they try to ensure that their children cycle or walk in, for example, extremely rural areas with small, narrow roads, particularly in wintertime, which has been mentioned, then, rather than assisting environmentally, they might actually be putting them in danger?

Steven Agnew (Green, North Down)

I absolutely accept the Member’s point. At the start of my comments, I said that we need to move from making buses safer towards making walking and cycling safer. I said that there are circumstances where it may be necessary to use a car — perhaps for safety reasons because there are no alternative forms of safe transport. I will mention the Sustrans scheme to provide sustainable transport to rural schools.

As I said, there are many benefits of active school travel. It will help to tackle obesity, which, as we know, is a growing problem in society.

If children are healthier, their educational attainment will improve. In my short tenure as an MLA, the Assembly has debated reducing fuel poverty a number of times. We must help families to reduce their reliance on the car and, therefore, help them to tackle fuel poverty. As I mentioned, reducing traffic congestion will have wider benefits for our economy. Given the targets to reduce CO2 emissions, we must be aware that transport accounts for 21% of all greenhouse gas emissions. As has been stated, the school run is a significant part of our transport.

Given the impact on a number of policy objectives, as I read up on the subject I started to think that my amendment, which calls on the Minister of Education to work with the Minister for Regional Development, does not go far enough. As has been pointed out, an active school transport policy will bring benefits to health and to the Minister for Social Development’s attempts to tackle fuel poverty.

I mentioned the Sustrans rural safe routes to schools pilot, and that shows what can be achieved. The number of people using cars was cut by 22% in the pilot project; the number of children cycling increased by 100%, and the number walking increased by 40%. That happened in rural areas, which the Member mentioned and where, arguably, there are fewer sustainable transport options. Therefore, we could achieve even greater success in our towns and cities.

It is important that the Executive work together and that we do not have one party represented in the Executive calling on a Minister from another party to do something. We need co-operation at Executive level on policies such as this to ensure that costs and benefits are spread across Departments.

Sustrans estimates that it would cost around £2 million a year to provide the necessary funding to produce measures to run a successful scheme that targets primary schools. By my own crude calculations, £1·3 million or £1·4 million of that would be given to the Minister for Regional Development to improve safety for cyclists and walkers on our roads, and £600,000 or £700,000 would be given to the Education Minister. Given the benefits that I have outlined, those are reasonable costs. Indeed, such investment might increase savings in areas such as health and reduce fuel poverty. It would be a sensible investment at a time when money is scarce.

An active school transport policy would be good for our economy in reducing congestion; good for people in improving health and education outcomes; and good for our environment in reducing emissions and further improving air quality. I hope that the House will support the amendment. It is not intended to take away from the motion in any way but simply to add to it the importance of sustainability in school transport policies and of Ministers working together.

Mervyn Storey (DUP, North Antrim)

I thank the Member who tabled the motion for the opportunity to engage in the debate. I speak as Chair of the Education Committee, but I trust that, if time permits, I will be able to make a few comments as a Member.

It is right and proper that I inform the House that the Committee has considered the issue of transport from home to school on a number of occasions since the beginning of this mandate. The thrust of the Committee’s work focused on three areas: health and safety issues in such transport; the Department of Education and Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP) joint efficiency review; and the need to review the policy on transport from home to school. I will touch on each of those briefly.

At Committee meetings on 22 June and 7 September, members discussed the provision of school transport and the mechanisms through which compliance, enforcement and monitoring of health and safety issues took place, particularly the procurement process.

Some concerns were raised about contractual provisions vis-à-vis health and safety compliance; the frequency of health and safety inspections of transport; and the resources available to the boards and the Department of the Environment to monitor and enforce health and safety standards in home-to-school transport. Those are vital areas, because, although it is right for us to call for a review of the policy, we need to remember that thousands of children across Northern Ireland were transported today. Although it may take the House some considerable time to deal with the policy, the practice needs to be right today to ensure that our children are being transported in a safe manner.

The Committee, in furtherance of its scrutiny of this important issue, is pursuing information from the Federation of Passenger Transport, the Committee for Regional Development and the Committee for the Environment. It is only right and proper that we wait until such time as the Committee has formed a collective view.

In June, the Committee considered the ongoing work by the Department of Education and DFP on a joint efficiency review. The performance and efficiency delivery unit (PEDU) review has two stages. The stage 1 report, which was published in March 2011, included school transport as one of its key themes. In short, the report found that, against a background of all boards facing increasing transport costs and falling pupil numbers, there were sharp increases of between 3% and 9% in unit costs across the education and library boards.

PEDU also found that the main sources of increased costs in home-to-school transport between 2004-05 and 2009-2010 were Ulsterbus, or Translink, and the board-owned vehicles. However, the increase in cost of the board-owned vehicles was more pronounced because that mode of transport carried just over half the number of pupils that Translink carried.

If we leave aside the three-for-two funding, the escalation in unit costs of board-owned vehicles was just under 40%, which was nearly twice the rate observed for Translink. If we take account of the three-for-two funding and examine the variation in costs of transporting children with special educational needs (SEN), the PEDU analysis still points to significant variations or growth in unit costs, particularly when comparing the South Eastern Board, the Western Board and the North Eastern Board. The stage 1 report found that, in the case of the Belfast Board, the overwhelming cost factor for board-owned vehicles in SEN —

Trevor Clarke (DUP, South Antrim)

Will the Member give way?

Mervyn Storey (DUP, North Antrim)

Yes.

Trevor Clarke (DUP, South Antrim)

The Member compared the board-owned transport with the transport provided by Translink. Does the Member accept that those statistics are an unfair reflection, because Translink merely sticks to bigger routes and the board-owned buses tend to stay on smaller routes on which Translink does not function anyway? The statistics are being used to suggest that Translink is possibly cheaper, but the board-owned buses use routes that Translink cannot use.

Mervyn Storey (DUP, North Antrim)

I thank the Member for that valid point. That needs to be clarified further, and I think that it will be addressed in the second stage of the PEDU report. His point about Translink not having access to rural roads was well made.

However, the point that must be made is that the unit cost of transporting SEN pupils in the Belfast Education and Library Board area by board-owned vehicles has gone up by a staggering 75%. In comparison, the South Eastern Education and Library Board transported more than twice the number of SEN pupils on board-owned vehicles for around the same overall cost. The stage 1 report highlighted what it characterised as some odd and unexplained variations in comparative spending on the taxi and daily allowance.

For example, in relation to the latter, PEDU was unclear why, in some cases, presumably in peripheral locations —

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Bring your remarks to a close, please.

Mervyn Storey (DUP, North Antrim)

— the number of pupils should have increased to such an extent —

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Your time is up.

Mervyn Storey (DUP, North Antrim)

I support the motion and the amendment.

Phil Flanagan (Sinn Féin, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Éirím chun tacaíocht a thabhairt don rún, agus gabhaim buíochas leis na Comhaltaí a chuir é faoi bhráid an Tionóil. Tá áthas orm go bhfuil an tAire Oideachais anseo chun éisteacht leis an rún agus leis an díospóireacht agus go mbeidh sé in ann a chuid smaointe féin a chur chun tosaigh.

There is no question that transport provision is a huge expense to the Assembly, with £75 million being spent on it each year. However, there is also no doubt about the key role that transport providers play in getting our children and young people to and from school and further education colleges in a safe and timely manner. That is particularly the case in rural constituencies such as my own. There is, however, significant wastage, and there are potential savings to be made in the transport budget. I welcome the fact that the Education Minister has made a commitment to ensure that £5 million is removed from the budget each year within this four-year budgetary period. He has also made commitments that that is to be done in a manner that does not impact on front line service provision, particularly on the needs of rural dwellers and children with special educational needs.

We need to ensure that any review that is carried out is done with rural proofing and equality measures at its core. I look forward to seeing exactly how the challenging targets that the Minister has set out can be achieved, and, later in my contribution, I will outline some proposals through which both savings and service improvements can be made.

I remember travelling to school as a young child from Garrison to Enniskillen, a journey of 25 miles, on a greatly overcrowded bus, where the youngest children had to sit on school bags at the front, and there were at least three people on each seat. That was a completely unsafe method of transporting young children to and from school, but it was good craic. Thankfully, there have been relatively few serious accidents on school transport.

In recent years, there has been a serious fall in the number of pupils availing themselves of our transport provision, so the problem of overcrowding is not so great any more. However, in the same time frame, there has been a huge surge in the cost of providing that transport. Much of those increased costs can be explained by rises in fuel prices, inflation, and the increasing costs of purchasing vehicles and servicing them, but the fact of the matter is that we need to look at how we provide and procure transport from home to school. I, therefore, welcome the motion and the amendment and the opportunity for the debate to take place.

The Chairperson of the Committee referred to stage 2 of PEDU. I look forward to seeing the proposals outlined in that report, and I anticipate the Minister reacting positively to them, as he has done to date throughout the process. I hope that one of the proposals to come out of that review will be to encourage greater collaboration between all our Departments, and particularly in regard to education and library boards, Translink, community transport operators and the Health Department. At present, we have a silo mentality in operation. Education and library board buses are often sitting idle throughout the day, when they could be used to provide affordable and reliable transport in neglected rural areas for the benefit of the entire community. There is also a greater need for collaboration and sharing of information among education and library boards and with transport providers in the South. We should not be afraid to tackle those issues.

We really need to take a serious look at the tender process for transport for children with special educational needs, at whether private taxi operators provide the best value for money for the Assembly and at whether potential savings could be found if there was greater collaboration with other public transport providers. Over the last six years alone, some £45 million has been spent on taxi hire for students.

Many Members who have spoken brought forward stories from their own constituencies, and I will keep with that trend. I was contacted by a lady just last week who had serious difficulties getting suitable transport for her 17-year-old son, who suffers from autism. He has done very well in remaining in full-time education, and he takes part in a course at the college of further education in Enniskillen. The rigid nature of the current policy means that he must get a taxi into Enniskillen for 9.00 am every morning and get one home at 3.00 pm. That normally suits him OK, except on Thursdays, when his class only runs from 11.00 am to 1.00 pm. That leaves a very vulnerable person in Enniskillen on his own for four hours each week. That is an area in which the policy has failed those it is designed to protect.

There is also a whole host of questions regarding the quality of some roads that young people are expected to walk on in dangerous conditions. We all know of the devastating loss —

Trevor Clarke (DUP, South Antrim)

I thank the Member for giving way. He raises a pertinent point about some of the roads. I take it that he is referring to the fact that many of the roads have no footpaths. Does he not think that there is something that the Minister could do in relation to that? For some of the children who live fewer than two miles from the primary school, or three miles from the post-primary school, where there are spaces on the bus and buses are driving past the children walking along those roads, there are concessions that could be made. Can the Minister encourage the education and library boards to fill those places through concessions? In some areas, that is not the case.

Phil Flanagan (Sinn Féin, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

I thank the Member for his intervention. The motion calls for a review of the policy, so I hope that the Minister will take that issue on board.

To return to the subject of bad roads, we all know of the devastating loss to the local community of Debbie White and Nathan Gault, who passed away after being knocked down getting off a bus near Florencecourt in November 2008. Since that terrible accident, their school, Devenish College, and other schools in Fermanagh have taken positive steps to attach reflective material to school blazers, a move that was supported by former Minister of Education Caitríona Ruane. I hope that that will be looked into as part of the review.

Mr Agnew correctly raised the issue of safety. In fact, a number of pupils from my former school tragically lost their lives on the way to and from school in private cars, when they could have been travelling on a bus.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

I ask the Member to bring his remarks to a close.

Phil Flanagan (Sinn Féin, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

Since those incidents, the school in question has banned pupils from taking their own car to school. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate and hope that it will get support across the House.

Conall McDevitt (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast South)

I support the motion and Mr Agnew’s amendment. I apologise to Mr McNarry and Mr Agnew for missing a good deal of their contributions; I was detained elsewhere in the Building.

It will not escape the attention of those who follow our business carefully that this is yet another day on which we are debating the need to do something at some point in the distant future. It is becoming a bit difficult to justify the House’s existence when that is all that we seem to do. As meritorious as this and many other motions are, it would be much better for us all if we were here debating the outcomes of reviews and the proposed policies through legislation that Ministers may be able to bring to the House than simply calling on them to do something at some point in the not too, or perhaps too, distant future.

I am a bit surprised that anyone would come to the House and welcome a £5 million cut per annum in anyone’s budget. I am surprised that anyone would suggest that taking money out of a very important public service is in the regional interest. I am particularly surprised that we would welcome it, given that we have the worst uptake in these islands of pupils — children and young people — using public transport to get to school. Fewer pupils in our primary and secondary schools use public transport in Northern Ireland than anywhere else in these islands. In fact, more than half of all our pupils travel to school by car. I accept that we have a dispersed population, and I am a huge supporter of the integrity of our countryside and the way in which we have historically lived — a way in which we must be entitled to continue to live. However, it is bizarre to say that it is a good thing to cut by £5 million a budget that is already so abysmally failing.

I welcome the Chairperson of the Committee for Education’s comments about the need to eliminate the extreme inefficiencies in the school transportation budget. However, if we are to eliminate inefficiencies, surely it would be better to close the gap in uptake so that we do not stand out as the worst-performing region in these islands when it comes to children’s and young people’s ability to access school transport. Rather, we need to stand out as a place in which there is a considerable increase in the uptake of school transport.

Eighty-eight per cent of schools in England now have school travel plans aimed at shifting kids and their parents away from using cars and towards alternative, safer ways of getting to school. Six hundred and fifty schools in the South use the Green-Schools programme, which, again, is about trying to make sure that children can get to school on public transport or through alternative modes other than their mum and dad’s car, or, in some cases, as Mr Flanagan pointed out, and increasingly in some of the schools where the kids come from more affluent backgrounds, their own car.

Here, we have been cutting the budget to try to encourage kids to shift mode from a car to public transport. I accept that the Minister is responsible only for the education side, and I am not going to ask him to do anything else. However, when we look at our regional transportation strategy, which, of course, informs a lot of the debate, there is absolutely no connection whatsoever among health boards, education boards, Translink and the Post Office. Three or four vehicles travel the same country road and pick up three or four different people at three or four different times of the day. That is not duplicating; it is triplicating and quadrupling the amount of public investment that goes into transporting people along that road.

Wouldn’t it be great if, rather than celebrating cutting £5 million a year out of the budget, which is no celebration at all, we were genuinely talking about being able to continue to invest that money and getting so much more bang for our buck; and that, in fact, in the years ahead, it was not a majority —

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Bring your remarks to a close.

Conall McDevitt (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast South)

— that use their cars to go to school, but a tiny minority?

Trevor Lunn (Alliance, Lagan Valley)

I support the motion and Mr Agnew’s amendment, which is slightly more specific but has the same aim of tidying up and renewing an outdated policy. I am sure that substituting “holistic and sustainable” for “overarching” does not change the substance of the motion. From contributions previous, it sounds as if everybody will support it, which is good.

There are many points to be considered in this argument. Other Members referred to constituency problems. The most irritating one for me, which seems to recur every year, is the vexed question of the exact distance from home to school and the two-mile and three-mile rule. It worries me that the Department, in the case of which I am thinking, can commission an exact measurement over a three-mile route and then argue about 100 yards, particularly when the suggested route involves crossing a busy road at the nearest point without the benefit of a crossing patrol or traffic lights. The parents, in that case, did their own measurement using proper safety considerations and traffic lights. Their measurement was different to the Department’s, but the Department won. It also worries me that, when two children live on the same street and attend the same school, one could be regarded as qualifying for free transport and the other not on the basis of the same rule.

Having got that out of my system, it is also a fact that, across all boards, transport costs have been rising while pupil numbers have steadily fallen over a number of years. That has produced the unit cost increase, to which the Chairman referred, of up to 9%. We are all familiar with the rapidly increasing figure of 85,000 empty desks, which only a couple of years ago was being quoted at 50,000.

Mr McNarry talked about greater efficiencies. He made some very good suggestions, mostly around privatisation and outsourcing. Mr Agnew went a different route and talked about sustainability and environmental and health considerations. That is all very worthy. Mr McDevitt and others mentioned the £20 million that will be taken out of the budget over the four years. I wonder whether the real problem is the same one that affects every aspect of education at the moment: the fact that we have too many schools and sectors. Many schools operate well below what is regarded as a sustainable pupil number but still have a requirement for transport. Furthermore, there is the need for the controlled and maintained sectors to largely employ different school buses even though, as a result, they pass each other, sometimes half empty. That applies to the schools as well as the buses.

I do not, for one minute, advocate the closure of small schools. The Minister’s viability review will take everything into consideration, not just pupil numbers. However, we need a root-and-branch review of our school estate and a meaningful post-primary review, not just the maintained sector review, which will be announced shortly. It needs to be across all sectors, and it will lead to a serious attempt to rationalise our system. That is now advocated by so many interested parties, which range from the One School of Thought campaign right through to the First Minister. There is certainly a wide range of interested parties that seem to think that the Alliance Party view has been right all along.

In recent days, the Minister has made statements that may lead to serious decisions being made. If the House were to allow the Minister to get on with that in the short, medium and longer term, perhaps problems such as the cost of school transport would resolve themselves to some extent. If the schools estate were put into the right framework and pupils were being sent to school in the most efficient way possible, obviously it would mean that there would be fewer schools and more co-operation across the sectors. That would mean that the requirement for transport would diminish, so the problem that we are looking at today would sort itself out to some extent. I look forward to what the Minister has to say. We support the motion and the amendment.

Jonathan Craig (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I support the motion and the amendment. I refuse to take the pessimistic view that all of this should have been done a long time ago and that we are discussing something that should have been sorted out. There are a wide range of reasons why it has not been sorted out, and there are a large number of reasons why it will not be sorted out in the short term. We inherited the policy from a direct rule Minister, and there is a whole raft of reasons why it is now completely out of date. One of the main reasons is the rising cost of transport, and there are rising costs of between 3% and 9% in the education and library boards (ELBs). In addition to that, the spending review that was announced by the coalition Government has led to the cut in the transport budget. All of us seem to forget that we do not have a magic hat from which we can summon up money from nowhere. Money has been taken away from us, and, unfortunately, school transport is one of the areas being cut.

The current arrangements for the provision of home-to-school transport came into operation in September 1997, and the transport costs for each pupil vary significantly between cases and between boards. Across the five boards, there are examples of it costing £513 a pupil, and there is an example of it costing £1,741 a pupil. Another reason for transport costs having risen is that the three-for-two policy was, quite rightly, abolished. In a lot of the vehicles, children now have to wear seatbelts, and that is a good safety measure. That has played a part in changing the landscape in the area of transport.

The statement that the Minister made in the House on the review of schools will also change the landscape. He talked about the sustainable schools policy, and that will have a major impact on the transport system. I can speak only from experience about the impact that that policy is having in my constituency. When we are looking at the rationalisation of schools, the impact on the transport system needs to be taken into account.

In my constituency, I have watched with interest the impact that the announcement of a consultation on the closure of Dunmurry High School has had. Quite frankly, there is no way to describe it other than that pupils are now going to the four winds. A lot of them are going to schools in east Belfast. Some of them are going to the next nearest school, which is now at complete capacity. They are being handed on to yet another school, which is further away. Even today, I have heard that a number of pupils have been toured around a third school that is even further away, because there is no spare capacity in the other schools. That is, in miniature, what I see happening as a result of the rationalisation of schools. That will have a major impact on the whole infrastructure of home-to-school transport for our children.

I am an optimist, not a pessimist, and I think that now is the time to review the whole strategy for how we transport children to school and the way in which we do so. Whether the Minister likes it or not, the rationalisation of schools will have a major impact on the provision of transport right across the board. I appeal to the Minister — as has been said in the House before — to rationalise the whole school transport system.

I can give the Minister a prime example of where it is all going wrong and where the Member for the Green Party has got it right. A board bus with three pupils on board passes the end of my street every morning and afternoon.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Bring your remarks to a close.

Jonathan Craig (DUP, Lagan Valley)

A concessionary place was taken off my child and others because of a policy made by the board in my area, the impact of which is that another 15 cars have to travel less than a mile and a half to the local primary school.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Sorry; your time is up.

Jonathan Craig (DUP, Lagan Valley)

That is an absurd policy, and it needs to be reviewed.

Michaela Boyle (Sinn Féin, West Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I welcome the opportunity to speak to the House in support of the motion and the amendment. The current arrangements for home-to-school transport have been in operation since 1997. Pupils eligible for transport assistance must be enrolled at their nearest suitable school and live beyond the qualifying distance to that school, which, at present, is two miles for primary and three miles for post-primary. In Britain, the authorities operate lower walking standards than those used here to determine free transport eligibility.

School transport in Strabane, in my constituency, is a contentious issue at present because a service was withdrawn days before the start of the new school term. The parents of up to 133 young people from one school received letters just before the new school term informing them that their children were no longer entitled to concessionary places. As a result, families were displaced. Some parents in rural areas received the letter only the day before the child was due to start back at school. Parents were forced to act immediately, almost overnight, to ensure that their child got to school safely the next day. For most of the parents, that was a domestic nightmare, and, more important, a health and safety one. Those who were unable to avail themselves of a car or other transport methods at that time had no alternative but to walk their children along one of the busiest roads in Strabane: the A5 Strabane to Derry road.

Children attending primary schools in my district were also displaced. I have been told by one parent that she had to walk her three small children — one was in a pram and the other two were on either side of her — along an unsafe country road for a mile and three quarters, taking her 70 minutes. There have been similar issues in the Douglas Bridge area, with parents having to make decisions that impacted greatly on their arrangements. For example, one parent had to give up her part-time employment as a result of concessionary entitlement being withdrawn.

The current system of home-to-school transport provision fails those who need it most. There is no doubt that the cost of providing home-to-school transport is rising, and I am sure that other Members also acknowledge that. That has been attributed to a number of factors: the rising number of children with special needs; the increased use of taxis by ELBs for school journeys; the rising cost of public transport due to operating costs; and the scheduling of different services due to schools’ starting and finishing times.

Western Board officials in my area informed me as recently as last week that pupils who were entitled to concessionary travel to get a bus from their village in order to then get a connecting bus to their school are no longer entitled to that. They said that that practice has now ceased because they had to downsize. Yet parents from the same village told me only yesterday that the same bus passes by their children with empty seats.

Research tells us that there is significant growth in car ownership, which has resulted in increased traffic and busier roads, adding to congestion close to schools. I acknowledge the concerns that Mr Agnew has outlined. The current policy on walking distances in home-to-school transport should be reviewed to identify the impact that changes could have on transport provision here and to ensure that all our children and young people can travel to school in a safe and effective manner. There is a need for a comprehensive review of the policy on home-to-school transport, and I believe that now is the time to have that review. It is also important that any review incorporates all existing transport resources to help to address capacity issues on buses and that steps are taken to improve safety arrangements for children and young people —

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Draw your remarks to a close, please.

Michaela Boyle (Sinn Féin, West Tyrone)

— travelling to and from school. Go raibh maith agat.

Brenda Hale (DUP, Lagan Valley)

As a member of the Education Committee, I support the motion and the amendment. I, like many in the House I am sure, have been inundated with calls and letters from concerned parents in my constituency whose children are attending the nearest suitable school and who have seen their transport being withdrawn or cut by the education and library board. That presents major difficulties for parents and children, many of whom live in constituencies such as mine, where they rely on public transport to get children to school on time.

An example that I would like to highlight is Banbridge Academy, which is close to my constituency office in Dromore. It provides an excellent local educational facility for local children. A significant number of its pupils rely on a bus to get them to and from school each day. However, children who are keen to take part in extra-curricular activities outside normal school hours have been left at a severe disadvantage. The bus can take the children to school on time and bring them home, but only if they go home with the rest of the children at the end of the official day. For many children in Dromore who choose to take up extra-curricular activities, the day does not end with formal lessons. That leaves them stranded as there is no bus that will take them from Banbridge Academy to Dromore.

I feel that the approach is inflexible and maybe even discriminatory, as children who wish to stay after school to take part in sports, a homework club or drama, etc, are being discouraged from doing so for fear of not getting home. That is not acceptable. Future employers and universities look for pupils who have access to the full curriculum as an indicator that they are team players, work well with others and can meet extra work commitments. Are we really going to actively discourage our future workforce from accessing the best jobs and universities because of an outdated policy that is not fit to meet its purpose? As we know, and as the Minister has said, 80% of learning happens outside the classroom, yet here we are in 2011, seemingly preventing a large percentage of that learning from happening. It should also be pointed out that many of those children’s parents work, leaving them unable to pick them up from school.

Two weeks ago, the Minister announced a review of schools – one that will ultimately decide which schools stay open and which will close. If we are to go down that route, will we see more children having to travel a considerable distance to get an education that is suitable for their needs? The review could impact on rural areas more than urban areas. There is a greater likelihood that rural children will have to travel further than their urban counterparts. That is the case, as I have outlined already, but I fear that things could get worse. It is for that reason and others that we must see the policy renewed and updated. The current policy is 14 years old and out of date, and it should be reviewed and revised, but not at the child’s expense. The child must be at the centre of any new policy, and the policy must fit in with children and their parents. Of course, I understand that costs must be looked at and that they are not an insignificant part of the policy, but the policy must be child-led. Education is vital to any child’s life, and we, as legislators, must place children at the centre of any such policy. It therefore gives me great pleasure to support the motion and the amendment.

Ross Hussey (UUP, West Tyrone)

I welcome those from the Strabane area who are here to observe the debate. I support my colleague Mr McNarry, and the other Members who have spoken, on the need to review the home-to-school transport policy.

I have been corresponding for a while with the Education Minister on this issue, and he educated me by advising me that the present policy dates from 1996 and is contained in circular 1996/411, with minor updating in September 2009. He also advised that to alter the eligibility criteria to include pupils who live within the existing two- or three-mile qualifying distance would significantly increase the cost of home-to-school transport at a time when the education budget is under severe pressure. My response was: what value would be put on a child’s life?

You may not believe it, but many years ago I walked to primary school from home through Omagh, across the main road with the assistance of a patrol man or traffic lights; I could quite easily walk the two miles there and back. I could not do that now, but that is a different story. In Omagh we have footpaths, street lighting and traffic lights; we had them even that long ago when I was a child — before anyone interrupts to say that. [Laughter.]

I now ask you to picture the scene between Magheramason and Bready, Donemana and Strabane, Artigarvan and Strabane, Ballymagorry and Strabane, the Glebe and Strabane, and Killen and Castlederg. Those names may mean very little to Members, but they mean an awful lot to the parents of children who have suddenly found bus services removed. In the case of Magheramason to Bready or from Ballymagorry, we are just short of two miles for primary-school children and just short of three miles for secondary-school children.

Once you leave Magheramason the footpath disappears in a very short time and you are left with a grassy area. The grassed area runs alongside the main A5, and to comply with pedestrian safety guidelines or the ‘Highway Code’, you walk towards oncoming traffic, which can legitimately travel at up to 60mph. If it is raining, you are walking on slippery grass, keeping your head down to try to avoid the rain and being buffeted by the pressure created by an articulated lorry thundering past. The case is similar when you leave Ballymagorry and attempt to walk towards Strabane.

In Londonderry, it has been decided that the bus service can be withdrawn because the Peace Bridge is now open and children can walk to Foyle and Londonderry College even though in inclement weather the bridge may become a nightmare for pedestrians and at times may be closed.

Tom Buchanan (DUP, West Tyrone)

Does the Member agree that it is totally irrational that at the beginning of this school term 130 children in the Strabane area and those areas that he mentioned were told that they were no longer entitled to school transport simply because of a merger between Strabane Grammar and Strabane High School? Remember, that is an area with no footpaths or street lighting, and children were being asked to walk to school on the busy A5 arterial route where, just a few years ago, a local GP was killed as he cycled along.

Ross Hussey (UUP, West Tyrone)

I thank the Member for his intervention. He makes the point clearly that the A5 is not a road for pedestrians or cyclists; it is an arterial route where traffic will travel at up to 60mph. Picture the scene with a child attempting to carry his schoolbag, head down, heading towards that road. A child could be drawn under an articulated lorry, and I would not wish to see that at any time.

Glenmornan is a small rural school with windy roads that make it a nightmare for children to attempt to walk to school, with two-way traffic battling for control of the limited space available on a rural road. With the withdrawal of certain services to the newly amalgamated Strabane Academy, parents were left with a decision: pay approximately £8 to send a child to school by bus or walk them to school. The police at one stage suggested that they would be prosecuted because by walking as a group they were taking part in an illegal parade. Two to three miles may not seem a big deal when walking up the leafy lanes around Parliament Buildings, but when you are living in a rural area such as west Tyrone it can be quite a battle.

I mention the Children’s Commissioner’s report ‘Safer Journeys to School’, which was produced in June 2006 in collaboration with the Consumer Council and the Department for Regional Development. One of the recommendations in that report was a review of the current statutory walking distance for home-to-school transport to identify the impact that changes could have on school transport provision. It also stated that, in order to help achieve a modal shift, the current walking distances might need to be reduced to make bus services attractive and viable for those who need them. On the other hand, it stated that current walking distances might need to be increased or removed and that provision could be based on household car ownership and/or low household income in order to target need.

Michaela already made reference to the case of a parent of three children: a baby, a toddler and a primary-school child. Her words to me were, “She has three weans, and she has to get them out to school in the morning.”

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Bring your remarks to a close, please.

Ross Hussey (UUP, West Tyrone)

How does she do that? Would you like to see a five-year-old child walking to primary school? I certainly would not.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

Thank you, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion and the amendment. Both should be supported. I assure you that I fully agree that there is a need for an effective home-to-school transport policy. It is on record that I have indicated to the Education Committee, in my deliberations with it, that we need to examine every aspect of the arrangements for home-to-school transport.

It is worth noting that approximately 90,000 pupils were transported to school this morning by some form of public transport. That is a mammoth task undertaken every morning by the transport services of the boards. However, we have to examine whether we are transporting the right children to school and whether we are using our finances and resources efficiently. I make that remark in the context of trying to identify savings that can be released to support teaching and learning in classrooms.

Mr McDevitt asked whether we should be celebrating the fact that we have taken £5 million out of the transport policy budget. It was the right decision, because even a preliminary examination of transport costs shows us that the £75 million was not being used effectively or efficiently. We have taken £5 million off that, and I support that decision. That £5 million was not returned to the centre or the Finance Minister; it was reinvested in education services in a more effective and efficient way.

Joe Byrne (Social Democratic and Labour Party, West Tyrone)

How can the Minister definitively say that the education and library boards’ transport departments are inefficient? What statistical analysis has been done? I assure him that in the Western Education and Library Board area, the transport service managed by the board is very efficient and its garages are extremely efficient.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

This debate will be in Hansard. I suggest that, in several months’ time, when the PEDU stage 2 reports are published, he returns to his comments. I assure you that all the examinations of school transport have shown that it is not being effectively or efficiently run. I also assure you that PEDU stage 2 reports will also show, when they are finally published, that our education transport system is not being effectively or efficiently run. I am not prepared to waste any money on this matter. My comments are evidence-based. The examinations are not being carried out by my Department; they are being carried out by officials from the Department of Finance and Personnel. The work of the Education Committee and the knowledge in the Department of Education and among Members here show that transport services are not being effectively or efficiently run. So the Member’s statement cannot be stood over in any way.

It would be remiss of me not to say that Mr McNarry’s comments about boards and board members are completely unacceptable. No public servant working for the Education Department or the Assembly has threatened anyone. No board has threatened anyone, and the use of that language is not helpful and does not assist any public servant in carrying out their work. What is going on at the moment, as has been referred to by Mr Craig, which will have an effect on school transport policy, is —

David McNarry (UUP, Strangford)

Will the Minister give way?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

I will give way briefly.

David McNarry (UUP, Strangford)

You know that you are being given every assistance to deliver education in your capacity as Minister. I will tread very warily, because the Speaker already mentioned this in response to your previous objection. When I mentioned the word “threat”, it was specific to one board. It was also specific to the fact that your Department denied any knowledge of what I called a hit list. There is something wrong, Minister, when your Department does not know what a board is doing, and that is from where the word “threat” emanates.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

The Member has —

David McNarry (UUP, Strangford)

You are either in or out.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

The Member has refused to take the opportunity to withdraw his comments. I think that that is a mistake and unfair on staff, who are public servants and have to carry out a very difficult task. All Members, whether they accept it or not, are aware of the practice that I have put in place to deal with our unsustainable schools estate, and every Member agrees that we have an unsustainable schools estate. To deal with that, action is required. Difficult decisions will have to be taken, but no Member, including me as a representative of Upper Bann, can seriously expect that all other constituencies except their own will see school closures. That is neither a sustainable nor a practical way forward. I appeal to Members to show leadership on the matter and not to offer false hope where there is no hope. There are instances in which Members are rallying to the flag —

David McNarry (UUP, Strangford)

[Interruption.]

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

Order, please. The Minister should resume his seat. I pointed out yesterday and today that no Member should make any comments from a sedentary position. If Members insist on doing so, they will not make a comment from any position.

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

Thank you, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Members are rallying to the flag of convenience, seeking 15 minutes of fame, and their main focus is not where it should be. It should be on the educational well-being of the young people whom we are here to serve.

I will return to the motion. The viability audit that is ongoing and the area planning review that will take place will have an effect on our school transport policy, and rightly so. I think that both will have to heed the other.

I have no intention of rushing into a short-term fix. A full review of our transport services and policies across the areas is required. We currently have five boards that, by and large, run similar programmes. However, as Members also said, only three of the boards offer concessionary seats. It is worthwhile putting on record exactly what a concessionary seat is. It is a seat on a bus that is provided to transport eligible children that may be made available to a child who is not eligible at that time. The concessionary seat can be removed by the board at any time. That causes difficulties when an eligible child needs that seat. It is worth noting that only three of our boards carry out such a practice, while two do not.

I intend to look at our transport services and the planning of education provision in every area. Both should support access to high-quality education and the appropriate educational pathway that all children and young people need. Transport needs to be kept in focus as part of the need to identify savings. Any savings identified will be driven back into the education service to ensure that the educational requirements of all our young people are met in the schools that they attend.

As I said to Mr Byrne, some work is already under way as a result of the Executive agreement in July 2010 to exempt the education and health sectors from the in-year Budget adjustments. It was agreed that DFP would commission PEDU to undertake work on the scope for and delivery of significant cost reductions across the two sectors. Stage 1 involved the identification of broad areas in the education sector in which there appeared to be scope to make savings, and transport was one of those areas. The evidence was primarily in the form of unexplained variations in the cost of provision from one board to another or unexplained changes in the cost of provision over time.

The previous Minister requested that home-to-school transport be examined further in stage 2 of the review. Work on that stage is nearing completion, and the draft reports will be published by me and the Minister of Finance and Personnel. Although the report will focus primarily on the scope for improving efficiency and reducing costs in the existing policy framework, I expect that it will also signal areas in which policy change could yield further savings and produce a more rational system to complement a strategically planned school system. I will want to consider those and other areas carefully, and in the context of the wider financial climate, before producing any proposals for change.

As I have said, in the interim, a savings requirement of £5 million was set for the ELBs for 2011-12, and those savings are to be achieved through greater efficiency in operating home-to-school transport within existing policy parameters. The scope for further work lies in the nature of the existing policy and how services are delivered. Members will, I hope, bear with me while I briefly account for those.

Legislation obliges education and library boards to make arrangements for the provision of transport and other provisions, subject to the approval of those arrangements by the Department. The Department and the boards must then have regard to the general principle that pupils shall be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents in so far as is compatible with the avoidance of unrealistic public expenditure. The combined effect of those obligations, which is outlined in the Department’s circular on home-to-school transport, is the provision of transport assistance for pupils who qualify for it according to two criteria: distance and suitable school. Pupils are essentially eligible for transport assistance if, within the specified distance — two miles for a primary school child and three miles for a post-primary school child — they may not attend a school of a suitable type and so must travel further to attend one.

The Department of Education recognises six types of schools: controlled, integrated, Irish-medium, maintained, grammar and non-denominational grammar. As I have said, 90,000 children are eligible for that assistance. The form of assistance they receive — and this is key — is determined by the five education and library boards, having regard to the need to avoid unreasonable public expenditure. So, if Mr Clarke, who I understand sits on an education and library board, believes that a change in services is required in his area, the first port of call is the education and library board, and that request for change of service should then be sent to the Department of Education.

Boards must consider providing transport assistance through one of the available forms of mass transport: Translink, board services or private bus operators. Translink, comprising Ulsterbus, Metro and NI Railways, has the widest network for providing transport assistance. Accordingly, 50,000 eligible pupils travel on Translink buses using a sessional ticket or bus pass. Board services have the next widest network, primarily in rural areas and carry 27,000 pupils, and private bus operators carry approximately 7,500 pupils.

Translink provides two different forms of service. First, it provides the stage carriage service, which is a public service that carries adults and pupils. Secondly, it provides designated services or school buses. Designated school buses are provided by Translink where there are a large number of eligible and non-eligible pupils in one location, such as a town. A significant proportion of the boards’ fleet of nearly 900 vehicles and most private operated taxis are used to transport pupils with special educational needs.

When we look at the review, all those elements will have to be examined. I await the vote of the Assembly on the motion and the amendment. However, if they are passed by the Assembly, that would be welcome. If we are to carry out a review of transport services, we have to look at them in their entirety. The outcome of that review will have to ensure that we live within the current budget of around £70 million. So, the services proposed at the end of the review will have to operate within that budget, and we will have to look at the categories of school that we transport children to. Are Members prepared for that challenge? Are they prepared to look at the challenge of cross-departmental uses of transport services? Mr McDevitt suggested that we have three different forms of public transport in some areas. That, in itself, presents challenges, because if we adopt one of those transport services, two will lose out. Therefore, at least two transport drivers will lose their post as a result.

So, whatever recommendations the review comes forward with, they will present a challenge to us all to provide a transport service for 90,000 people. There is no quick fix or easy solution through the review of transport services to our education system. We have to ensure that the outcome of the review looks after those who are most needy in our society and young people with special educational needs, and embraces the rights of rural dwellers. We must provide a service that is cost-effective and delivers an efficient service for our pupils, our schools and the public purse.

Karen McKevitt (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

Will the Member give way?

John O'Dowd (Sinn Féin, Upper Bann)

I have nearly finished, and I want to finish with a number of points.

We await the outcome of the vote and the recommendation of the Assembly today. I will embrace a review of the transport service. I am more than happy to report back to the Assembly on those recommendations and how we carry them forward. I suspect that several will require legislative change, which, in itself, will take time. However, difficult decisions will have to be made by individual Members. Not all of it will be up to the Minister to carry forward, although I have no difficulty in doing so. Individual Members will have to decide where the priority for school transport rests and where they want the limited budget available to the Department of Education and the Executive to be spent. I am happy to carry out my role, but I suggest that Members will be required to make decisions around the matter, too.

Steven Agnew (Green, North Down)

I thank the Minister and Members for supporting the amendment. A revised policy that reduces bus services without providing safe alternatives has the potential to be detrimental. An option that increases the cost to families and increases the risk of death on our roads is not an acceptable alternative or an acceptable way of saving money. In seeking to make savings, we cannot simply pass the cost on to families. We would be doing with one hand what we are trying to prevent with the other by tackling fuel poverty. The cost of the average school run is about £340 a year for a family using a private car as transport, and that is predicted to go up to £400 a year with rising fuel costs. I do not think that that is an acceptable alternative.

Any new policy must have active travel at its core and include targets to reduce the number of pupils travelling in cars and increase the number of those cycling and walking. The statistics are pretty damming: 52% of pupils travel to school by car. As Mr McDevitt pointed out, that is the highest percentage of any region on these islands. Only 2% cycle to school, compared with 50% in Denmark. I am not sure that we or our children are so different, but the facilities and incentives that we apply to active travel are different. We need school travel plans: 88% of schools in England have travel plans, and 650 schools in the Republic of Ireland have green school travel plans. Only nine schools in Northern Ireland have travel plans. Although it is important for the Minister to conduct a review, we need to ensure that policies get down to school and board level and that those travel plans are drawn up.

There will be health benefits. As I said earlier, obesity is a major problem. Significant numbers of our children are considered obese: some 33% of two- to 10-year-olds are considered obese, with only one out of seven children getting the required 60 minutes of exercise a day. There will also be educational benefits: a 3·4% improvement in test scores can be gained by exercising for 15 minutes earlier in the day.

I call on the Education Minister to work with his colleague the Minister for Regional Development to ensure the safe provision of pedestrian and cycle routes to schools. He can ensure that our pupils are trained in cycle safety skills and pedestrian safety; that school travel plans are based on active school travel; and that the provision of cycle sheds is compulsory, particularly in new capital builds. If he works with the Minister for Regional Development, we can ensure that those pedestrian and cycle routes are safe. Modest investment now can and will lead to long-term savings across Departments.

Jo-Anne Dobson (UUP, Upper Bann)

I thank Members for their contributions and the Minister for his response. Having called on the Department in June this year to review the guidelines on home-to-school transport, I am pleased that we are having the opportunity to debate the issue in the House today.

The provision of home-to-school transport is a vital lifeline to the thousands of students who use the service daily. It is especially important to those students with special educational needs who benefit so much from attending their schools. The Department of Education, quite rightly, has a duty to provide transportation for students to and from their schools, and there are many examples of good practice from Translink drivers and, indeed, private bus and taxi companies. However, the needs of our children have outgrown the 15-year-old legislation. Although the overall number of pupils being transported has decreased on average by 8% since the 2004-05 academic year, the average cost for the transport has increased by some 17·6% in the same timescale. Therefore, the legislation needs to be reviewed.

In my constituency of Upper Bann, I have been contacted by a number of concerned parents about SEN students travelling to and from schools in taxis that are overcrowded. That is an issue that may very well affect all our constituencies and raise serious health and safety concerns. The consequences of an accident occurring when children do not have access to a seatbelt are too horrific to contemplate. We have all seen the television adverts that graphically highlight the issue in adults, but it would be abhorrent to think that in being transported to and from their schools, our young children were being put in danger.

People who live and work in rural communities know how dangerous country roads can be. It only takes someone to be travelling too fast on a twisty road to cause an accident, and I fear for children who may not be properly protected if such an accident were to occur.

I welcome that random inspections are carried out by the boards and the Department of the Environment for Translink and private bus and taxi companies. However, I know that parents and teaching and non-teaching staff employed at schools would welcome more information as to how they can report health and safety concerns directly to the boards via school principals. That would aid the targeting of inspections, which would result in a greater degree of public accountability for the home-to-school service and, ultimately, the safer transport of our children.

As part of my winding-up speech, Mr Speaker, I will draw attention to Members’ valuable contributions. In particular, Mr Hussey made a good point about the importance of home-to-school transport in rural areas. He highlighted dangers such as the lack of proper footpaths or street lighting and, of course, the fact that the distances to and from schools in rural areas are obviously longer and more dangerous than they are in our towns. I can certainly imagine the Member crossing the main road in Omagh with a schoolbag over his shoulder. That is quite a vivid image from today. Mr Hussey also asked what price we placed on the life of a child, which is a very serious point.

Members also raised the following important points. Steven Agnew urged that money be spent wisely, and he spoke about the benefits of sustainable transport. He also urged that any review focus on cost and safety, and he urged co-operation on the issue at Executive level to improve health and the environment.

Mervyn Storey reminded the House that the Committee has discussed the issue, and, quite rightly, he described it as vital. He also highlighted the 75% increase in the cost of transporting SEN students in the Belfast Board.

My colleague David McNarry reminded us of the importance of the issue and highlighted that 110,000 students are transported via the scheme. He also said that if rural schools are closed, the Minister must be responsible for the financial consequences of his actions. Such closures may result in an increased demand for home-to-school transport.

Phil Flanagan highlighted the £75 million that the Assembly spends annually on home-to-school transport, and he pointed towards potential savings.

Conall McDevitt supported the motion. He said that half our pupils travel to school by car and that few use public transport. He welcomed the call from the Chairman of the Committee for Education to limit inefficiencies. He also said that the lack of a connection between the different transport agencies heightens public expenditure.

Trevor Lunn described how, because of the two-mile and three-mile rules, some children who live on the same street qualify for the scheme while others do not. He also said that safety should form a greater part of the consideration of that issue.

Jonathan Craig welcomed the opportunity to sort out the issue and gave many valid reasons why the issue has remained unresolved to date. He also outlined the practicalities of the rationalisation of schools. He talked about students having difficulty finding suitable places and highlighted how that will impact on the home-to-school transport scheme.

Michaela Boyle referred to school transport in Strabane, which is a contentious issue because of the withdrawal of the service. She detailed the concerns of many about the rise in the cost of home-to-school transport.

Other Members also made valuable contributions. They highlighted the issues of safety and cost and suggested that the needs of children be placed at the heart of any review.

I thank the Minister for his response and for echoing many of the views raised in the House. I welcome his assurances that he will conduct a review of home-to-school transport. I trust that, in that review, he will address the issue of half-empty buses, which came up time and again during the debate.

If one thing is to come out of the debate today, let a review of the policy identify that parents, teaching and non-teaching staff should be made more aware that a mechanism for the reporting of health and safety concerns exists. They should be made aware that they can easily use that mechanism to report clear breaches that put our children’s lives in danger. If more people are aware that such a mechanism exists, those who place children in danger may alter their practice, and the fear of losing a contract may be enough to ensure that all of our young children travel safely. To that end, I wrote to the Minister this morning to ask him to detail the number of private companies that have been reported, and, as a result of random and targeted inspections, were no longer being used by his Department.

Once again, I thank all Members who contributed to the debate. I commend the motion and the amendment to the House.

Question, That the amendment be made, put and agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That this Assembly notes the importance of an effective home-to-school transport policy; believes that the current policy is outdated; and calls on the Minister of Education to work with the Minister for Regional Development to create an holistic and sustainable school transport policy which will ensure that school transport is provided in the most cost-effective, efficient and safe manner.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

The Business Committee has arranged to meet immediately upon the lunchtime suspension. I propose, therefore, by leave of the Assembly, to suspend the sitting until 2.00 pm, when the next item of business will be Question Time.

The sitting was suspended at 12.18 pm.

On resuming (Mr Deputy Speaker [Mr Beggs] in the Chair) —

Health, Social Services and Public Safety

Danny Kinahan (UUP, South Antrim)

1. asked the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety what proportion of plastic surgery carried out in the health service is done for cosmetic reasons. (AQO 516/11-15)

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I can advise that no plastic surgery is carried out by the health service in Northern Ireland for purely cosmetic reasons. Current policy on plastic surgery is contained in the document ‘A Policy to Make Best Use of Resources in Plastic Surgery and Related Specialities’, which was developed in 2006 by the four legacy health boards. That document sets clear clinical criteria for a range of routine, non-urgent procedures. Patients who do not meet the criteria are not referred for surgery. The Department has asked the Health and Social Care Board to review that guidance in 2011-12. That will promote discussion on both the physical and psychological criteria to be used in decision-making. Clearly, hard choices will have to be made and interventions of low clinical value may not routinely be available on the health service.

Danny Kinahan (UUP, South Antrim)

I thank the Minister for his answer. He has already touched on my supplementary question in his reference to the review of the guidelines. Will the review look at whether more plastic surgery procedures that involve a hospital stay can be carried out by consultant dermatologists in day surgery?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Clearly, we want to see as many procedures as possible carried out in day surgery. Day surgery potentially has fewer problems for the patient, a lesser potential for cross-contamination or infection and is also much more cost effective. For all those reasons, it is our desire to reduce the number of overnight stays and have a greater number of day surgery procedures take place. Any efforts made on that front will help.

Michaela Boyle (Sinn Féin, West Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I thank the Minister for his responses. How many of those procedures involve gastric band surgery?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Not many of those procedures involve gastric band surgery. The present Health and Social Care (HSC) Board does not routinely commission bariatric surgery, and we are looking at that. Bariatric surgery has huge potential and is extensively used in some other areas, although it is not without problems. We have been carrying out a pilot and reviewing its results. There is evidence that, even after bariatric surgery, some people return to eating habits that lead to them becoming morbidly obese. However, other evidence indicates that it reverses diabetes, and that it is the only type of intervention that does. It certainly has pluses, but also some minuses.

Paula Bradley (DUP, Belfast North)

What actions have been taken to identify treatments that are or have become inappropriate for provision by the National Health Service?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Plastic surgery is very important. It is of huge benefit particularly to people who have had serious burns or suffered trauma incidents. We must use our resources wisely, and we have to give fairly broad consideration to a number of areas. For example, breast augmentation may have to be carried out to correct congenital conditions such as amastia or endocrine abnormalities, etc. However, they should not always be carried out on the National Health Service. Similarly, eyelid surgery may be performed to remove excess skin on the upper eyelids that results from the ageing process if it starts to interfere with vision or the function of the eyelids, but it should not necessarily be provided on the National Health Service if it is only to enhance appearance. Therefore there are areas where judgement calls have to be made. The report will help surgeons to ascertain what should and should not be done.

Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast South)

I thank the Minister for his answers. We could spend all day debating the merits or otherwise of plastic surgery. You recently mentioned restricting caesarean section procedures. How do you compare the two procedures? Is plastic surgery an option for cutting? Could optional plastic surgery procedures be reduced instead of caesarean sections?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

There is certainly plenty of cutting in plastic surgery, but, as for cutting plastic surgery, 85% of procedures are done purely on a clinical basis, and there is a question mark over whether the remaining 15% are done purely for clinical or cosmetic purposes. Surgeons could do with some clarification in those areas. Therefore, it is down to the personal choice of individuals. If they wish to pay for a cosmetic service, it is open for them to do so privately; however, it is not necessarily something that we should do on the National Health Service.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

2. asked the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety how his Department intends to deal with the pressure put on service delivery resulting from the cuts to the pharmacy budget. (AQO 517/11-15)

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

As I advised the House on 19 September, the Department recognises that it has an obligation to provide fair and reasonable remuneration for community pharmacy. In January 2010, the High Court found that the arrangements in place at that time did not meet that obligation. Thereafter, the Department and the HSC Board engaged in extensive negotiations with Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland (CPNI) in an attempt to reach agreement on community pharmacy arrangements in 2011-12. However, agreement could not be reached.

New arrangements were introduced with effect from 1 April 2011 to meet my Department’s statutory obligation to provide fair and reasonable remuneration. CPNI has brought forward a judicial review challenge to renew remuneration and reimbursement arrangements. Against that background, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on community pharmacy remuneration until the outcome of the hearing is known. However, I do not accept the assertions that are being made by CPNI, and I assure Members that I am committed, as required by law, to provide a fair and reasonable system of remuneration to community pharmacists in Northern Ireland.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

No doubt, the Minister will be aware that up to 80% of small towns and villages in England no longer have pharmacies. If the cuts continue and rural pharmacies close, what plans does he have to protect the most vulnerable people living in rural areas?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Pharmacists have a key role in delivering healthcare, particularly in our rural towns and villages. Unfortunately, however, I inherited a legacy arrangement that was subsequently challenged through judicial review. Therefore, I have not been able to involve myself in arriving at an arrangement that will help us to ensure that we have pharmacies in rural areas and in many deprived areas in our cities. We have a pharmacy system that does not lead to the extensive costs that we currently have, because costs have been going up year on year and have got to the point where they are unsustainable. Therefore we need to challenge the cost structure in our pharmacies.

Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Féin, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Is the Minister aware that at least one pharmacy in Rasharkin has closed and that another in Dunloy is on the verge of closure? Pharmacies from Belcoo right across the North are ready to close their doors thereby doing away with a valuable community service, not only in rural areas — although I take the point that the questioner raised — but in areas of social deprivation as well. Does the Minister accept that you cannot impose an English model on the Six Counties because it will not work? It will be a disaster not only for our communities but for businesses that are struggling to keep their doors open in a very harsh funding environment?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I recognise that Northern Ireland is not London. In the English model, the prescribing cost is £169·13 per head of population. In Northern Ireland, it is £244·67. Wales and Scotland, which are not dissimilar to Northern Ireland in that they have some large urban areas as well as being strongly rural, have costs of £192 and £195 respectively. Therefore, as far as pharmacy is concerned, one can see that we are not getting good value for money in Northern Ireland as things stand. We need to do better. Whether the current arrangements are the correct ones is being tested in court. Therefore, I cannot comment on them. However, I can say, clearly and unequivocally, that, irrespective of the court’s findings, I am happy to engage with pharmacists as soon as the court case is over to arrive at a position that delivers a good quality service for the people of Northern Ireland and provides sustainable pharmacies for the future.

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

My question is further to that precise point. People understand the legal situation and the position in which it puts the Minister until it is resolved. Will he give an undertaking that as soon as the situation is resolved, there will be intensive discussions in order to try to take matters forward so that community pharmacies and the people whom they serve will best benefit from the outcome?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I give that undertaking, and would have done so prior to the court case had Community Pharmacy NI been prepared to drop the judicial review and allow negotiations to take place in good faith. I do not think that pharmacists are being well represented by going through with that particular court case. There was preparedness on my part and on that of the Department to engage in reasonable negotiations to arrive at a reasonable outcome. It has been particularly punitive on smaller pharmacists and those that operate in more rural areas and are almost wholly dependent on prescription fees. Unfortunately, I believe that some of the larger pharmacies have driven that particular court case. It is not to the good of the population of Northern Ireland nor, indeed, to small pharmacies.

Robin Newton (DUP, Belfast East)

3. asked the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety what action is being taken to harness the potential of the health sector to contribute to growing the economy. (AQO 518/11-15)

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I believe that there is considerable potential for the health sector to contribute to economic growth. I have given priority to disease prevention and having a strong public health agenda, which should lead to a healthier and more productive workforce. There is scope for research and development in the health and life sciences sectors to have benefits both for patient outcomes and attracting inward investment and assisting development of local business. My Department is working with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) on the application of e-health technologies here, including using technology to provide healthcare remotely.

The health and social care sector is also involved, along with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the RAFAEL project, centred in the north-west, to encourage and support local food producers and processors to compete for business in the public sector, specifically in hospitals and schools. As an employer, both directly and through significant capital investment, the health service is a major contributor to the local economy.

Robin Newton (DUP, Belfast East)

I thank the Minister for his question. It is good to know that the health service is moving in a direction in which it can make a contribution to the economy. Does the Minister believe that there is further potential to expand the type of relationship that he has described both with DETI and Invest Northern Ireland?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I have been working closely with Minister Foster on a range of those issues. It is our intention to develop a memorandum of understanding between my Department and DETI’s Invest NI to take forward a health-and-wealth agenda. It is my intention to move things forward considerably next week, as we visit Boston, and we are working closely with Invest NI to develop that particular agenda. Northern Ireland is very well placed to bring jobs to the area through the life sciences sector. The greater the degree of co-operation that takes place between the two Departments and Invest Northern Ireland, the greater the potential to bring significant job benefits to Northern Ireland as a result.

Michael Copeland (UUP, Belfast East)

Will the Minister detail the amount of money received from the Government of the Irish Republic last year in return for our National Health Service’s treating its citizens?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

It is very simple, even though the question is slightly off the subject: we get full reimbursement for whatever treatments are carried out. I see the new hospital in Fermanagh and indeed the facilities at Altnagelvin and Daisy Hill as creating opportunities to provide healthcare to people from the Republic of Ireland, to be paid for by the Republic of Ireland, and to assist us in sustaining and enhancing services in Northern Ireland.

I regard that as a win-win situation. I do not see any underlying political connotations that are bad for the people of Northern Ireland. I see significant benefits of the new facilities, such as the hospital being erected in the south-west of the Province, as they will provide a greater level of service for all the people in the area.

Phil Flanagan (Sinn Féin, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I would like to tease out further information on the RAFAEL project. Given that a number of reports indicate that older people who go into hospital are more likely to be malnourished than other patients, and that the RAFAEL project has assisted greatly in that regard, does the Minister have any plans to expand the project from the north-west to right across the Six Counties?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

We must have a starting point. At the outset, we look at the success of what has happened, and we then make judgements on how to expand. We will deal with that in due course, once we have a better understanding of the project’s success or otherwise.

Kieran McCarthy (Alliance, Strangford)

4. asked the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety what measures his Department will be taking forward to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues. (AQO 519/11-15)

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

A new public information campaign Under the Surface was launched on 6 October. That campaign aims to de-stigmatise mental illness and raise awareness of the early warning signs and symptoms. In addition, the Public Health Agency will continue to deliver training programmes and community-focused mental health awareness programmes that aim to increase the understanding of mental illness. The reduction of the stigma associated with mental illness will be a priority in the new mental health and well-being promotion strategy being developed. An improved understanding of mental health issues will encourage people to seek help before problems escalate.

Kieran McCarthy (Alliance, Strangford)

I thank the Minister for his response. Does he agree that, unless the Department and wider society address the stigma fully, people with mental health conditions cannot have proper equality of access to the full range of services and opportunities in line with the Bamford review and, moreover, that, as a consequence, our economy will suffer through absences from work and the loss of productivity?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

At any one time, one in six adults in the UK has a mental health condition. Therefore, if stigmatisation is happening, we are stigmatising an awful lot of the population. The Department wishes to challenge the stigmatisation of mental health. We wish to give the lead on that issue, and that is what we are doing.

Evidence suggests that Northern Ireland’s levels of psychiatric morbidity are up to 25% higher than those in the rest of the UK and that poor mental health affects almost 300,000 people in Northern Ireland. We cannot ignore poor mental health. We cannot write people off as a consequence of mental health issues. Early intervention and prevention can bring major benefits to the individuals concerned and to Northern Ireland and its economy.

Gordon Dunne (DUP, North Down)

What does the Minister hope will be the impact of the mental health services framework?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

The mental health services framework, which we launched on Monday, can have significant benefits. It can identify treatment paths and assist us in engaging in early interventions. It also gives strong guidance to people who provide mental health services on how they should respond.

At that event, I listened to a carer and to someone who had been in the mental health system, and I found their views on how mental health problems have been treated in the past very challenging and certainly not satisfactory.

Mickey Brady (Sinn Féin, Newry and Armagh)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Does the Minister recognise the excellent work carried out by Home-Start in supporting families and children, thus helping to prevent mental illness?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Yes, I do. I believe that Home-Start has a very useful purpose and I would like it to be able to continue to provide that service. I think that the next question is about funding. That money was dealt with specifically under the children’s fund, and my Department did not have that money to continue with. It is somewhat unfortunate that, last year, the funding was discontinued for that project. I was not in a position this year to reinstate that, given the financial circumstances we are in.

John McCallister (UUP, South Down)

The Minister will probably be aware that yesterday was world mental health day. My colleague Mr McCrea and his colleague junior Minister Bell marked that event by riding bicycles around Belfast in the soaking rain. Does the Minister agree that such events play an important role in reducing stigma and raising the profile of this important issue?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Yes; I think events such as Mr McCrea and Mr Bell riding bicycles in the rain are of significant benefit to the rest of us. [Laughter.]

Nonetheless, I will not treat this issue glibly. It is important to highlight concerns about the stigmatisation of mental health. It is important for others to step up to the mark and say that it is wrong to stigmatise it, that there is help out there and that we all have some role. It will affect virtually everyone’s families at one stage or another. Many young women have postnatal depression and so forth. One in four of our over-65s has depression. There are so many cases that will affect nearly every family in Northern Ireland. It is important that we all assist in de-stigmatising mental health issues and depression, and that we work with the authorities and trusts to ensure that the right service provision is there to provide the right quality of care for those individuals.

Trevor Clarke (DUP, South Antrim)

5. asked the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety what plans he has to improve access to newly developed cancer drugs. (AQO 520/11-15)

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

The development of new technologies in medicines is continually advancing and bringing new ways of treating cancer. I want to improve access to such interventions when there is robust evidence to support their introduction here.

I recently approved a new process that will reduce the time it takes to endorse National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance for use in Northern Ireland. Although approximately £22 million is recurrently spent on cancer medicines here, there are, nonetheless, significant costs associated with the introduction of new medicines and treatments. Clearly, some hard choices will have to be made as we cannot fund all new interventions, but I am currently exploring options to increase the resources available to fund access to specialist medicines and interventions, including those for cancer.

Trevor Clarke (DUP, South Antrim)

I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he give the House an assurance that, where possible, the money will be found so that those drugs can be made available to those who are suffering from cancer? That may be the only hope they have. Will he update the House on progress on the cancer services framework?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

NICE has approved a range of drugs to treat cancer that are currently not available in Northern Ireland. Particularly when we are talking about people who have cancer, which is an illness that can lead to their early death, and when we are talking about other drugs that can help people to absolutely transform their lives, we have a responsibility. We have a mechanism that tests those costs against the outcomes. When that has been tested, as it has by NICE, we have a responsibility to respond.

Unfortunately, that is not currently the case in Northern Ireland. It is an issue that I wish to address positively. I want to deliver on that and ensure that people in Northern Ireland who have cancer are not left in a worse situation than those in other parts of the United Kingdom. Those with cancer in Northern Ireland must not be second-class citizens.

Sandra Overend (UUP, Mid Ulster)

Will the Minister consider the creation of a special cancer drugs fund in his budget to fast-track treatments outside the normal NICE regulatory process?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

There is such a fund in England. However, I think that we need to play catch-up in the first instance and deliver on the NICE drugs. It will get to the point where we will have some challenging decisions to make. There are big questions for the House: do we not fund those drugs because of the current financial restraints, or do we find a way of funding them? Do we introduce fresh income into the Department, or do we strip income from something else? Those are the testing questions in front of me. I feel morally obliged to provide those drugs, and I want to resolve that issue.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

I acknowledge the Minister’s very sympathetic and thoughtful approach to this matter. Bone marrow donations relate to the treatment of cancer. Has the Minister any measures or support mechanisms in place to increase such donations?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Bone marrow donations can certainly be of significant benefit and are carried out regularly to assist people who have cancer. We are constantly trying to raise the general public’s awareness of how they can become involved and seeking to get more people to donate bone marrow. It has been demonstrated in quite a number of, though not all, cases that donated bone marrow can be of considerable benefit to people suffering from cancer. It can help in the recovery process and in beating cancer, and I want to use every element of the armoury that exists to that end.

Peter Weir (DUP, North Down)

6. asked the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety what action he has taken to address the issue of suicide. (AQO 521/11-15)

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I am very concerned that the local suicide rate continues to rise despite the strenuous suicide prevention efforts made over the past five years. Actions that I have taken include the ring-fencing of £6·7 million of funding for 2011-12; consultation with community and voluntary support groups; the launch of a new public information campaign on mental health and suicide prevention, Under the Surface; meeting other Ministers and suicide prevention experts from the USA to consider new and innovative ideas; and ongoing discussions with the health and social care sector to progress actions such as places of safety. The learning from those actions will be reflected in the forthcoming updated Protect Life strategy.

Peter Weir (DUP, North Down)

I thank the Minister for his response. Will he indicate how the community and voluntary sector can help to stem the tide of suicide in Northern Ireland?

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

The community and voluntary sector plays a key role. It has a tremendous amount of goodwill. Indeed, in the Colin area, the community and voluntary sector was instrumental in positively challenging the number of deaths from suicide. I would like to look at how we can extend similar activities to other areas and provide more training for people in the voluntary sector so that they can assist us in providing counselling services for those with suicidal tendencies. I would like to do that in conjunction with developing safe places in hospitals, close to hospitals or in facilities that people with suicidal tendencies can easily access.

Justice

Roy Beggs (UUP, East Antrim)

I advise Members that question 1 has been withdrawn.

Peter Weir (DUP, North Down)

2. asked the Minister of Justice what new initiatives his Department intends to introduce to combat antisocial behaviour. (AQO 532/11-15)

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

Tackling antisocial behaviour is a key priority for my Department. A graduated response of prevention, intervention and enforcement has contributed to a 20% reduction in antisocial behaviour since 2008. I am determined to build on that success and support communities to address the issues that matter locally. At a regional level, the response has included initiatives such as CCTV, community safety wardens, neighbourhood watch schemes, inter-generational projects and youth diversion programmes. Community safety partnerships across Northern Ireland have, in consultation with local communities, identified specific types of antisocial behaviour that are of concern to their local areas, and they have delivered initiatives to help address those concerns.

Members will know that earlier this year I consulted on a new community safety strategy and met groups across Northern Ireland to listen to views on our approach to addressing antisocial behaviour and on how we can best support local communities. The responses to the consultation broadly supported that graduated approach, focusing on early intervention and prevention, recognising the need for effective enforcement where required. The consultation also highlighted the role of the voluntary and community sectors, in partnership with statutory agencies, in addressing antisocial behaviour. My officials are in discussions with key stakeholders to develop the final community safety strategy, taking account of the views raised during the consultation process. I aim to publish a new community safety strategy by the end of this year.

Peter Weir (DUP, North Down)

I thank the Minister for his response. Given the widespread public concern about antisocial behaviour, will he give an assurance that, when he implements any youth justice strategy, combating antisocial behaviour will be the cornerstone of any actions that are taken in that field?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I can assure the Member that the issue is being taken seriously. The youth justice strategy is not particularly concentrating on antisocial behaviour, because that is covered predominantly by the community safety strategy. However, we should also recognise the successes that have been achieved against the target of a 15% reduction over three years. We have actually seen a 20% reduction, which is clearly a sign that the different agencies and the non-governmental organisations concerned are working together well.

Jennifer McCann (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I thank the Minister for his answer. In considering any future community safety strategy, will he recognise, first, the importance of people who are directly affected by antisocial activity and are victims of it, and, secondly, the input that the wider community can have in formulating any such strategy? How does his Department see that process happening?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I agree with Ms McCann about the vital necessity — not just the importance — of ensuring the widest possible involvement in developing the strategy. That is why the Department arranged a significant number of public events across Northern Ireland, several of which I attended. There were many meetings with specific groups representing particular interests, and that is why we have had a detailed and full response to the consultation exercise in general, which, I believe, will mean that the views of every part of the community are fully taken on board.

Sandra Overend (UUP, Mid Ulster)

I thank the Minister for his answers. Will he explain what he proposes to do, or is doing, to encourage people in the community to come forward with information to the PSNI that would help build a case against those who carry out antisocial behaviour?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

It is incumbent not just on me but on every Member of the Assembly, and anyone else with influence, to ensure that we encourage people with any information about crimes or antisocial behaviour to come forward to assist the police and to ensure that the perpetrators are dealt with appropriately.

Alasdair McDonnell (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast South)

I thank the Minister for his answers. He has touched on the consultation with local communities, but will any new initiatives to curb antisocial behaviour be presented to the local police, district policing partnerships or community safety partnerships (CSPs) before they are introduced in local areas?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

That is part of the key direction of the Department. The issue, frankly, is that the Department is open to assisting, whether through CSPs or the new partnerships, in whatever can be done that is seen potentially to deliver locally. It is also open to assisting in good practice being taken from one district to another. However, it is not about the Department directing things from the top down but about encouraging local people to find local solutions and assisting them in doing so.

William Humphrey (DUP, Belfast North)

3. asked the Minister of Justice how many illegal republican parades have been held over the past three years and how many people have been convicted as a result. (AQO 533/11-15)

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

The Police Service has advised that figures on illegal parades are available only from July 2009. Records show that, since then, there have been nine illegal republican parades. The Public Prosecution Service has advised that 25 individuals have been charged. No one has yet been convicted in relation to those parades, as the cases have yet to come to court. Decisions on prosecutions are pending in a further 23 cases.

William Humphrey (DUP, Belfast North)

I thank the Minister for his reply. Does he agree with me that the Parades Commission in Northern Ireland is now discredited and that it is part of the problem, not the solution, and, quite frankly, should be abolished?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

No, I do not agree with the Member. The management of the Parades Commission is a matter for the Northern Ireland Office, or indeed, the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, of course, if it were to come forward with agreed alternative proposals.

Raymond McCartney (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Gabham buíochas leis an Aire as a fhreagra. I thank the Minister for his answer. Will he give us the statistics on the number of people who have been arrested and charged for recent rioting in north Antrim, east Belfast and north Belfast?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

The answer at this stage is that I do not have the figures available. However, I will write to the Member about them.

Karen McKevitt (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

Does the Minister agree that the Parades Commission offers the most effective and fair way of dealing with contentious parades?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I will duck the opportunity to repeat what I just said to Mr Humphrey. The issue of parading is clearly one of significant contention. The responsibility at the moment for the Parades Commission lies with the Northern Ireland Office. That is the only arrangement that is currently in place. Whether it is the best or the only method is not the issue; the issue is the institution that is currently in operation. Certainly, the institutions of the Department of Justice are committed to working with the Parades Commission to ensure that parading proceeds as well as can be arranged.

Leslie Cree (UUP, North Down)

I thank the Minister for his answer. Will he explain whether there is a repetitive pattern in the parades in question? Is he satisfied that the penalties are adequate to deal with the problem?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

It is a little bit difficult to say whether the penalties are adequate, given that, although 25 people have been charged, which I just said, none of those cases has come to court. However, the issue of penalties is one that has to be carried through by the courts. It will be for the Assembly to decide whether it wishes to increase penalties on the basis of experience.

Ross Hussey (UUP, West Tyrone)

4. asked the Minister of Justice what action he is taking to deal with the growing prevalence of human trafficking. (AQO 534/11-15)

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

As Minister of Justice and chair of the Organised Crime Task Force (OCTF) stakeholder group, I am committed to seeing that all reasonable measures are taken to tackle that appalling crime and ensure that the victims have the support that they need. The PSNI and other partners in OCTF have undertaken a number of co-ordinated intelligence-led operations. Those will continue, as will the ongoing cross-border co-operation between the PSNI and an Garda Síochána. Our approach is twofold: first, to rescue the victims of human trafficking and support them in a safe environment; and secondly, to put the traffickers before the courts.

Ross Hussey (UUP, West Tyrone)

I thank the Minister for his response. I presume that you are referring to the police Operation Pentameter 1 and Operation Pentameter 2. Will the Minister outline what steps he is taking to ensure that the scale of the problem of human trafficking is properly investigated and known?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I am not sure that I can do much other than take the statistics as they emerge from the police and the other agencies that are concerned with dealing with that dreadful crime. It is certainly an issue for the Department that we are seeking to reduce rather than merely assess. We have run the Blue Blindfold campaign twice, for example, to emphasise the significance of human exploitation, and we are doing all that we can to remind people that those who are currently making use of prostitution are, in many cases, supporting the exploitation of people who have been trafficked. That is why we are encouraging and assisting the relevant agencies in all the work that they do. We have seen significant successes in the past couple of years, but there is clearly still an ongoing problem both within Northern Ireland and to or from other regions of these islands.

Steven Agnew (Green, North Down)

I thank the Minister for permitting two of his officials to attend the meeting of the all-party group on ethnic minority communities today. That meeting addressed the issue of human trafficking.

Given that sex workers are often the victims of human trafficking, what work is he doing to ensure that the policy focus is on enforcement towards those who avail themselves of the services and create the demand for sex workers, rather than the sex workers themselves?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

Mr Agnew raises an extremely serious position. Like so much else in organised crime, trafficking and exploitation of individuals would not happen if there were not a demand created for them. The Department is working on a policy on prostitution and, this week, hosted a seminar on the issue. I hope that, later this year, we will publish specific conclusions and proposals on addressing the range of issues. Mr Agnew’s point on the victimisation of those who work in prostitution will be taken on board.

Ian McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

Given the international dimension to human trafficking, have international links with other police forces been established? Will the Minister again confirm that his Department is addressing the issue with the priority that it deserves?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

As for prioritisation, I can confirm only that, when I chair the regular meetings of the OCTF stakeholder group, the issue of human exploitation features at every meeting. The OCTF brings together a range of organisations, including the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the UK Border Agency and the Police Service, and subgroups work on a cross-border basis. From recent court cases, there is clear evidence of co-operation between the PSNI and police forces across the UK and the Garda Síochána. I am not sure whether Mr McCrea was asking specifically about structures. The practical working relationships are at an extremely high level.

Anna Lo (Alliance, Belfast South)

I was in the same meeting as Steven, who mentioned the presentation from a number of Department of Justice officials and the police, who told us about the many initiatives.

Roy Beggs (UUP, East Antrim)

May we have a question, please?

Anna Lo (Alliance, Belfast South)

Yes, I am coming to that. I understand from the presentation that the British Government are in the process of ratifying the EU directive on human trafficking.

Roy Beggs (UUP, East Antrim)

Will the Member ask the question, please?

Anna Lo (Alliance, Belfast South)

Does the Minister anticipate that any legislation or policies will come out of Northern Ireland to comply with the new directive?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

As I understand it, the initial position of the UK Government was that they would not ratify the EU directive. That position has now been reversed by the Home Office. My officials have been in discussion with the Home Office, and, undoubtedly, we will implement whatever is required. At this stage, I am not sure whether that will involve legislative change or merely administrative change, but I make a commitment that the Department of Justice will do all that is needed to ensure that we remain at the top of the European league in dealing with this dreadful problem.

Oliver McMullan (Sinn Féin, East Antrim)

5. asked the Minister of Justice to detail the overall amount in salary, expenses, and other financial contributions that his Department expects to pay to the Police Ombudsman between 1 September 2011 and 1 June 2012, including the amount for any special severance arrangement. (AQO 535/11-15)

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

The overall amount in salary, expenses and other financial contributions that my Department expects to pay to the Police Ombudsman between 1 September 2011 and 1 June 2012 is £133,000. That is made up as follows: gross pay of £96,000; pension of £24,000; housing allowance of £9,000; and £4,000 in flights. There has been no discussion of any severance arrangements following Al Hutchinson’s decision to leave office on 1 June 2012.

Oliver McMullan (Sinn Féin, East Antrim)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I thank the Minister for his answer. When he met the Police Ombudsman to discuss his departure from office, did the Minister question whether it was in the interests of the public purse to pay a single penny more to Mr Hutchinson for the sensational failure that defined his time in office?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

Mr Hutchinson has given a date on which he proposes to leave. He has indicated his willingness to leave early if arrangements are made to put in place a replacement, and he will carry out the duties of ombudsman until that time. Therefore, he is entitled to the salary and expenses until that date, but no question has arisen of any specific severance payments beyond that.

Jimmy Spratt (DUP, Belfast South)

Can the Minister confirm that Mr Hutchinson will be treated in an equitable way and in the manner that any other public servant would expect to be treated, that the Police Ombudsman has served the Province well up to this point and that we therefore wish him well for the future?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I can confirm that Mr Hutchinson will continue to receive his salary and expenses, which were agreed on his appointment, before I came to office. That will apply until the date on which he ceases his duties, which, at this stage, is projected to be 1 June 2012. I believe that the Department of Justice’s obligation is to ensure that Mr Hutchinson is appropriately remunerated, in accordance with that previous agreement, for as long as he continues to exercise the functions of ombudsman.

Joe Byrne (Social Democratic and Labour Party, West Tyrone)

Does the Minister accept that the Police Ombudsman’s office is a very important public office and must enjoy widespread public support? Given the uncertainty over Mr Hutchinson’s recent statements and inquiries, would it be sensible to encourage him to move a bit earlier in order to restore morale and confidence in the office?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I must say that it seems that we are stretching the question a little bit beyond its initial point. The simple reality is that there is no alternative in Northern Ireland to the ombudsman functioning under the corporation sole model, so Al Hutchinson must remain in office, continuing to do the job for which he was appointed, while arrangements are made to appoint a replacement ombudsman. That responsibility lies with the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister (OFMDFM). The Department of Justice has offered any assistance that might be requested by OFMDFM to carry out those duties, and we will do what we can to assist.

In the meantime, there is ongoing work in the office. The ombudsman is committed to carrying out the day-to-day work as well as working on the necessary reforms for his successor. On that basis, he will continue in office until a replacement is appointed, which might be before 1 June, subject to OFMDFM.

John McCallister (UUP, South Down)

Given that the Criminal Justice Inspection report recommended that the Police Ombudsman’s office should not carry out investigations into historical cases, will the Minister indicate what he has done so for to advance the process of looking into historical investigations?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I appreciate the question. However, I need to be very careful, because we are coming perilously close to the point where I am being asked to intervene in the operational responsibilities of the office. The Department can, however, quite legitimately give support on governance issues.

I met the ombudsman and his two senior staff members this morning. We discussed some of the arrangements that are being put in place for the reform and restructuring of the office as well as the governance issues in which the Department has a role. However, it would have been completely improper for me to go into the detail of how the operational work of the office is being carried through.

Conor Murphy (Sinn Féin, Newry and Armagh)

6. asked the Minister of Justice when the Office of the Police Ombudsman agreed, and began to implement, a memorandum of understanding with the Serious Organised Crime Agency. (AQO 536/11-15)

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

On 3 March 2010, the Police Ombudsman signed an agreement between his office and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) for the investigation of complaints against SOCA staff operating in Northern Ireland. The Office of the Police Ombudsman has advised that the agreement was implemented from the date of signing and that the ombudsman has not received any complaints for investigation under that agreement.

Conor Murphy (Sinn Féin, Newry and Armagh)

I thank the Minister for his answer. The Minister will be aware that the Serious Organised Crime Agency has been engaged in very public and publicity-orientated action since its inception in April 2008. Does he, therefore, feel that coming to some arrangement with it almost two years later — just one month short, in fact — is a further serious indictment of the Police Ombudsman’s office under the directorship of Al Hutchinson?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

Given the fact that I became Minister in April 2010, I am not sure that I am in a position to give any interpretation of what happened and of what role the Northern Ireland Office, the ombudsman or SOCA had in reaching that concordat prior to my appointment.

Mark Durkan (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Foyle)

Can the Minister please outline in detail the terms of the memorandum of understanding?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

No, I cannot outline that at this stage, but I will certainly write to the Member with what detail we have.

Danny Kinahan (UUP, South Antrim)

I thank the Minister for his answers. Will he give his assessment of the success of criminal assets recovery, especially considering its immediacy in Northern Ireland following the merger of the Assets Recovery Agency and the Serious Organised Crime Agency?

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

We really seem to be getting to the point where we are stretching supplementary questions beyond any bounds of connection to the original question. I can give an assessment only of what I have seen in my connections with SOCA and its role in the Organised Crime Task Force stakeholder group since I became Minister almost 18 months ago. It seems to me that we have an effectively functioning organisation, working in partnership with the other agencies, including on a cross-border basis. As for the comparison with its predecessor agency, I am not in a position to make any statement.

Basil McCrea (UUP, Lagan Valley)

7. asked the Minister of Justice for his assessment of the call to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old. (AQO 537/11-15)

Patsy McGlone (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Mid Ulster)

14. asked the Minister of Justice if he will act immediately on recommendation 29 of the criminal justice review of the youth justice system and raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. (AQO 544/11-15)

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will answer questions 7 and 14 together. I spent some time covering proposals on the age of criminal responsibility during the questions that followed my statement on the youth justice review report. I appreciate that it is a subject on which people have strongly held and often opposing views. However, the review team was required to consider the subject, given the inclusion of the requirement in the Hillsborough Castle Agreement’s reference to a youth justice review:

“to ensure compliance with international obligations and best practice.”

The review team sought to take a careful and balanced approach to reflect the views it received and how Northern Ireland sits in relation to international norms and standards. I am not proposing at this stage to make an assessment of the merits of the review team’s recommendations. With the report now out for consultation, I welcome the opportunity that it provides to promote an informed public debate on this important matter.

Rather than acting immediately, the proper process is to put the issues out for public consultation and to make decisions once the results of the formal consultation exercise have been fully analysed. I also remind the House that it is only one of 31 recommendations in that important report and I invite Members to afford equal consideration to the other recommendations and to play a full part in the consultation process.

I am committed to listening carefully to the debate generated by the report and to draw on its conclusions in shaping decisions on the direction of youth justice to provide a modern, effective youth justice system that meets the needs of our children and young people and of the wider community.

Basil McCrea (UUP, Lagan Valley)

Minister, I wonder whether you might do more than just listen. There is a requirement for you to explain why the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is legally binding, but it is not proposed —

Roy Beggs (UUP, East Antrim)

Can we have a question, please?