Results 1-20 of 2,304 for speaker:Sammy Wilson

Northern Ireland Assembly: Private Members’ Business: Northern Ireland Block Grant (17 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: We have to be realistic about the circumstances that we face. The Assembly must ensure that it makes the best use of money by spending it responsibly.

Northern Ireland Assembly: Private Members’ Business: Northern Ireland Block Grant (17 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: The debate has been useful and has, for the most part, been injected with an air of realism about the economic situation in which we find ourselves. I want to make it very clear that my remarks are not to be interpreted as those of someone who wants to behave like a fiscal King Canute who will deny where the tide of public finance is coming from and going to. We know about the difficult...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Private Members’ Business: Northern Ireland Block Grant (17 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: That is right: none other than Comrade McGimpsey. Before the party that proposed the amendment talks about chest beating, rhetoric and the need to address these issues seriously, it should perhaps put that message across to one of its most senior members, who will have to make some difficult decisions in the Executive. Ultimately, a budget review committee or the Committee for Finance and...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Private Members’ Business: Northern Ireland Block Grant (17 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. What have you, as Deputy Speaker, done to the honourable Member to invite him to ask you how safe your seat is? I thought that you had been sitting fairly quietly and not in any way trying to provoke him. Perhaps you will inform the Member of the proper way to address the House, so that, subsequently, he might be more accurate in what he is saying as well.

Written Answers — Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: Departmental Marketing (11 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much his Department has spent on advertising and publicity in each of the last five years.

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Public Sector Jobs (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: First, relocation, whether outside or inside Belfast, will still carry costs. I must say to the Member that I really do not accept that people cannot travel from west Belfast into the city centre, which is a journey of a couple of miles, by good public transport, by bicycle or on foot. I cannot accept that it is necessary to relocate offices to the end of someone’s street. Surely to...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Regional Economic Strategy (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: I know that Mr O’Loan has difficulty with his eyes, and perhaps Mr McNarry has difficulty with his ears, because I do not know at what stage I admitted to there being a black hole. Nevertheless, if the Hansard report turns that up, I will be more than happy to concede the point. [Interruption.]

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Regional Economic Strategy (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: However, I do not think that I made any such admission today. With regard to the economic strategy responding to different economic circumstances, I have made it clear already that it must do that, and the actions of the Executive show that we are already doing that. For example, in its report this week the construction industry indicated that, since 2007, there has been an increase of 80% in...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Regional Economic Strategy (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: I know that the Member has a difficult task ahead of him in his bid for the leadership of his party. I hope that he has not put his foot in it. The last part of his question represents a rather off-message response. I understood that as far as the SDLP was concerned, the number of Ministries was almost sacrosanct and that to reduce that number would be a betrayal of the Belfast Agreement....

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Quangos (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: In the 2008-09 financial year, the gross expenditure of public bodies in Northern Ireland was in the region of £9·7 billion. That includes the costs of some significant providers of public services, such as Northern Ireland Water, Translink, health and social services boards and education and library boards. Members can see the details of those bodies in the annual report that DFP...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Quangos (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: First, I should make it clear that I wish that it had been only £9·7 million — we spent £9·7 billion. The mechanisms for reviewing public bodies are, of course, the responsibility of each Minister and their Departments. In the past year, there has been a reduction of eight of those bodies — seven by the Minister of Health in the reorganisation of the Health...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Quangos (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: First, there is not necessarily a connection between reducing the number of quangos and reducing spending power. I will take health as an example, given that I mentioned it to the Member earlier. In that case, the question was whether we should redirect spending from one function to another and whether there was a need for a public body, with all its administrative attachments, if that money...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Quangos (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: Again, it should be the role of Ministers — and when I was in the Department of the Environment I regarded it as my role as Minister there — to look at the bodies that are under their control and ask whether they are effective, whether they could be amalgamated and whether they are still serving a useful purpose. Ministers say all the time at Executive meetings that certain...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Public Sector Jobs (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: The question of whether to pursue the recommendations of the independent report on the relocation or location of public sector jobs is a matter for the Executive. I wrote to Executive colleagues at the end of September to say that I am keen for an early discussion. However, we are all aware of the funding pressures that the Northern Ireland block faces, and spending on the relocation of...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Public Sector Jobs (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: I suspected that that might be the tenor of the Member’s question. It is frightening to think of the number of new public bodies that are being created in Northern Ireland. Before the Member starts to talk about relocating jobs outside Belfast, perhaps his party and others should ask themselves the same question: where does the example start? Before I came to the Chamber, I asked...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Social Housing: Credit Unions (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: I am glad that at least you recognised that I was in the House, Mr Speaker. I know a good optician that Mr O’Loan can use so that he can see me in future. I do not think that I have been called the invisible Minister before; this is a first. Housing policy is an issue for the Minister for Social Development, and I would expect her to raise any proposal for the funding of social housing...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Social Housing: Credit Unions (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: As I have already mentioned, this really is a matter for the Minister for Social Development. Housing associations can seek funding from whatever sources they wish; currently, approximately 67% of housing association funding for social housing comes from private sources. If the housing associations want to follow up on the possibility of funding from the credit unions, or any other financial...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Social Housing: Credit Unions (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: I understand the importance of investment in social housing, particularly as private sector house building has taken a knock, and that has impacted on the construction industry. The social housing sector is important. However, any review of the finance or structure of social housing is ultimately the respons­ibility of the Minister for Social Development, and she should be the first port...

Northern Ireland Assembly: Finance and Personnel: Social Housing: Credit Unions (10 Nov 2009)

Sammy Wilson: I thank the Member for his question. I hope that I am not treading on the Minister for Social Development’s toes, but I have already met a number of people who are interested in bringing private finance to the social housing sector. The sources of that funding range from the construction industry to pension funds, and I have looked at how that finance might be innovatively used. I know...