Budget (No.2) Bill 2015: Second Stage

Part of Executive Committee Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 5:45 pm on 22 June 2015.

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Photo of Pat Ramsey Pat Ramsey Social Democratic and Labour Party 5:45, 22 June 2015

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Second Stage of the Budget Bill. I want to comment mainly as a member of the Committee for Employment and Learning and to reflect on some of the issues that affect it. I also want to comment on some matters that are relevant to my constituency, particularly economic issues.

I want to make it very clear that the SDLP will not force a Division on the Budget Bill today. We will evaluate and scrutinise the Bill, like other parties, and we hope that the difficulties on a number of the issues can be smoothed over, particularly those that pertain to welfare reform, and that reconciliation can be found. There is absolutely no doubt that the introduction of welfare reform in Northern Ireland will have a hugely detrimental effect on communities that are already struggling.

The SDLP has been extremely concerned about the impact that is already being felt as a result of budget cuts to the Department for Employment and Learning and the further impact that this Budget may have in 2015-16. Judith Cochrane, who has come back to the Chamber, made a valid point about the number of student places that we will not now be able to offer and the effect that that will have on the widening participation strategy, which has been a tremendous success over recent years, enabling people from less-well-off socio-economic areas to participate in third-level education. We are going to lose that, and the young people who may not get the required grades will be subject to selection criteria and they will fall out of the system and perhaps out of education altogether. Investment in third-level education is much higher in the other devolved regions. Investment per student in England, Wales and Scotland is much greater than it is here.

The Bill makes significant reductions in allocations to funding streams, such as education maintenance allowance (EMA) and student support, and to funding for universities and colleges. All the colleges throughout Northern Ireland play a huge role in better preparing young people who do not make it to third-level education for industry, for the job market and for job opportunities that they would not otherwise have.

The extent of the cuts have already been outlined to the Committee for Employment and Learning by the Minister and the Department. A £30·1 million pressure on the Department's budget will be managed by a reduction to universities of almost £16 million and £12 million reduction to colleges. There will be further departmental efficiencies of over £4 million. The Minister is not here, but I am starting to feel sorry for him. I have sympathy for him in trying to provide an opportunity for our young people. He makes a fairly good job of trying to do that in difficult circumstances.

The practical implications of the cuts do not bode well for students or our young people in general. Take the proposed funding slash to Pathways EMA, for example: that allowance is paid to almost 1,700 young people who are not in employment, education or training. We still have over 40,000 people in that awful NEETs category; they are nowhere at present. Those young people, and the organisations that support them, have been thrown into uncertainty through no fault of their own.

I want now to concentrate on making this region work more economically. We must ensure that we have the skilled workforce to match any job opportunities that the Executive and Assembly manage to create. The reality is that, if we cut the number of places available to young people for further study, many will not be able to study here, even if they want to, and, reluctantly, they will leave. Any reduction in places is simply strategically inconsistent with attempts to support our young people to stay here, work here and contribute to the wealth of ideas and employment opportunities available here.

Another area of concern is apprenticeships. I think that most of the House agrees that, alongside university places, we need to provide adequate work experience and apprenticeships for young people so that they may develop their skills and build a career in their chosen industry. The Employment and Learning Minister has brought forward very creative ideas in senior- and higher-level apprenticeships, but we cannot forget about the traditional apprenticeships that are badly needed in Northern Ireland across the board, such as carpenters, electricians, plumbers and bricklayers. What does the Budget mean for those apprenticeships here? We know that the Minister was unable to commit extra funding from his Department for apprenticeships. I hope that he does not cut the budget for those vital schemes. I hope that, in the June monitoring round, he might find a role for that.

I will also make a point as chair of the all-party group on learning disability. Earlier this year, the House debated the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill. I raised specific concerns relating to the funding for those with special needs who are pursuing further education. I welcome the fact that the Minister has decided to retain the higher education support that the Department currently provides for those with learning disabilities, and the fact that he is not cutting the disability employment programme. It is important in all this to say that young people who leave school with a learning disability are four times less likely to secure employment than even those in the NEET category that I talked about. It is a worrying trend, particularly for parents, when they are trying to create an environment of independence for their son or daughter who may have those difficulties. I urge the Minister today once more to continue to provide that vital service for those with learning disabilities throughout all our higher education institutions and colleges and to consider how to best support them in the current period of financial uncertainty.

I will now speak about the role of the Budget in exacerbating regional imbalance. I welcome the creation of the ministerial subgroup aimed at tackling regional inequalities in the economy here. Initially, we were told, it will focus on the north-west, and there is good reason for doing so. I hope that it can create positive outcomes, not just for my constituency of Derry. I hope that it recognises the level of regional inequality in access to education, transport and work. The present Finance Minister is well aware of the high levels of unemployment and the especially high levels of economic inactivity in the north-west. She has endeavoured to work with the Employment and Learning Minister to try to come to a stage of looking at very innovative and creative ways of trying to make a difference to the quality of life for people who find themselves in those unfortunate positions.

Sammy Wilson talked about apathy. The level of apathy and disillusionment among people in my constituency is very strong, and there are justifiable reasons for it. It was announced last week that the north-west gateway initiative is being reinvigorated in trying to make a difference to the quality of people's lives.

The only way that difference can be made is through economic development, infrastructural changes and increases in third-level education places. An economic package is required in the city.

I name Magee as one example. Here we have the most important economic development project that could ever take place in the north-west. It is not just for Derry; it is for the north-west, and the benefit would be for the student population in Northern Ireland. But, with each passing semester, we are losing our young people and their skills and talents to another region or country further afield. This further contributes to our unemployment deficit in Derry and the north-west and the high number of our young people who leave to seek work in the east of the Province.

Ulster University made announcements this week. It is hugely disappointing to learn that it is now not able to proceed with the purchase of land on the old Foyle and Londonderry site on Northland Road. We all endeavoured, through unity of purpose in the city, to ensure that St Mary's College was facilitated on the old Templemore site. Foyle and Londonderry College was facilitated by a new school in the Waterside. The third part of that tripod was the development and retention of land on Northland Road, the old Foyle and Londonderry site, for future generations in the city. Minister, you may want to examine working collaboratively with the university to find a creative way of ensuring that that land is saved, not for this generation or even the next but for future generations of young people and the economic betterment of not just Derry but the north-west.

We will not be able to attract appropriate investment or stimulate growth until we have better infrastructure in the north-west. The deputy First Minister, in response to my question last week, said that the key elements of the discussions at the North/South Ministerial Council and with the ministerial subgroup were the A5 and A6. As the Minister, who did a fine job as Enterprise Minister, knows fine well, when you are trying to companies to Northern Ireland, the first thing that they look for is adequate infrastructure, but we do not have it. That is the regional imbalance that needs to be resolved once and for all. It is a legacy of so many years of unfairness and wrong decisions taken against the wishes of the people of my area.

I appreciate the immediate difficulties in the finances but we must consider, too, the positive impacts that greater investment in transport links will bring to the city of Derry and the north-west of Ireland in general. Despite continuous hard work carried out over a number of years in the One Plan, the Derry and north-west public still await delivery.

I do not want to sound as though I am whingeing. A lot of good things have happened in the city. The City of Culture year brought a tremendous feeling of self-worth and a greater sense of pride. Everybody was expecting the true legacy of the City of Culture to be a higher level of employment opportunities. However, unfortunately, when the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) team came to give the figures to the Employment and Learning Committee in November of that year, we learned that unemployment rose by 2% in that period. We need to focus our efforts. I do not have the figures here, but I was going over them this afternoon. Derry has almost 8% unemployment. Compared with other parliamentary constituencies, unemployment in the Foyle constituency is twice or three times more or 3%, 4% or 5% higher than in other constituencies. There is something wrong with those figures, and those were for May.

While great efforts are being made to turn things around in a period of recession, unfortunately, the people who I represent do not see them turning around in their context. They do not see the ball bouncing their way at all. I think it is the role of the Finance Minister to ensure that, when funding decisions and the Budget comes around, consideration must be given to those who are already adversely affected are not further marginalised and pushed further away from the centre.

People talk about the welfare reforms. People would not mind the welfare reforms being implemented if there were opportunities for work. I could stand here and defend the position of welfare reform if young people, and not so young people, had access to work, but, in Derry, how many times less likely are you to secure a job than in some other constituencies? Some constituencies have 2% unemployment compared with almost 8% in Foyle.

I am finishing, Mr Speaker, but I want to acknowledge the serious contribution of the blue light services across Northern Ireland — the Fire and Rescue Service and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service — and the work that they do for us all at the most important times in saving lives. I will include Foyle Search and Rescue, even though it is not officially a blue light service, which is at breaking point. I see the crews and speak to some of the people, and I promised that I would raise its situation.

The Minister for Employment and Learning is not here, although he was present for most of the debate. There was a major protest outside one of our jobs and benefits offices in Derry today. The grim reality of the situation is that, at the same time as we are trying to introduce welfare reforms, we are reducing the number of skilled operators who are there to provide a service to those whom we expect to be taken off benefits and put into work. We are removing them and making them redundant; we are forcing them out of work.

I say this genuinely and in good faith to the Minister: the Budget should put investment, in reasonable balance, towards infrastructure and changing the psyche about access to employment opportunities. Unfortunately, my constituency has been failed.