HearFromYourMP

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My Week

Posted by Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, at 12:23, Mon 24 January 2011:

Rows about the budget and its effects on N.I. have rolled on this week as ministers revealed how they intended to spend their money and what they intended to cut. Some have been admirable in the way in which they have gone about their task, prioritising, looking at what they might cut to live within the budget allocated and explaining and defending their decisions. Others have called into question their fitness for office as they have tried to distance themselves from the hard decisions to be made, sent out departmental front men to explain the bad news and blatantly highlighted and overplayed the impact on the services and employment within their departments as a result of the allocation of money made to them.

I have received very angry calls from school principals who don’t know what is happening to the money which they had saved from their budgets over the years, sensible behaviour, indeed behaviour which they were encouraged to follow in order to ensure that money was spent in the most sensible and effective manner. This money was scooped by the Coalition government in the budget, it rightly belonged to the N.I. Executive, there was no discussion with the Executive about this decision or explanation as to why it was made.

The Education Minister has caused panic by implying that because the government at Westminster snatched this money schools have lost it. Whilst it is true that the N.I. Executive has lost £316m it does not mean that the reduction must be made from school savings. It is up to the Education Minister to decide where the reductions caused by this loss are made and it is my view that she has a moral obligation to fulfil the commitments made to schools that they would have access to their savings. It is also essential that in the interests of good financial planning, there should be a system in place to enable schools to carry over small amounts of money from one year to the next. I have already expressed a willingness to help her put in place arrangements to give assurances to principals and boards of governors on this matter. There is no need for another educational crisis.

It is significant that the only party to raise any questions about my criticism of the government at Westminster for stealing this money from N.I. was one of the UUP candidates for the Assembly elections next May. He claimed that his temper rose when he heard ministers throwing tantrums about the government taking back these unspent funds and claimed that I should stop “whinging” about it. It would seem that some of the UUP members are taking too seriously their leader’s claim that he wants the party to be the Tory franchise in N.I.

Of course this dysfunctional party sends out mixed messages, because within a day its economic spokesman was complaining that more money was needed for the Health Service, Police and the Water Service. No indication of where the hundreds of millions demanded might come from nor any embarrassment that one of the reasons why less money was available was due to the £4bn reduction in our budget over the next four years and the swiping of £316m which we had saved up, by the very party which the UUP canvassed for at the last election and claims it would vote with, if by any slim chance it could get one of its members elected to Westminster.

Furthermore the UUP has now publicly taken the stance that it intends to vote against the budget presumably because it wants to try and fool the public that the cuts in some services have nothing to do with it. Apart from the hypocrisy of this stance – supporting the party of cuts while opposing the effects of those cuts, this cynical posturing shows that the UUP treats the electorate with contempt.

Does Tom Elliot & Co really think that the electorate are such idiots that they will be taken in by this political Pontius Pilate hand-washing stunt? Do the UUP not realise that the public see through their crass duplicity of knowing that a budget, however difficult, needs to be agreed if teachers, nurses etc are to be paid, schools kept open, roads repaired and contracts with businesses honoured, while at the same time praying that someone else will do it so they can say they were not responsible for the unpopular bits? Has the UUP now decided that it wants to be the party of opposition but still hold onto ministerial salaries, cars and perks?

It appears they have - that is why on a weekly basis they are losing lifelong members and public representatives who are embarrassed by their infantile antics. It is also why I am convinced that the electorate will punish not reward them for their pathetic breast beating about the budget.