Two weeks after the secretary of state said he was still “waiting to hear” the DUP’s requirements to restore Stormont, the government has received an 18-page paper.
This reportedly proposes technical changes around the Windsor Framework, although not necessarily to it. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson revealed the document’s existence during a meeting of Westminster’s Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, but he would only refer to it as “proposals that could help... fully restore our place in the internal market of the UK.”
Such secrecy indicates discussions are serious. If the DUP will not say what it is asking for, nobody will know how much less it settles for.
**
Prospects of Stormont’s return appeared to falter the day before the Westminster committee, when Jeffrey Donaldson launched a report calling for the Windsor Framework to be replaced.
The report by the Centre for Brexit Policy called for ‘mutual enforcement’ – letting businesses here choose between EU or UK regulation. This was government policy for two years before the Windsor Framework but business groups rejected it as unworkable. The framework is a done deal regardless.
However, the DUP leader stopped a long way short of making mutual enforcement a demand. He merely called it “a concept worthy of serious and sustained consideration in terms of delivering a longer-term solution”.
Donaldson was hardly going to denounce a report by a Brexiteer think-tank, especially when one of the directors of the Centre for Brexit Policy is DUP MP Sammy Wilson.
**
Sinn Féin declined to sign a letter supporting recruitment by the PSNI and the Prison Service and it is refusing to explain why.
The letter was signed by all the main Stormont party leaders except Michelle O’Neill after recruitment posters were torn down in Derry by Lasair Dhearg, a tiny, eccentric and harmless dissident group. Asked why it had not signed, Sinn Féin said its support for the Prison Service and the PSNI is “consistent” and “unequivocal”.
In 2020, O’Neill attended a PSNI recruitment event alongside then first minister Arlene Foster. Chief constable Simon Byrne, also present, hailed it as “seismic and historic”.
Unless history has slipped backwards, why not sign the letter?
**
Nine in 10 adults in Britain are opposed to the government’s Troubles legacy bill, according to a poll commissioned by Amnesty UK. This seems a little odd when awareness of the legislation must be low.
The polling was conducted professionally by Savanta, with a large sample, but Amnesty supplied the questions and is rather vague about their wording. Respondents appear to have been asked if people “should still be prosecuted for serious crimes, such as murder, even if they were committed decades ago”.
Had the question been “do you support an amnesty for soldiers if it means a general amnesty in Northern Ireland?” the result would almost certainly have been reversed.
**
The accelerating demise of England’s privatised water industry must have implications for Northern Ireland.
The government is preparing to nationalise Thames Water, setting a precedent as other companies fail. Once England’s model becomes hopelessly discredited, domestic water charging can be discussed here without fearing NI Water is being fattened up for sale.
This was the main concern when Labour direct rule ministers created the ‘government-owned company’ nearly two decades ago. Stormont parties opposed to charges had no problem conceding we still need to pay more for water, perhaps through higher rates. Few will admit this today, despite under-investment in water throttling our economy.
Could we return to our previous standard of debate? Nationalisation in England would help with the cost as well as the argument. Under the Barnett formula, all public spending on it would have to matched by an increase in Stormont’s block grant.
A 2019 study commission by four English water companies found this would mean a one-off £2.6 billion, enough to modernise Northern Ireland’s entire water system, plus £115 million every year, enough to cover a third of household bills.
**
Northern Ireland’s street lights will not all be switched off next winter. The Department for Infrastructure is simply making daft suggestions to comply with the punishment budget. However, the story has exposed the department’s waste and inefficiency on lighting.
Statistician Peter Donaghy has revealed it costs £1,900 to install an LED street light in Northern Ireland, compared to £229 in the south of England.
If this is because we are installing completely new systems rather than updating existing equipment, we are seeing no benefit from it. Unlike in England, our LED street lights cannot be dimmed and have no motion sensors, which is why Stormont officials can only suggest switching them all off.
**
In this column two weeks ago I wrote that DUP MLA Emma Little-Pengelly was the only co-opted assembly member to have ever sat in the executive, when she was junior minister from 2015 to 2016.
A colleague has since corrected me: Sinn Féin’s Deirdre Hargey became communities minister two days after being co-opted in 2020, when Stormont was restored under New Decade, New Approach.
As this caused no controversy – or none I can remember, evidently – co-option might not be that much of an issue should Little-Pengelly become deputy first minister, as increasingly rumoured.
