WhatsApp messages sent by Stormont ministers during the pandemic have been wiped, the Covid inquiry has heard, despite the inquiry telling Stormont’s top civil servants to preserve information when it was set up in 2021.
Clearly, the RHI inquiry has also been ignored – keeping proper records was its key recommendation. However, politicians and officials are likely to face little comeback for treating the Covid inquiry as a joke. It is rapidly becoming obvious the inquiry is working backwards from a preordained and mistaken conclusion that Downing Street ignored scientific advice to lock down harder, sooner and more often.
The inquiry’s Northern Ireland module also appears to have a predetermined view that Stormont spurned coordination with the Republic. No WhatsApp messages are required to show this is nonsense. Stormont ministers are on public record repeatedly pleading with Dublin for coordination. Irish ministers are on public record repeatedly refusing.
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All eight DUP MPs turned up in the Commons to vote against the Rwanda asylum bill. This was widely seen as an up-yours to Rishi Sunak over the Windsor Framework and a show of force during Stormont talks but DUP MPs had an objection to the bill itself. They claimed it removes various European laws in Britain that will remain enforceable here due to the framework, making Northern Ireland a “magnet” for asylum seekers and necessitating a “people border” in the Irish Sea.
The government was noticeably unable to refute this, although precedent suggests UK immigration law will apply everywhere in full, as SDLP MP Claire Hanna noted. Either way, if Northern Ireland comes to be seen as a back door – thanks in part to DUP complaining – asylum seekers and immigration officials will treating it as one.
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Since Stormont collapsed, the plan to revive it has involved two stages: a deal on the UK internal market between the government and the DUP, then a deal on the budget that must include all the executive parties. However, the DUP is best-positioned to claim credit, having raised the problem of the ‘Barnett squeeze’ and proposed a Welsh-style fiscal floor.
The government’s decision to swap these stages around, presenting a budget deal first, indicates exasperation and desperation at how slowly the DUP is moving. But it is not a hostile act, certainly against Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, who may be quietly grateful for the extra pressure applied to his party.
The budget deal offers a fiscal floor – a significant achievement. Resequencing of the talks also indicates time is running out merely to enact any agreement. Internal market legislation could take months to pass if it raises the slightest contention. Pinning down the Treasury on the details of the Welsh fiscal floor took a year, then Westminster took another four years to implement it.
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Jeffrey Donaldson’s hopes to fudge the Windsor Framework have not been helped by reports of the European Commission permitting £20 million of UK state aid for companies in Northern Ireland. Nigel Dodds described its power to do so as “utterly indefensible”.
Before the framework was announced, the government briefed that the protocol’s state aid restrictions had been removed. This turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement they will not be applied to Britain – they remain fully in force here.
It has since become accepted wisdom the restrictions are of no practical consequence. The EU is permitting so much state aid in response to President Biden’s subsidy splurge that any attempt to restrict aid in Northern Ireland would be laughed out of its own court. This feels like a brave assumption.
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Speaking to the media outside Hillsborough Castle, Sinn Fein’s Conor Murphy asked why the government cannot give public sector workers an immediate pay rise, now the secretary of state has slapped enough money on the negotiating table.
It was a daring rhetorical question, considering the answer: nationalism is still insisting there can be no ‘British-only direct rule’ – leftover bombast from when Sinn Fein collapsed devolution. In addition, Sinn Fein insists there can be no suspension of Stormont’s vetoes because it wants the option of collapsing devolution again. This is what has compelled and provided cover to the government’s indirect rule and punishment budget strategies.
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Chief constable Jon Boutcher has come up with his own approach to public sector pay. He has told his officers a seven per cent increase will be implemented, whether or not the £20 million cost has been added to the PSNI’s budget, which is already £52 million in the red.
“If I have to step into a position where I am breaching my accounting officer responsibilities and the board and the Department of Justice decide they will have to sanction me, then we will get into that territory if we need to,” he told the Policing Board.
In other words, he will go deeper into the red, get a scolding from a civil servant, then leave ministers to sort it out – alongside the other £450 million Stormont is on course to overspend this year.
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The independent review of Northern Ireland’s education system has carefully fudged the issue of segregation by proposing up to 177 “jointly-managed community schools”, created from scratch or through mergers of unsustainable schools. These would “represent a cross-sectoral approach”, with pupils “from different communities attending the same school and learning together”.
Yet the review distinguishes them from integrated schools, so even a shared building would presumably have the ‘shared campus’ features of separate entrances, uniforms, management and drinking fountains.
The review adds the first priority for the whole system is finding another £219 million a year. How much of that could be saved by having one sector instead of the current six?
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A general ban on pavement parking has come into effect across Scotland. The penalty will be £100, reduced by half for early payment.
By coincidence, Stormont’s Department for Infrastructure has published a report into the same issue, based on a public engagement exercise it was ordered to conduct two years ago by SDLP minister Nichola Mallon. Pavement parking was considered a problem by 94 per cent of respondents, with two-thirds supporting a general ban, more than for any other option.
This is probably not what officials wanted to hear, given their reluctance to enforce existing rules. Pavement parking leaves roads clear for traffic, which appears to be the department’s first priority. There will be fewer excuses for inaction if Scotland’s policy is a success.