Falklands : Falklands - Remaining Legislation and Motion for Adjournment Speeches
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 03.06.2009 (Article Archived on 17.06.2009)
Commentary and Transcript by J. Brock (FINN) for 100X Transcription Service
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY THURSDAY, 28 MAY 2009 PART 2
Remaining Legislation and Motion for Adjournment Speeches
Commentary and Transcript by J. Brock (FINN) for 100X Transcription Service
The Licensing Amendment Bill 2009:
The Bill has been published in the Gazette and goes directly to a second reading.
Comments by the Honourable Chief Executive Mr Tim Thorogood (TT):
Mr Speaker, this Bill results from a request by the Police Committee that the Clerk of the Summary Court should deal with extensions and occasional licenses, provided certain conditions are met. Currently such applications are dealt with by Licensing Justices, which they have long considered unnecessary for straight forward applications.
This Bill makes the requested amendment. Section 5 sets out the licences that may be granted by the Clerk and the second part of that section sets out the conditions, which include that the Chief Police Officer has no objections.
I should report that both the Senior Magistrate and Clerk to the Court support the Amendment.
I beg to move the second reading of the Bill.
KP: I second the Motion.
The Bill was read a second and third time and passed.
The Livestock Amendment Bill 2009:
The Bill has been published in the Gazette and goes directly to a second reading.
TT: Mr Speaker, thank you. The main purpose of this Bill is to regularise publication of non-financial information contained in annual farm returns. Though the publication of such information has been undertaken for many years, it recently came to light that the law did not actually provide for such information to be published.
Consultation has taken place with the Farming community via the Agricultural Advisory Committee. That Committee supports publication of non-financial information and most farmers find the information helpful in bench-marking their own farms performance against others.
That view is strongly supported by the Director of Agriculture.
This Bill also provides the Director of Agriculture to be able to amend the form used for annual farm returns on their own authority rather than going to the Government.
In summary, Mr Speaker, this Bill remains a Livestock Ordinance to provide for the publication of annual farm statistics, excluding financial information and empowers the Director of Agriculture to amend the form as and when required.
I beg to move the second reading of the Bill.
KP: I second the Motion.
The Bill was read a second and third time and passed.
The Supplementary Appropriation 2008 / 2009 Bill 2009:
The Bill required a first reading.
KP: Mr Speaker, Honourable members, the purpose of this Bill is to authorise the withdrawal of the sum of £434,220.00 from the Consolidated Fund to meet the supplementary expenditure approved by the Standing Finance Committee since the original Appropriation for the year was approved.
These approvals were in respect of the following:
£168,160.00 in respect of carry-overs or under-spends from the 2007/2008 financial year for four items of expenditure
£6,560.00 to be the cost of Helicopter flights for three islands
A total of £203,000.00 for the Health and Social Services Department to meet the increased costs of electricity, drugs and laboratory testing
£46,500.00 to enable a person to be sent to the UK for needs assessment and
£10,000.00 under the Co-operative Societies Ordinance to meet the cost of an enquiry in connection with the closure of Stanley Co-op
Details of the supplementary expenditure are recorded in the Open Minutes of the Standing Finance Committee.
I beg to move the first reading of the Bill.
TT: Mr Speaker, I second the Motion.
The Bill was read a first time by Claudette Anderson-Prior, the Clerk of Councils.
Remarks by the Hon Mrs Janet Robertson(JR):
Mr Speaker I will, if you permit me, if I could ask the Financial Secretary perhaps, given a large part of the Supplementary Appropriation Bill relates to unexpended expenditure from the Hospital, including £33,000.00 for electricity – perhaps I should have directed this question to the Chief Executive rather than the Financial Secretary. I am very sorry. But I would like to know if there are any plans in place for addressing the fact that t5his extent was not provided for in the original budget. Sorry, Mr Speaker, perhaps I should say that that question should have been directed to the Chief Executive and not the Financial Secretary. It wasn’t entirely fair.
KB: The Honourable Director of Finance, if you wish to respond in writing at a later date I am sure the Honourable Member will accept that.
JR: Yes, I would accept that. I apologise if it has caused some problems.
KP: I am very grateful for that.
The Bill was read a second and third time and passed.
THE MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT
The Hon Mr Ian Hansen (IH):
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I just have a couple of very short issues to address. First of all, I would like to thank the Director of Finance and his team for all the work they put into this budget. And I do hope, Keith, that this is the lowest point in your budget career from now on and things begin to look up in the following years.
Just briefly on the budget, it was mentioned a couple of times today about reduction in services. In the past six years I’ve been involved we have always been very aware of trying to avoid any serious reduction in services. Unfortunately, it has happened – perhaps not totally noticeable but if you take over the past six years some of the reductions in services in the Camp constituency, for instance, there has been the removal of the Dental facility at Fox Bay, there are less frequent Doctor visits now than there used to be. This year alone has seen a reduction in flying days, which means reduction of service through FIGAS. And I guess some of the outer islands and some of the outlaying stations on the West Falklands would perhaps even suggest that or argue that since reduction of ferry they have had less service from Coastal Shipping. So reduction of service has been there over the years nevertheless.
The next issue I wish to speak about I think is fairly important. It’s an issue of service, it’s an issue of communications – Cable & Wireless. I would like to begin by paying tribute and thanking the technicians who spent many hours in very adverse conditions at times trying to get the new broadband system set up. I think they have done a sterling job. They are still working as I speak, I am sure. However, whilst the system may or may not be in place in the next week or so Islands wide, there is definitely obvious problems with the monitoring of this package and with other packages offered and whether or not the readings are correct on the matter of megabites used in each package. To illustrate the point I am trying to make, or am making, I will give a brief example. On the 18th of May – this is to do with the Silver Package - our Farm downloaded the amount of megabites that we used. And, over the 1,000 we used 806. We felt that to be a little bit high for what we were using. And I will read part of the reply we received from Cable & Wireless:
“We are currently working on a fault which is affecting customers on the new Y-MAX broadband service. Customers may see a huge usage of data being displayed on the website on some days. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused and would like to assure you that a solution to fix the display reading is being worked on. And, when necessary, an adjustment will be made to your next telephone bill.”
It will be interesting to see what that bill does reflect because on May the 20th we downloaded the megabites used and it had gone up to 1848. And on the 25th of May it had gone back down to 1132, which we are now assured is the right figure. I don’t know how that decision was made that it was the right figure. This is just one example of many that’s happening in Camp and indeed I believe possibly happening to users in Stanley as well.
It just seems to me something has to be done about this. We, as Government need to react. To regulate this I think we have to make a firm stand and stay that until or unless Cable & Wireless can guarantee a consistent way of monitoring that is acceptable to the customer that the customer can understand then they should only really be charging or invoicing the customer for the package they purchased in good faith.
I think that’s all I have to say, Sir. I am sure there will be many other comments about the budget and other things from my other Colleagues.
Mr Speaker I beg to support the Motion for Adjournment.
The Hon Mr Richard Cockwell (RC):
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I, too would like to thank the Director of Finance and his staff for the sterling job that they have done this year, in particular Nick Granger and Simon Wilkie who have been attending the meetings with ourselves, who have put up with all of our discussions which were going on and in particular being able to find out exactly where we were at any stage during the budget. I have never been able to do it quite at that level.
This is my last budget. I think it’s my 12th actually. And I have to say that it has been the most difficult in some ways particularly with reductions in income, increases in expenditure and I think I should congratulate everybody for the solution that we’ve arrived at. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea but I think it’s not nearly as bad as many people in the public expected.
However, I think one of the things we haven’t actually stressed is – it hasn’t been stressed by previous speakers is the future of the economy. We have the economic Development Strategy and Rural Development Strategy underway at the moment. But I think we need to be very aware of the fact that it may not be everybody’s cup of tea but we are going to have to find some way of increasing our income and it’s probably by inward investment. Now inward investment here is anathema to some people. However, our largest income earner – fisheries – was actually built through a type of inward investment through the joint venture system. And I think if we think constructively in that way we should be able to find other ways of creating inward investment which should make a difference to our economy. We cannot carry on just cutting back and cutting back on the cost of running the Government without finding ways of increasing our income. So I really do hope that the incoming government, which I will not be one of unfortunately but as I said before, I am retiring – looks at this very carefully.
If I can just say one thing about the budget which concerns me – and certainly other places – is the reduction in the Development Corporation’s funding. I think this is really something which we needed to – we really should have thought about more carefully because with the EDS coming forward we are hopefully going to find enterprise and systems that we are going to have to invest in. Who’s going to invest -the Development Corporation? The Development Corporation has the money to actually invest in the future. It’s going to be very much hog tied.
Other than that, Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.
The Hon Mr John Birmingham (JB):
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in rising to speak to this Motion, I must first say, well done to those who participated in yesterday’s Challenge Day including both schools and I am sure some of the Members around this table also.
This Assembly’s real Challenge Day was, of course, Tuesday when Members discussed the proposed budget for the forthcoming financial year. Some changes were made and that’s where we ended up today. In this House on Tuesday I said that it’s the duty of elected representatives to make decisions. Sometimes they are political as in the case of the Next of Kin Visit and sometimes – and the reason we are here today – it’s financial.
This budget’s been difficult but as with life in general, it’s not been as good as some would have hoped for but it’s not been as bad as some may have feared, either. Your fags are up – electricity is down.
I would also like to extend my thanks to our Director of Finance and all of his staff, especially Margaret, who takes the minutes along with the Heads of Department who have shown great willingness to work towards the common good, which surely is a continuation of a viable, well ordered and cost effective service.
It’s already been said here that we are not immune to the affects of any global down-turn. I have spoken to no one who isn’t aware of this. We live in a community where common sense abounds and the majority of people will understand the reasons why some of the not so popular decisions have had to be made this week.
There’s a visitor here this week – a Mrs Meg Davie from Lancashire, who is invited by the KEMH to look at the way the elderly are cared for in the Islands – I look to my colleague. I went to a presentation last night and found it extremely interesting. There had been a fair turn out of people there. And it’s been recognised for some time that there is a small but significant number of vulnerable people here in the Islands of all ages. And I, for one, was very pleased to find out that there is now much progress in the putting together of a strategy to help those who really do need assistance.
It’s now a year since the Ocean 8 went down and a report and a review into that incident has just been to Executive Council. I am sure it will be released to the public. It will be released to the public shortly and the recommendations acted upon. There were some areas where procedures needed tightening up but on the whole the departments involved in that operation came out as having acted in a very professional manner.
I heard on the radio the other day that the last of the Task Force ships has now been paid off – HMS EXETER. That surely is a cliff of the ratchet of history. And certainly at this time of the year, it makes me pause and put things into perspective a little bit. But what’s to come?
When I asked the question in this House on Tuesday about the new port, that word comes up again – future-proof. I hear the plight of this project – well, I say again – that word to me means making sure that the right decision is made and that in years to come there is money around to sustain the standard of living and levels of service that we have at present wherever possible.
To stimulate some debate on this project which, if the wrong decisions are made, would make any past or present capital project look like small change, I’m putting my hand up for a truly realistic approach to spending any large amounts of money surveying areas that clearly nave no chance of ever being chosen as a location. So to me that wipes out Berkley Sound. Of the others – and having listened to some but by all means everybody locally who is professional enough to be interested – I’m going to go for FIPASS or the FIPASS area for these reasons: It’s got road access, water, power, fuel storage, plenty of room to expand and surely, what is in effect, a small regional feeder port. The water depth, although not great, is adequate. And I have spoken to enough people whose views I respect to believe that. To me it’s the only cost-effective – truly cost-effective and practical site.
For those who are awaiting housing plots, I hope that there will be an announcement shortly that will be of interest to them.
By the way, I have got a couple of adverts - I get fresh milk from the dairy and I would recommend it to anybody and I hope that the dairy may continue for a long time in the future. Anybody who’s thinking of trying out the local milk, please do.
I also have an apology to make. I had somebody come to my door today who gave me half a hard time over the answer I gave to a question put to me by the Honourable Dr Clausen the other day about lights – streetlights. It would appear that I got my figures wrong and this person had been around Stanley streets last night and counted over one hundred lights out. That, to my way of thinking, is 14%. I am making this public so that people will be there and in time it will be pushed along to the people responsible, who will – given time and resources – make that good.
When it comes to Chinese Circuses by the way, I would like to know whether Giraffes really do eat Pomegranates.
And I know that in a couple of weeks’ time the teams will be going away to the Island Games and, Mr Speaker, I would like to send my best wishes to those teams.
Mr Speaker, I have one more thing to say and it’s about the Co-operative Society. And this is as much a message – this is a second advert – as much as a message for Members of the Co-op, of which there are very many and it’s been said in this house today that there is to be an enquiry. It would appear that there is a legal requirement for that enquiry. But all co-op Members, as I say, will be a member of the Committee dealing with the winding up. But we are doing as much as we can in doing as much as we possibly can to pay out to the Membership and that things are really moving along now to the end of the process and that there will be some information going out to the public and Members shortly.
Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.
The Hon Mr Richard Stevens (RS):
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I haven’t got very much to say but what I would like to say is that after speaking to a few people about the budget many had taken the reasoning that we are putting forward. Some people say that we had it really good up until this point and some believe that we will have good times again and that’s their right. But I suppose the difficulty for us as Members is trying to have vision and trying to do things that will keep the economy going. And it’s not to say that we’re always going to get it right but things like the ferry and FIMCO, which often get hit by people as the easy fix but in fact, it’s another cause and effect. If we were to cut those services back – those businesses back – that subsidy back - then it would affect other parts of the community. Perhaps if it was FIMCO, you would have farms that could no longer afford to operate with people coming to Stanley looking for work and also looking for housing. So it’s not always easy to have that vision but one always has to try.
Finally, on circuses, If Councillor Birmingham had the same opportunity as the students that I have been speaking to, he would know that there aren’t any animals in circuses any longer because of animal rights issues. So he will have to find out about the Pomegranates from another source.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I support the Motion.
The Hon Mr Mike Rendell (MR):
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I would like to follow on behind the theme that the previous speaker has made which is really to do with Camp and how we should be viewing infrastructure projects which are already in place and the importance of them in the future. The Honourable Ian Hansen also touched on the Rural Development Strategy and its importance. And it’s in that area that I think we need to be thinking a long way into the future. It’s a fact that a lot of things have already been put into the Camp over the last 10 years in particular – roads – the new ferry service – FIMCO – telecommunications going in now – lots of things are going in and they are all part of that Rural Development Strategy although maybe not specifically what the core group that’s looking at rural development is focusing on. Over the last few days in particular I had a number of phone calls from people on islands who feel vulnerable.
And, from what they’ve heard about the RDS and the way it is being looked at, it doesn’t appear to be a great deal of meat on the bones for islands. And it is the people on the islands who are most at – really at the sharp end. They don’t have a choice of being able to take the ferry or get a day return to West Falkland. So they are more vulnerable than most and I do think and hope that the RDS will look particularly at that group of people and, of course, I declare an interest.
I am particularly interested to see that the Port Howard Jetty is going to be put up to the standard necessary to hopefully enable Workboat Services to come along side very much more often than they have been able to up until this stage. And we look forward with great pleasure to that service to that jetty being installed and hopefully sorting out most of the problems that seem to be there on its first season of operation.
Several Members – at least the Honourable Ian Hansen – in his comment about broadband usage and as the portfolio holder, I can assure him that this matter has been taken up with Cable & Wireless today (Thursday, 28 May 2009). It only seems to be in the last day or two that the specific issues of changes in the amount of usage has been brought forward to my attention anyway and so the matter is being taken up with Cable & Wireless. I can also say that I have talked to a technical representative at Cable & Wireless earlier today, too, and the belief is that the usage that is now being shown is accurate and correct. It therefore seems that in order to take the forward matter, people don’t think it’s accurate and correct then it’s for the individual user to progress their complaint with Cable & Wireless direct. But if it is an endemic problem - and that is the big question - then that is the area in which Government would get involved then we will just have to wait and see how that works out. So I would suggest to anybody that does have a real problem with their usage figures and anything else, for that matter, then they contact Cable & Wireless direct and if they feel – then they can contact me or, I am sure, any other Colleague.
I’ve only got one more thing to say and that is that here we are with an annual inflation rate of 5.1 or 5.2%. Had we taken the December figures, which we normally do, it would be 9.2% and that would be based on world fuel prices. And there was a very sobering report in this week’s Economist, which is making a prediction that world fuel prices are going to go up again. Of course they are going to go up again because once the recession is over, the demand for fuel will rise – the price will go up. Unless we strike oil down here and lots of other people do, the price will go up significantly to where it was before or even more and we are back to where we were before. Just a sobering thought to remember.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I support the Motion.
The Hon Mr Mike Summers (MS):
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I just have a few things to say. At the opening of this session of the Legislative Assembly I omitted to welcome Group Captain Simon Heinmarsh to the House. Welcome and thanks for joining our deliberations and we are all very pleased that we were able to maintain in the budget £140,000.00 that we donate annually towards refurbishment of buildings or refurbishment of the accommodation at Mount Pleasant. It is an important part of working together as is the construction of roads to the Mountaintop sites and to Onion Range and hopefully, in the future, other projects where we can work together to our mutual benefit.
We know the Ministry of Defence have problems with their budget as all sections of the UK Government do – so do we – and working together will be to everybody’s benefit and sharing the burden whenever we can.
There are only a couple of things I wanted to deal with today - to say a few words about the Economic Development Strategy. It has been rather stalled in some respects in recent weeks because we have had a lot of work to do with the budget but I do know that the sub groups that have been set up to look at development in fisheries, in tourism, in agriculture and other businesses have been working together very actively and I hope putting together their own thoughts and ideas about the economic development of the Falklands.
I would just like to stress that this is not an exercise in filling up people’s time. It is a genuine and necessary planning exercise for everybody to get together and work together positively and productively to see how we can continue to grow the economy because that is the only way for a country as small as this with as few resources as this to succeed. We have to keep growing.
(Garbled – tape twisted) to rates, to world oil prices,, world exchange rate fluctuations that we can do nothing about and indeed other people’s stock markets that we can do nothing about. What we can do is continue to strive in our key industries for improvement, for growth, and for creating more wealth for the benefit of the whole community.
And in setting up and proposing the Economic Development Strategy the Government has no hidden agenda. It has no secret plan to do this or that or the other thing to this industry or the other. It is that we need to work together but each of the industries – as I said – positively and productively to identify those ways in which the Government can act to support the development of those areas. And I am sure there are any number of ways in which the Government can support industry development other than just throwing money at it because just throwing money at it is not going to be the way to achieve more growth.
So let’s all look at the support mechanisms that we can provide, the regulations, that we currently have in place or might have in place that might either assist or hinder the growth of particular industries and let’s try and move forward and increase the value of the existing businesses that we have and hopefully create new businesses as well going forward, which I know is the particular wish of some members of the team.
The other issue that I wanted to just touch on today is – again – it comes out - in a way - of the budget session and the things that we have been talking about. It also comes out of the Review of Government and many discussions that we’ve had over weeks and months and it is to do with harnessing the expenditure that we have made over many, many years in Education and making best use of it. I had the privilege to stand on the corner by the Mineral Resources Department this morning for the best part of 45 minutes having a discussion with a constituent on just this subject. And he was absolutely right that we do not actually make sufficient effort not only as a Government but as a community as a whole to harness the benefit that we have been putting into Education over all of these years.
There are too many people floating around that we just leave on a lazes fare sort of attitude “you can go off and do this, that and the other thing and we won’t bother you.” It’s not a question of bothering people, it’s a question of not only the Government but the private sector as well getting a hold of people and saying they want to use their talents, they want to use the investment that the public sector has put in their education to come back and help things like the Economic Development Strategy and the Rural Development Strategy. We do need to be more proactive. I know it is part of the Review of Government the Chief Executive has undertaken and it is talked about in there. I think it’s one of the urgent elements of that review that we need to be planning our personnel development, particularly at middle management levels on a much more active basis and not simply waiting for people to come back home.
|
