Debate contribution: Assembly Members (Remuneration Board) Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 17 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

17 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Assembly Members (Remuneration Board) Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4802443

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I begin by commenting on how the Bill got to this stage. It is right and necessary to do so, because the process that it went through before appearing in the Order Paper was most irregular. Executive Office guidance on consultation is clear. It sets the standard for consultation at 12 weeks. Paragraphs 8 to 10 of the explanatory and financial memorandum deal with what passed for a consultation on the Bill, and it simply does not meet that standard. By my reckoning, it lasted for 11 weeks, two of which were the Christmas holidays. The Assembly Commission decided to consult only the parties that have representation on the Commission and never dared to let the public or, indeed, parties that are not on the Commission see the proposals, much less have their say. When we read the Bill, it is obvious why that was. I ask the House to note that the names on the front of the Bill represent all the parties on the Commission. It was the intention of Sinn Féin, the DUP, the UUP, Alliance and the SDLP to award themselves a massive pay rise. Members from all those parties have affixed their name to the cover of the Bill. Regardless of what some may say or seek to do by way of amendment in the aftermath of the spotlight being shone on what they were up to, their intention was clear. I see that, immediately after this debate, the Assembly will appoint an Ad Hoc Committee to consider the Bill. Once again, the parties on the Commission are set to carve up the positions among themselves and keep off it those of us who, by our actions so far on the matter, really are committed to derailing the gravy train from its intended destination. Some provisions in the Bill are sensible. Parties on all sides of the House will be able to cite examples of where the independent financial review panel got it wrong. We had, for example, the ridiculous rule about not having a phone number or an email address on the office sign, which has been referred to. I do not have a great deal of issue with removing some of those powers from the remuneration board, as is proposed in the Bill's opening clauses. It is when we get to the provisions that stipulate that the remuneration board must look at MLAs' salaries in the context of salaries payable to MPs, MSPs in Scotland, Members of the Welsh Parliament and Members of both Houses in the Republic that I have a real problem. When the Commission brought a motion to the House that paved the way for the Bill, Mr Carroll and I exposed the plan to award MLAs a massive pay hike. Mr Butler claimed that the allegations about the pay rise were absolutely baseless. The truth was that, as the parties represented on the Commission already knew, the dice had been loaded in favour of MLAs getting a bumper pay deal. If, as clause 3 stipulates, the remuneration board:

"must have regard to the salaries payable"

in other legislatures, where Members earn more than MLAs currently, the parties who introduced the Bill did so thinking that the money was already in the bank.

There is no other guidance on what they must consider when it comes to pay. The only thing that may stop it is the embarrassment that this corner of the House will cause you all.

That is not the only ruse being pulled in the Bill. Clause 5 opens the door for a former Member of the Assembly to sit on the remuneration board. That represents a clear conflict of interest on two fronts. First, one would assume that a former Member will have maintained some sort of relationship with Members, who would stand to benefit financially from the decisions of the board. Secondly, as a former Member, he or she would benefit from pension determinations. Such a situation cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. There were good reasons why former MLAs were excluded from the original panel. Those reasons remain valid. It is noteworthy that the previous independent financial review panel had just three members. If, as the Bill anticipates, one of those members is a former MLA, that is a sizeable chunk of its membership. Finally, I will directly address a point made by Mr Clarke when we last discussed this issue. In fairness, Mr Clarke did not seek to deny the fact that the Commission was on manoeuvres to award itself a pay rise, so I will credit him with his honesty there. However, addressing this corner of the House, he said:

"there are many younger Members who have young families to keep. Why should their pay not stay in kilter with that of their counterparts in other places?"— [Official Report (Hansard), 4 February 2025, p11, col 2].

Mr Clarke, let me answer that question. First, as the motion proposed by the Member for West Belfast reminded us last week, there are people who are expected to get by on just a little more than what you receive, on top of your Member's salary, for sitting on the Commission. You have your MLA salary, and you get an additional salary for being on the Commission. Not many people who are on carer's allowance will have much time for sob stories about MLAs struggling to raise their families on the £52,500 before tax that every MLA gets, let alone the £64,500 that Chairs of Committees are paid, the £90,500 that Ministers get or the £124,500 paid to the First Minister and deputy First Minister. An important additional point needs to be made in response to Mr Clarke's point. Members of this Assembly do not deserve a pay rise to put them in line with Members of other Parliaments and assemblies because, uniquely, this Assembly has decided that there are vast areas of law and policy that it does not want to have any say over. In picking up his point from earlier, I say to the Member that the only legislative provision on pay in the Bill is for consideration of other legislatures' salaries, all of which are higher. If the Assembly is so pompous as to believe that it is just as important and competent as the legislatures listed in clause 3 of the Bill, why did the majority of Members vote to give away lawmaking powers to Brussels, where no one from Northern Ireland has any say in the laws that govern something like two thirds of our economy? Unless or until Members of this House have the self-respect to reclaim those laws, we should not be treated like any other legislature. For those reasons, I will oppose the Bill. Shame on those who introduced it: I am glad that there has been a public outcry to call you out on it.

1,149 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:57 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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