Debate contribution: Administrative and Financial Provisions Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 1 July 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

1 July 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Administrative and Financial Provisions Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5061881

Read the official Assembly record

Text

A few aspects of the Bill are concerning and need to be scrutinised a bit further. Obviously, the Finance Committee will do that, but it is worth teasing out some of the aspects this afternoon. The Bill is being presented as dealing with routine financial matters, but some of the provisions are anything but routine and are obviously based on policy. I want to explore that. Clause 7, as Members said, deals with asylum and immigration integration support services. Maybe the Minister could clarify that. I am at a loss to understand what new powers, if any, are being handed to TEO. It would be useful if the Minister could clarify that. I think that TEO already has a power to do with integration. There is a big bit of work to be done on Mears, the state of the housing that people, particularly asylum seekers, are in and the speed at which people are, effectively, evicted from their homes when they get settled status. To me, that already falls under the remit of TEO, but I would like the Minister here and TEO —.

Sure. Thanks, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am talking about clause 7. Integration is covered by TEO strategies already. There is a big bit of work to be done on housing. There is also a big gap: TEO dealt with the scheme for Ukrainian refugees, and rightly so, but there is no specialised scheme for Palestinian refugees. That bit of work needs to be sped up. On clause 12 —.

I agree with the Member that it would be better if it immigration were devolved matter and we could decide our own immigration policy, but it is not. The question is this: what are the Finance Minister and the First Minister doing about it, other than just shrugging their shoulders, which is not good enough? In response to Assembly questions that I have submitted, I have been told that there is no agreed position, which, again, is not good enough. I do not think that that is a good answer for people in Gaza, who are being pummelled and bombed to smithereens. As has been stated, clause 12 deals with housing fraud and gives the Housing Executive the power to undertake tenancy fraud investigations on behalf of housing associations. My only concern about that is that it does not work the other way. Like, I am sure, other Members, I deal with constituents who are former Housing Executive tenants and have been charged in the region of £5,000 or £6,000 by private maintenance companies to get not huge elements of work done to their property, the communal areas of which are owned by the Housing Executive. There is no opportunity here to seek transparency or to challenge that, but there is in the South and in Britain. There is a huge question over why that is not being addressed. That is not to mention the Housing Executive tenants who are being dragged through the courts as they try to challenge decisions on their succession tenancies. Clause 13 relates to the setting of the basic rate of allowance for councillors. That power has been conferred to DFC. I am just not sure why that is the case. If the Minister could clarify that, it would be helpful. Is that a decision that can be taken by the Minister or the officials? Can or will it be brought to the Assembly? Clause 17 deals with the travel concession passes. I agree with some of the concerns that were raised by the Deputy Chair of the Finance Committee. The clause provides the power to introduce a fee for a card. That could be £20, or it could be higher. At this stage, we do not know. I am totally opposed to any fee being charged for the card. I commend the people who campaigned for free travel for the over-60s and over-65s through the concessionary fare scheme. If you introduce a fee for the card, it is a slippery slope. Travel under that scheme will no longer be free by virtue of the fact that people will have to pay for the card. I am concerned about that. I oppose the clause, and I may well try to amend it. Neither the Finance Minister nor the Infrastructure Minister should be putting up barriers to travel. We have heard already about the growing scale of pensioner poverty. Clause 19 deals with petroleum and mineral licensing. It is being presented as a technical element, which it may well be, but I am quite sceptical, given the scale of pre-approval for mineral licences. I am concerned about that and seek some assurances from the Finance Minister on it. I suppose that I have to join with everybody else and say to the leader of the Opposition that he should maybe be careful what he wishes for. He demanded the legislation, and he now has it. I say to him that, if a single MLA and a small team of dedicated staff can scrutinise legislation, an Opposition with more MLAs, staff and resources should be well able to do it, so there you go.

861 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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