Opinion

Newton Emerson: There was nothing surprising about the MLA pay rise, it had all been agreed in 2016

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

The five main parties have outlined how MLAs can divert the money back into the public purse or donate it to charity. Picture by Kelvin Boyes/Presseye/PA
The five main parties have outlined how MLAs can divert the money back into the public purse or donate it to charity. Picture by Kelvin Boyes/Presseye/PA The five main parties have outlined how MLAs can divert the money back into the public purse or donate it to charity. Picture by Kelvin Boyes/Presseye/PA

A joint statement from all five executive party leaders on Wednesday said: “The announcement yesterday of a proposed pay rise for MLAs came as a surprise to all parties.”

The wording of this deserves careful scrutiny. In 2016, the assembly’s independent pay review panel determined that MLAs’ pay would rise annually by £500 until 2021.

The £1,000 increase announced this week merely applies this over two financial years of Stormont’s recent collapse (another £500 for the third year will follow in April.)

So there is nothing surprising about the pay rise - it is a long-standing automatic process. It was also a high-profile issue throughout Stormont’s absence, with lengthy debates over secretaries of state intervening to cut pay. The leaders’ statement must have meant they were surprised the rise was announced. What they meant by calling it “proposed” is anyone’s guess.

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Careful scrutiny is also required of statements from Boris Johnson. Responding to a Commons question from the DUP, the prime minister insisted the same “unfettered access” for goods travelling from Northern Ireland to Britain will apply in the opposite direction.

The EU withdrawal agreement says otherwise, requiring goods travelling westwards to be checked.

Many people are asking if Johnson misunderstands the agreement or is blatantly misrepresenting it but his position is easily reconciled.

The westbound checks are for goods heading onwards into the EU, so strictly speaking there will be unfettered access for goods destined only for Northern Ireland. It is just that everything must be checked to see where it is going.

This is not unlike the situation with Irish passports, which gardaí cannot demand of Irish citizens at the border, but which they can ask for as proof of citizenship to establish they do not need to check them.

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DUP agriculture minister Edwin Poots says he is “open to the idea” of an independent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Northern Ireland, to replace the non-independent one inside his department. This was an ominously vague turn of phrase when an EPA is required by the New Decade, New Approach deal. It is also required by Brexit, which is where matters really go over Poots’s pay grade.

Although EPAs are common around the world, no part of the UK has them. Independent environmental oversight and enforcement has instead been left to EU laws and courts. Since 2018, London has been rolling out EPAs to plug the post-Brexit gap, with a model for England designed to be quickly adopted by the devolved regions.

This is urgent because assured environmental standards will be essential for a UK-EU trade deal. As Northern Ireland is effectively remaining in the EU for regulatory purposes, it will be even more essential here.

All Stormont parties except the Greens rejected an EPA when it was proposed a decade ago under the last major review of public administration. This time around, whether they like it or not, they are just going to be handed the rubber stamp.

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Secretary of state Julian Smith is facing his own version of the New Decade, New Approach deal should he keep his job in next month’s UK cabinet reshuffle. Downing Street intends to introduce new reporting requirements for ministers to ensure they are meeting a “delivery dashboard” of policy objectives. It looks very like the conditions the Treasury has imposed on the Stormont executive.

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Sinn Féin has a partitionist policy issue that could become a serious problem at Stormont. The party has given an election pledge in the Republic to abolish local property tax, the south’s equivalent of the domestic regional rate. Rates are the executive’s only significant tax-raising power, they will have to raised to meet New Decade, New Approach commitments and Sinn Féin finance minister Conor Murphy has said he will consider it. He could focus on the commercial element of rates but that is already crushing town centres and small businesses, so householders will have to bear some weight. It is a good sign for devolution that Murphy has not flatly ruled out an increase but it will be tricky for Sinn Féin to raise a tax on one side the border they are promising to scrap on the other. As was seen during the three-year welfare reform crisis, maintaining cross-border consistency can drop an enormous spanner in Stormont’s works.

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Television cameras are to be allowed into courts in England and Wales for the first time, at least to film judges delivering verdicts. Scottish courts did the same five years ago and now allow documentary crews to film entire trials. Once Northern Ireland becomes the only part of the UK without cameras in court, pressure will inevitable grow to let them in. It will be an interesting debate for new Alliance justice minister Naomi Long - imagine how it would have gone during 2018’s trial of Ulster rugby players, for example. But the decision ultimately falls to the Courts Service, run by Northern Ireland’s judges, who seem unlikely to be keen on the idea.