REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS OF COURT (DEBATES AND OTHER MATTERS) Douglas, Tuesday, 18th June 2002 at 10.30 a.m. Present: The (the Hon N Q Cringle). In the Council: The Lord Bishop (the Rt Rev Noël Debroy Jones), the Attorney-General (Mr W J H Corlett QC), Hon Mrs C M Christian, Messrs E A Crowe, D F K Delaney, J R Kniveton, E G Lowey, Dr E J Mann, Messrs J N Radcliffe and G H Waft, with Mrs M Cullen, Clerk of the Council. In the Keys: The Speaker (the Hon J A Brown) (Castletown); Mr D M Anderson (); Hon A R Bell (Ramsey); Mr R E Quine OBE (); Mr J D Q Cannan (Michael); Mrs H Hannan (Peel); Hon S C Rodan (); Mr P Karran, Hon R K Corkill and Mr A J Earnshaw (); Mr G M Quayle (); Messrs J R Houghton and R W Henderson (); Hon D C Cretney and Mr A C Duggan (); Hon R P Braidwood and Mrs B J Cannell (); Hon A F Downie and Hon J P Shimmin (Douglas West); Hon J Rimington Mr Q B Gill and Hon Mrs P M Crowe (); with Mr M Cornwell-Kelly, Clerk of Tynwald. The Lord Bishop took the prayers. Apologies for Absence The President: Hon. members, we have apologies for absence from the hon. member for Ramsey, Mr Singer, who is away from the Island on family business, and the hon. member for and , Mr Gelling. The hon. member for Ayre, Mr Quine, will be joining us later. Chaplain of the – Progress Report after Illness The President: Hon. members, the Lord Bishop has referred to our Chaplain, the Chaplain of the House of Keys, in his prayers. Canon Baggaley recently suffered a heart attack whilst on holiday in Malta. I am pleased to be able to report that he is making good progress and is expecting to leave hospital shortly. He will then be able to return to the Island after about three weeks of recuperation. Her Majesty The Queen – Golden Jubilee – Expression of Congratulations The President: Hon. members, I am sure that it is with your good wishes that I place on record our heartfelt congratulations to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on her Golden Jubilee. (Members: Hear, hear.) It is evident from newsprint and the pictures that we witnessed on television the high regard the general public have for Her Majesty. Here on our Island we recall the joyous occasion when she presided over Tynwald in our millennium year, 1979. We recognise the unfailing manner in which she has carried out her duties throughout her reign and are grateful for the interest that she has taken in our Island’s well-being as our . MHK CBE – Congratulations on Award The President: Hon. members, although the hon. member for is not with us today, I am sure equally that members will wish us to place on record our congratulations for his well-deserved award of the CBE in Her Majesty’s recent Honours List. Members: Hear, hear. Papers Laid before the Court The President: Hon. members, I call upon the Clerk to lay papers. The Clerk: I lay before the Court: Fees and Duties Act 1989 - High Court Fees Order 2002 [SD No 168/02] General Registry (Miscellaneous Fees) Order 2002 [SD No 170/02] Fees and Duties (Government Fees) Order 2002 [SD No 169/02] Deeds and Probate Registries (Fees) Order 2002 [SD No 171/02] Land Registry Fees Order 2002 [SD No 173/02] Extra-Statutory Concession 2002 [SD No 293/02] Animal Health Act 1996 - Foot and Mouth Disease (Precautionary Measures) (Regulation of Livestock Movement) Order 2002 [SD No 252/02] Social Security Act 2000 - Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 3) Order 2002 [SD No 313/02] Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 4) Order 2002 [SD No 314/02] Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 5) Order 2002 [SD No 315/02] Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 6) Order 2002 [SD No 316/02] Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 7) Order 2002 [SD No 317/02] Pension Schemes Act 1995 - Pension Schemes Legislation (Application) (No. 2) Order 2002 [SD No 318/02] Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 - Income Support (General) () (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2002 [SD No 319/02] Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) (Isle of Man) Regulations 2002 [SD No 320/02] National Health Service Act 2001 - Nursing and Midwifery Order 2002 [SD No 159/02] Health Professions Order 2002 [SD No 160/02] Tourist Act 1975 - Tourist (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 [SD No 294/02] Tourism Development Fund (Amendment) Scheme - Tourism Development Fund (Amendment) Scheme 2002 [GC 19/02] Value Added Tax Act 1996 - Value Added Tax 1996 (Amendment) Order 2002 [SD No 241/02] Value Added Tax (Increase of Registration Limits) Order 2002 [SD No 221/02] Value Added Tax (Building and Land) Order 2002 [SD No 233/02] Tobacco Products Duty Act 1986 - Excise Duties Order 2002 [SD No 219/02] Customs and Excise Act 1993 - Zimbabwe (Sale, Supply, Export and Shipment of Equipment) (Penalties and Licences) Regulations (Application) Order 2002 [SD No 262/02] Pool Betting (Isle of Man) Acts 1961 to 1970 - Pool Betting (Isle of Man) (Amendment) Order 2002 [SD No 248/02] Investment Business Acts 1991 to 1993 - Financial Supervision Commission (Financial Resources and Compliance Reporting) Regulatory Code 2002 [SD No 345/02] Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1986 - Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1986 (Amendment) Order 2002 [SD No 240/02] The following items were not the subject of motions on the order paper: Superannuation Act 1984 - Superannuation (Clerk of Tynwald’s Department) Determination (No. 3) 2002 [SD No 310/02] Value Added Tax Act 1996 - Value Added Tax (Construction of Buildings) Order 2002 [SD No 234/02] Value Added Tax (Consideration for Fuel Provided for Private Use) Order 2002 [SD No 235/02] Value Added Tax (Reduced Rate) Order 2002 [SD No 236/02] Value Added Tax (Amendment) Regulations 2002 [SD No 220/02] Value Added Tax (Transport) Order 2002 [SD No 279/02] Value Added Tax (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2002 [SD No 242/02] Air Navigation (No. 2) Order 1995 - Air Navigation (Restriction of Flying) (Emergency Evacuation) Regulations 2002 [SD No 307/02] Air Navigation (Restriction of Flying) (Exhibition of Flying) Regulations 2002 [SD No 308/02]

Air Navigation (Restriction of Flying) (Tynwald Day) Regulations 2002 [SD No 309/02] European Communities (Isle of Man) Act 1973 - European Communities (Money Laundering Directive) (Application) Order 2002 [draft] European Community Secondary Legislation May 2002 [GC No 21/02] Appointed Day Orders - Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2001 (Appointed Day) (No. 2) Order 2002 [SD No 359/02] Procedural The President: Now, hon. members, before turning to the question paper, I will mention that I have authorised the Clerk of Tynwald to circulate all the answers to the written questions just before the adjournment. Hon. members will realise that we have a number of written questions down for today’s hearing. You will know that Standing Order 3.6(3) requires the answers to written questions to be circulated no later than 1 p.m., and in view of the confusion which can result when some answers are ready early and some later, with members then wanting to know why some have not yet been circulated, I think it is both practical and convenient if they are all passed round today together. Members: Hear, hear. Questions were taken at this point and concluded at 12.27 p.m. They are published separately. Environmental Protection Strategy – Statement by the Minister for Local Government and the Environment The President: We turn then, hon. members, to item 3 on our order paper, and I call on the Minister for Local Government and the Environment. Mrs Crowe: Mr President, as you and hon. members are aware, the previous Minister for the Department of Local Government and the Environment informed Tynwald in January 2001 that an environmental protection strategy, which would include a strategy for climate change, would be presented to the March 2002 Tynwald. Also at the January 2001 Tynwald, the previous minister promised Tynwald that an environmental protection strategy, which would address air quality, would be reported too in April 2002. Mr President, if I may outline to this hon. Court the scope of the environmental protection strategy so that hon. members are aware of what areas it will cover and have a better understanding of why this important document, that must have public acceptance as well as Tynwald approval, was not brought before you. The department’s task is to protect the land, the air and the waters of the Isle of Man, which form the environment in which we live. It does this in partnership with others, helping the Island achieve economic growth which takes account of environmental and social needs. The strategy therefore will address what the department sees as key environmental issues for the Isle of Man. It will provide the strategy for an efficient and integrated environmental protection system for the Isle of Man that meets government’s policy to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment through the pursuit of sustainable development. The process so far has identified two broad areas: one is where we can take direct action by using or developing statutory powers to control inputs to the environment, such as requiring a licence to discharge pollutants into the environment; the other is where we can only achieve our objective by influencing others, by partnership working or through public and political pressure, such as pollution from traffic, where a partnership with DoT will be crucial, and the Sellafield issues, where we need to put political pressure on other governments. This is groundbreaking work by the department as the has never before considered the environment in such a holistic manner, with all the issues being addressed in one comprehensive strategy document. It is the department’s intention to ensure that the final document will include a series of strategic statements on each of the following key areas: health risks from airborne pollution; accumulation of toxic chemicals in Isle of Man waters; water pollution; energy conservation; noise control; climate change; natural resource depletion; bio-diversity pressure and decline; depletion of stratospheric ozone; and minimising any threats from radiation sources. Having considered the best way forward, the department’s view is that such an important document must go for public consultation before it is presented to Tynwald. In particular, due to a closer working relationship with public health specialists in the DHSS, it is evident that the health improvement strategy being developed by them will have strong links to the environmental protection strategy for the Island. The department is keen to ensure that these important documents complement one another and that each department plays a full rôle in the process of developing respective strategies. I anticipate that the document will be ready for public consultation no later than October this year and within three months of that date will be presented to Tynwald for Tynwald’s consideration. Mr President, I would like to apologise to this Court for not reporting on the environmental protection strategy at the March 2002 sitting of Tynwald, but this was as a direct result of the need in the department to reprioritise resources and that was due to not only the foot-and-mouth difficulties, but also in agreeing established mechanisms with the UK environmental agency over the export and disposal of hazardous chemicals and waste oil. The department did consider contracting out the development of the environmental protection strategy in order to meet the Tynwald deadline, but felt it would be of greater value if strategy were developed in- house so the staff had ownership of that strategy. Mr President, I hope that hon. members will agree with the decision to divert resources to deal with the issues that posed an immediate threat to our Island, and I would ask the hon. Court to agree with the proposal to produce a public consultation document no later than October, bringing forward the environmental protection strategy to Tynwald within three months of that date. Thank you, Mr President. The President: Hon. member for Douglas East, Mrs Cannell. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr President. I welcome the comments made in the statement by the hon. minister, but, in questioning what she has said today, would she not agree with me that, if the final document is to be produced in-house - that is within government - in determining what the strategy or the draft strategy prior to public consultation will be, it is then even more important that someone from that department who is involved in determining the strategy attends the world summit on sustainable development to be held in Johannesburg, in order to enhance what will be contained within that particular document? Does it not go hand in hand? And further, in terms of the coming together of all of the facets that she has referred to, how is she going to cope in meeting the deadline of October this year for public consultation when, at the moment, the department does not have in situ a waste management person or, indeed, the personnel necessary to put in proper waste management strategies, which obviously are going to form, hopefully, part of the overall strategy for the department in this respect? And further, I welcome the working with the Department of Health in respect of this - in particular the Director of Public Health - and could she advise, please, whether or not, in determining the toxins in water, which I am sure the Water Authority will help her with, there is any move at all, or any discussion, in respect of measuring the toxins that are contained in body mass and having some kind of levelling there or some sort of ground level there so that we would do that continually every so often in order to assess whether or not the environmental strategy that is to be brought forward to this hon. place is, in fact, helping the health of the nation? Thank you. The President: The minister to reply. Mrs Crowe: Thank you, Mr President. In view of some of the issues I am likely to be faced with shortly, I have already made myself available for Johannesburg if required (Mr Henderson: Hear, hear.), and I would be very interested in all the sustainable development discussions that will be put forward in that place. However, I am not sure that it would be possible, and we do take a great deal of interest in all aspects of sustainable development within the department. The question was also asked about the waste management strategy. At this present time, there will be a new head of waste management appointed. That does not mean to say that our strategy is not in place, and, indeed, the person appointed will progress the strategy that is already there. I have already announced that we will be working very closely with the DHSS on public health matters, and I would suggest that it is up to the Department of Health and Social Security how they measure, or best measure, whether our health is improving on the Isle of Man. They may or may not wish to do that by the measurement of body mass toxins, but that is entirely up to themselves. With regard to the analysis of pollution in water, that is carried out by the public analyst, who regularly tests water quality on the Isle of Man. So, I do hope those questions have been answered, and I do apologise that the report is not available, but, as one can imagine, it is an extensive report and I shall have it here as soon as possible. High Court Fees Order 2002 – Approved Item 4. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the High Court Fees Order 2002 [SD No 168/02] be approved. The President: We now go on to item 4 on the order paper, and I call on the Minister for the Treasury to move. Mr Bell: Mr President, this order is made by the Treasury, after consultation with the deemsters and the General Registry. The fees are reviewed biennially to ensure the adequacy of the various fees and to maintain their values against changes in the retail price index. The fees have been increased by approximately 3 per cent, this being the increase in inflation since the last orders were made in 2000. With the new fee increases and adjustments, it is estimated that an additional £7,500 will be collected by the General Registry in the remainder of the financial year 2002-03, and £11,000 in the financial year 2003-04. I beg to move, Mr President. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 4 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. General Registry (Miscellaneous Fees) Order 2002 – Approved Item 5. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the General Registry (Miscellaneous Fees) Order 2002 [SD No 170/02] b e approved. The President: Item 5. Minister for the Treasury. Mr Bell: Similarly, Mr President, this order is made by the Treasury, after consultation with the deemsters and the General Registry. The fees also are reviewed biennially to ensure the adequacy of the various fees and to maintain their values against changes in the retail price index. These fees have been increased by approximately 3 per cent, being the increase inflation since the last orders were made in 2000. Under the new fee increases, it is estimated that an additional £2,400 will be collected by the General Registry in the remainder of this financial year, and £3,500 for the full year 2003-04. I beg to move, Mr President. A Member: Agreed. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second. The President: The motion, hon. members, that I put is that printed at item 5 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Fees and Duties (Government Fees) Order 2002 – Approved Item 6. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Fees and Duties (Government Fees) Order 2002 [SD No 169/02] b e approved. The President: Item 6. Minister for the Treasury. Mr Bell: Again, Mr President, this order is made by the Treasury, after consultation with the deemsters and the General Registry. The fees are reviewed biennially to ensure the adequacy of the various fees and to maintain their values against changes in the retail price index. The fees have been increased by approximately 3 per cent, this being the increase in inflation since the last orders were made in 2000. This order now also includes the fee for attesting or legalising a signature and seal for Hague Convention countries and for the rest of the world, which has previously been prescribed in the Legalisation of Documents (Fees and Duties) Order 1997. A fee of £12 maintains parity with the fee prescribed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the UK, and under the new fee increases and amendments, it is estimated that an additional £9,400 will be collected by the General Registry in the remainder of this financial year, and £14,000 for the full year 2003-04. I beg to move, Mr President. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: Hon. member for Peel, Mrs Hannan. Mrs Hannan: Thank you, Eaghtyrane. Could I ask the minister why we need to maintain parity with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office? Surely we should be looking at the cost to us of providing this - the fees and duties - and not looking to someone else to see what they charge and going along with what they are charging? The President: Minister to reply. Mr Bell: I have not got that answer, Mr President, but I assume it is really just because we are continuing what has been previously the responsibility of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and it is to keep parity with what they are doing there, but I can find the answer for the hon. member. The President: Hon. members, the motion I put, then, is printed at 6 on your order paper. Those in favour please say aye; and against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Deeds and Probate Registries (Fees) Order 2002 – Approved Item 7. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Deeds and Probate Registries (Fees) Order 2002 [SD No 171/02] b e approved. The President: Item 7. Minister for the Treasury. Mr Bell: Again, Mr President, this is simply an updating of the fees in line with inflation. I beg to move. The President: Mr Radcliffe. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: The hon. member Mr Lowey. Mr Lowey: Mr President, it may be that these are just in line with inflation, but when you see that the fee now for an estate is roughly £500 plus - it does not take much now for a property and a few bob in the bank to reach an estate of £150,000 to £200,000 - it becomes a question of whether £500 is a fee for a service rendered, because probating an estate in the registry cannot, I do not think, cost £500. It is a revenue earner for the Treasury, that much I can accept, but would he not agree that we are in danger of getting to this being an estate duty as opposed to probating a will? I just say to the minister, in fairness, that this affects virtually every estate on the Island now, and it is becoming quite a large sum of money for the government to be charging for a service. The President: Minister to reply. Mr Bell: I take the point the hon. member has made, Mr President, but, really, it is government policy to increase these fees. There has been criticism in the past because of the long gap between amending the fees to reflect current-day prices. This is simply following what Tynwald has been urging the Treasury to do for some time, which is to make sure that the fees are kept in line with inflation. It is a revenue earner for government, I accept that. The increases are expected to bring in an additional £60,000 for the full financial year, but at this point I can see no argument particularly for reducing them because of the scale of what the hon. member says. There is a schedule of fees payable, I think, on the documentation which has been circulated to members, which I think clearly outlines where the fees are. If, indeed, a problem is identified, then I am sure Treasury at some point will look at it. It has certainly not been raised as a problem with me or, as I understand it, with my Treasury officials to date, but I do take the point the hon. member is making. The President: Hon. members, the motion is printed at 7 on your order paper. Those in favour please say aye; and against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Land Registry Fees Order 2002 – Approved Item 8. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Land Registry Fees Order 2002 [SD No 173/02] be approved. The President: Item 8. Minister for the Treasury to move. Mr Bell: Again, Mr President, this order is made to keep the land registry fees in line with inflation. In this order, though, the following amendments have also been made. Provision has been made to allow a reduced fee for voluntary first registration - £50 - where the premises have already been registered in the Register of Deeds. This fee will be charged irrespective of the monetary value of the property. It is the intention of the land registry to encourage property owners living outside the compulsory registration areas to register their property. It is hoped that by introducing this reduced fee, it will encourage owners who would not otherwise, or indeed have no requirement to, register their property. The land registry also views any registrations as additional revenue for Treasury. There has been a degree of misunderstanding or interpretation in certain circumstances regarding the property value, which requires to be declared on land registry forms and on which fees are based. The wording has been made clearer in order that no misinterpretation could be made. Provision for the reduced rate fee of £50 under the house purchase assistance scheme has been increased from £85,000 to £90,000, and this is in accordance with DoLGE’s equivalent proposed figure. Under the new fee increases and adjustments, it is estimated that an additional £4,000 will be collected in the remainder of this year, and £6,000 in the full year 2003-04, Mr President. I beg to move. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second. The President: The motion, hon. members, is that the Land Registry Fees Order 2002 be approved. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. DHSS Staff – Construction of Houses and Flats – Expenditure Approved Item 9. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That Tynwald approves of the Department of Health and Social Security incurring expenditure not exceeding £2,063,300 for the construction of houses and flats. The President: Item 9. I call on the Minister for Health and Social Security to move. Mrs Christian: Mr President, the motion before the Court represents the second phase of the three-phase scheme for the provision of staff residential accommodation in the immediate location of the new hospital. Hon. members will recall the approval that it gave to the first phase earlier this year at our January sitting. At that time I gave a detailed explanation of the reason for the whole scheme, and I have arranged for the briefing note which was circulated then to be re- issued for ease of reference. The second phase comprises the design and construction of six houses and 28 flats on part of the land which is presently let to the Union Mills Football Club. That club has been relocated to land at Ballaoates under the first phase of this total scheme. The successful tenderer is Auldyn Construction. Construction work, subject to approval of the Court today, will commence on site on 8th July, with completion of the project programmed for next July. In reporting the outcome of the tendering exercise on this design-and-build project, the department’s agents said that ‘comparison with the recent residential developments indicates that the project has been keenly priced and that it is unlikely that if the project had been let traditionally the price could have been bettered. Certainly, the time constraints could not have been met through the traditional procurement route. We are therefore pleased to confirm our opinion that the method of tendering this project has met its objectives and offers our client value for money.’ I beg to move, Mr President. The President: Hon. member for Glenfaba. Mr Anderson: I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran. Mr Karran: Eaghtyrane, I just get up to say that, as far as this proposal is concerned today, I am glad to see that it is going ahead after the long battles and that common sense has prevailed. I remember the previous member for health, Mr Groves, ridiculing and rubbishing the issue that I was raising at that point about the need for accommodation for the new hospital development, and I am glad to see that the minister has got on with this important development, which was of great concern to the staff of the present hospital. I would like to know from the minister: what is the future use for the Union Mills site, the Union Mills changing rooms and the facilities that are there? Is that going to stay? Is it going to be used? What is it going to be used for? Obviously, we have got to support this because it was so vital for the staff and the new hospital, and I am glad to see that it has gone ahead and that the issues that were raised by myself in a previous administration have been vindicated, but I do think it is important that we do recognise that this would have been needed whether there had been a housing crisis or not. The President: Minister to reply. Mrs Christian: Mr President, I am pleased that the hon. member is supportive of the scheme. I would confirm to him that a suitable use for the existing facility developed by Union Mills Football Club on the site is being explored. I have no doubt at all that we will be able to make good use of that facility in relation to the hospital’s activities. The President: Hon. members, the motion I put is printed at 9 on your order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. New Hospital – Helipad – Expenditure Approved Item 10. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That Tynwald approves of the Department of Health and Social Security incurring expenditure not exceeding £223,000 for the provision of a helipad for the new hospital. The President: Item 10. Minister for Health and Social Security. Mrs Christian: Mr President, the plans for the new hospital included provision for a helipad facility sited adjacent to the main hospital car park, essentially for emergency use, including early and immediate access to casualty services during TT and Manx Grand Prix race periods. However, during discussions within the forum of the Joint Emergency Services’ Working Group, a view was taken that, from an emergency planning perspective, there would be benefit in designing a helicopter facility to a standard that was capable of coping with the arrival and evacuation of large numbers of injured, including the possible use of military helicopters during a major disaster incident. In these circumstances, it is now proposed that the opportunity is taken to upgrade the existing plans for the proposed helipad to a specification that will enable the facility to be used both for its original intended use and as a contingency that would satisfy the requirements of the Island’s major incident plan. This will include the provision of an illuminated approach so as to comply with the Civil Aviation Authority guidelines, in order to facilitate its use by larger military or other similarly-sized helicopters during a major incident, including search and rescue missions around the Island’s coastline. The additional cost of providing this enhanced facility is estimated to be £223,000 over and above the contingency sum of £9,184 included within the capital costs projection of the new hospital. I beg to move. The President: Hon. member Mr Braidwood. Mr Braidwood: Thank you, Mr President. I have great pleasure in seconding the motion. As the minister indicated, the idea to upgrade the helipad at the new hospital originated from the Joint Emergency Services’ Working Group as an identified need. The Emergency Planning Officer, looking at the bigger picture of planning for major disasters and multi-casualty situations, indicated that such a site should be capable of operating the largest military helicopter, the Chinook, which is a primary asset in any major disaster relief operation. The Chinook helicopter weighs approximately 54 tonnes and is 100 feet in length. As the smallest Sea King and Wessex helicopters have previously sunk into the football pitch at the National Sports Centre, the Chinook would obviously be at some risk landing on an unstable site. I may also add that, in the opinion of the controller of the Chinook squadron, they would be prepared to land one of their helicopters at the NSC in extremis, provided it was a matter of life or death; they would much prefer to land at a purpose-built site. For any helicopter, the most crucial part of their flight is immediately after take-off, when they are entirely reliant on the power of their engines for lift. They have little forward motion and no possibility of auto-rotating back to a gentle landing in the event of engine failure. This part of the flight profile is called the dead man’s curve for good reason. That is why helicopter pilots prefer to make a running take-off and a run-on landing rather than hover. The risk of debris being blown up and ingested into the engines is also lessened if the helicopter has forward motion. The NSC site is therefore neither suitable nor safe for Chinook operations, and possibly not even for Sea King operations, due to the presence of many obstacles and the lack of adequate approach/departure slopes. The Chinook also generates a very fierce downdraught, more so if operating in the hover rather than doing a run-on. Even the Sea King, which is smaller, has been known to blow over light aircraft below it on the ground. The helipad, as envisaged, is on a raised area to allow for engine difficulties on take-off or landing. The site will also have an illuminated windsock, which is a great aid to helicopter pilots in judging their approach. Mr President, I hope this additional information will assist hon. members to support this motion standing in the name of the hon. member of Council, the Minister for the Department of Health and Social Security. The President: Hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran. Mr Karran: Eaghtyrane, I am glad that this has come forward today. I do hope that the minister can inform this Court of any difficulties with the staff and that you have got agreement about the location of the A & E department. I would also like to ask the minister if she can tell this hon. Court whether the possibility of a new prison being located in the vicinity will have any effects as far as the CAA regulations are concerned, and hopefully we would make sure that we do not end up seeing another white elephant developed because of the fact that we do not look at all the implications. I would also just like to say that I hope that this proposal will give flexibility to the department in looking at other ways of transporting patients on and off the Island to the United Kingdom. So, I shall obviously be supporting this proposal in front of this hon. Court today, but I do think it is important that the issues that we fought to arrange to get this facility provided have not been forgotten and that they have got the full agreement of the staff on the location of this. The other important issue is that there will be no problems with the CAA over the regulations with other prominent buildings being put in this area. The President: Now, hon. members, I am aware of the clock, but I think that, with goodwill, we may be able to finish this item before lunch if we have a sort of ‘guillotine’ at quarter past one. Hon. member for Douglas East, Mrs Cannell. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr President. I shall be very brief, sir. Whilst it was illuminating to listen to the detail of the helicopter being proposed to be used on this site by my friend and colleague for Douglas East, I would sincerely hope that, whilst it is taking off or landing, it is not going to go anywhere near our wonderful oak wood (Laughter) and that the tops of those crowns will be protected and not sliced off by any blades. What I would like to ask the minister is: is the department proposing to have in supply one or more helicopters during race periods, and does the provision of this helipad only service such during motor sport activities because, at the bottom of the memorandum, it says that the ‘health services’ strategic policy framework states that service provision will continue to take account of the emphasis placed on the Island on motor sport activities?’ Am I to read in there, then, that the helipad and helicopters will only be utilised during motor sporting activities on the Island and that we will not be able to kick in the service, as was mentioned by the previous speaker, for those emergency situations, perhaps, when we need to get somebody off for an operation in the United Kingdom sooner rather than later, bearing in mind the problems that we now have with the takeover of Manx Airlines at the airport? So, I would like to know whether or not they have looked further than just a provision during motor sporting activities. And will the illuminated approach aspect of all of this require additional planning? Clearly, whilst it is illuminated during the hours of darkness, it is going to be - and particularly, as it is raised, I suppose, it might be considered to be - objectionable to people in the area. So, has it been to planning? Will it require to go to planning? Under 4 on the memorandum here, it says that the contingency of the department was £9,184 for the provision of this helipad, and we are now looking at an estimate - and only an estimate - of £223,000. There is a huge (Interjetions) step up there, and I just wonder what the previous contingency of £9,184 actually included. What were we going to get, or what did the department expect to be provided with, for that? Was it meeting the same engineering specifications as this now newly-proposed one, or are we talking about a variation there, with the engineering specifications of this proposed helipad at £223,000 exceeding the specification that were required for the contingency? Was any work done there? How did they come up with the contingency of £9,184? And finally, what can we expect for £223,000? We have heard from my friend, the hon. member for Douglas East, what we can expect to find landing on £223,000 worth of specification, but what is actually included in that specification? Why is it much more than was previously considered to be the required sum? (Interjections) Those are all the queries that I have, Mr President. The President: Hon. member for Douglas North, Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson: Thank you, Mr President. I rise with some concern about this scheme and certainly about the comments made by the hon. member for East Douglas, Mr Braidwood, in relation to the type of helicopter he is assuming is going to use this helipad or the possibility of this type of helicopter using this helipad. I do not know if hon. members are aware of what he was talking about - he did give us a big aviation lesson (Laughter) - but a Chinook helicopter is a double-rotor helicopter that you may all have seen in the TV series ‘M.A.S.H.’: a huge, great military transportation helicopter that can ship loads of ground troops and heavy equipment from A to B and which certainly acquitted itself well in Vietnam for its manoeuvrability and taking off from rough terrain with no problems whatsoever. What concerns me is: why are we spending nearly £1/2 million on something like this, and what is it that we are expecting these Chinook helicopters to ferry in here? The only conclusion I can come to is possibly some sort of contingency plan if anything happens at Sellafield, otherwise why on earth would we be expecting a deluge of Chinook helicopters in here when the normal search and rescue choppers are, as Mr Braidwood said, Sea King helicopters, which will soon be replaced by the new Merlin chopper, nowhere near as big as what has been proposed here? I would like the minister to explain what the thinking is behind a helipad designed primarily to take Chinook army helicopters. Very interesting, Mr President, but what has it got to do with our new hospital? The President: The Chief Minister. Mr Corkill: Mr President, I was not going to speak on this motion, but I really wanted to contribute on a few points just in general terms, because this is about emergency planning. We have heard about contingencies now for Sellafield blowing up and things like that; the sort of contingency planning that I could envisage - and hopefully it will never happen - is an accident at sea involving a ferry or something. I have to say, from my point of view on this motion, that I think, situated as we are in the middle of the Irish Sea, at the very centre of the British Isles, in quite an exposed location, but strategically very important to people other than just ourselves, we have an obligation to make sure that we have at least the ability to put one of these big helicopters down in an emergency. And can I say that this whole concept of a helicopter landing facility at the new hospital is not new. This is all about making sure that what we are planning for the future is up to specification and will cope into the future, and I certainly think that this is very little money if you look at the safety aspects of the pilots of such helicopters and the job that they do. They do an excellent emergency job. This Island depends very much on the services of RAF Valley, as we all know, and heaven forbid we might have to rely on the services of even larger apparatus landing at the hospital. It seems to me that this is an opportunity, in the light of knowledge, and there has been this working group from all the aspects of government involved in this, because I am sure the Minister for Health will say this is not specifically an issue for her but she has brought this to this Court for approval because it covers more than one area of government. But the hon. minister is responsible for delivering the new hospital, and I think it is quite right that this issue is highlighted for members to consider at this stage. Although it is a lot of money - nearly £1/4 million - in my book it is value for money when you take into account the emergency which might never happen. Several Members: Hear, hear. The President: Minister to reply. Mrs Christian: Thank you, Mr President. I would concur with the hon. Chief Minister that, indeed, this is not primarily a DHSS matter but I am being the conduit through which it is being moved because clearly it is timely for it to be done on the site at this time. If I can answer the questions which have been raised, first of all by the hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran. I can confirm that the helicopter site, if it goes ahead, would have no effect on any potential development of a prison site. All those areas and issues have been cleared with the CAA in respect of the development of the specification for this enhanced helicopter site facility. The hon. member Mrs Cannell has raised the question of damage to the oak wood. I can assure her that the flight path is on the opposite side of the hospital, but in any case I would not wish to be slicing off the tops of trees, because that would provide for us more patients than it would solve problems. The department had originally planned a facility at a cost of £9,000, a very basic helicopter facility for the purposes of the flights which we are familiar with in relation to races, and that is why there is a reference in the memo to us fulfilling our strategic policy issue in relation to services relating to motor sport activities. However, in the interim, we have also been exploring the possibility of using helicopter facilities for patient transport. They have, at this time, proved to be too expensive for the Island to wish to undertake. However, that is not to say that it could not be explored again in the future. There are a number of issues there: a) expense; b) satisfaction to those people who are providing the service from the hospital; and patient comfort and so on. So, those are issues which have currently not been furthered but, of course, can be reviewed from time to time in the light of the fact that they would prevent the ambulance transportation from the hospital to the airport which is currently necessary. The issue really has come about because of the wish of the emergency planning team to have a better facility which is closely related to the hospital facility, because it is very likely that that is where most of their passengers would be going to. Currently they would be landing at Ronaldsway or, in extremis, as the hon. member has indicated, at the NSC, depending on the size of the helicopter. Now, clearly our provision for the size and weight of helicopter that we use for races is on a different scale from that of the helicopters which are used for emergency evacuations and major incidents. That is the reason for this very substantial uplift in cost. It has been determined necessary. I do not know whether a Sikorsky or a Chinook is appropriate; it has been a matter for the emergency planning team to determine what they feel is necessary for our future emergency requirements in the Island. Heaven forbid that it should ever be used is what I say, but let us at least be prepared to cope in the event that it could be needed. The planning applications have all been through and approved, so that is certainly not an issue. The hon. member for North Douglas, Mr Henderson, has said, ‘What has it got to do with our new hospital?’ (Interjection by Mr Henderson) Relatively little to do with our new hospital, except that it would facilitate people being brought in from an emergency situation getting as close as possible to the hospital and preclude the need for an additional journey by ambulance by road. So all of those issues are part and parcel of this matter. The costs are set out. There are additional costs because of the additional specification needed for the base on which the helicopter will land. There is necessary roadwork to be done in addition to what was originally anticipated, cable upgrade because of the electricity requirements and the further illumination and lighting requirements to the site and so on. All of that comes to this figure, including the overheads, contingencies, less, of course, the original helipad provision, contractors’ fees and professional fees. All of those, Mr President, have been clearly worked out by chartered quanity surveyors. It is a matter for the determination of the Court whether it feels that it is appropriate that we make such a provision. If I can speak from a healthcare perspective, clearly it is advantageous to have any patients brought as close as possible. I will leave it with the hon. Court. I believe that the Home Affairs department, who are primarily engaged in the area of emergency planning, have made their case for a site on which we could land a substantial helicopter, and I beg to move, Mr President. The President: Hon. members, I put to you, then, the motion printed at item 10 on your order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Hon. members, this is an appropriate time at which to make a break. We will resume our deliberations at 2.30 p.m. with the Chief Minister to move item 11. Thank you, hon. members. The Court adjourned at 1.30 p.m. and resumed its sitting at 2.30 p.m. Commission of Inquiry into Mount Murray – Authority to Award Legal Costs – Motion Carried Item 11. The Chief Minister to move: That Tynwald gives authority to the chairman of the commission of inquiry into Mount Murray to award reasonable legal costs to witnesses called to give evidence to the inquiry. The President: At our adjournment, hon. members, we had just completed item 10 on the order paper. We move on to item 11, and I call on the Chief Minister to move. Mr Corkill: Thank you, Mr President. It is my task today to place before Tynwald a request which the Mount Murray commission of inquiry has made to His Excellency the Lieutenant- Governor and which he has asked Tynwald to consider, so I act in this as a conduit from the commission to Tynwald through His Excellency. The commission of inquiry into Mount Murray started hearing evidence in public on 23rd May 2002 and held public hearings until 31st May 2002. Following a break, further hearings are scheduled to take place throughout July. On the basis of preliminary research undertaken by the commission, and having regard to evidence now taken, the commission has taken a view that a number of individuals called to give evidence may be the subject of significant criticism by the commission. The commission has therefore decided that, in accordance with the requirement of natural justice, witnesses should be entitled to legal representation. It is further decided that those likely to be subject to significant criticism should be able to receive reasonable legal costs at public expense. This is consistent with current practice in public inquiries in the United Kingdom. The commission is undertaking its inquiry in accordance with the Inquiries (Evidence) Act 1950 and has received evidence from H M Attorney-General’s Chambers that the Act does not give the commission authority to award legal costs to witnesses using public funds. Furthermore, the commission has been advised that there is no such provision in any other legislation on the Isle of Man. Accordingly, a decision to authorise the commission to pay legal costs can only be made by Tynwald. The commission has therefore written to His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, requesting that a resolution be put to Tynwald at this sitting to obtain Tynwald approval for the commission of inquiry to be given the authority to award legal costs to witnesses out of public funds. The commission has yet to identify precisely the circumstances in which it would wish to award legal costs. However, it is confirmed that costs should not be paid where it is considered that the witness concerned is in a position to pay his or her own costs in relation to this inquiry. This will include interested local authorities, property developers or other relevant companies. In general terms, the commission has estimated a possible cost implication in the region of £60,000, based on 12 witnesses at £5,000 each, but indicated that the overall expenditure should still remain within the spending approved by Tynwald in March 2002 of the £300,000 voted then. As I understand it, the commission will follow the rules of the High Court of Justice of the Isle of Man as regards the award and assessment of costs. Mr President, I beg to move, sir. The President: Hon. member Mr Delaney. Mr Delaney: Mr President, I rise to second the resolution in front of the Court today and, like the mover of the resolution, I have already had the privilege of giving evidence to this inquiry, but I take this opportunity, as this is a matter for the Governor’s inquiry, to raise a matter of some concern to me. I noticed, when I arrived at this building, that, in the book signed by people and notifying the court who attends these things, graffiti had been written by somebody attending the court. I do not know whose responsibility it is - whether it be the QC in charge of this case or the Governor - but I would like somebody to look at what happened down there and let me know if that is not contempt. Some £300,000 of your taxpayers’ money is going to be spent on this inquiry, and to think that anyone would treat such an inquiry with any contempt upsets me greatly. I would like, Mr President, to put on record my complete abhorrence of such a situation occurring in the Isle of Man, and I hope that somebody will take action to either remove it or to pursue the people who have put that comment in that book. The President: Hon. member for Garff, Mr Rodan. Mr Rodan: No, I just rose mainly to formally second, sir. The President: Hon. member for Rushen, Mr Gill. Mr Gill: Thank you, Eaghtyrane. My first observation in the motion is the presumption of ‘reasonable’ and ‘legal costs’ being synonymous, and I understand the caveats the Chief Minister has quite properly explained. The point I would like to make, in relation to natural justice, is: is there any disadvantage to witnesses who have previously given evidence without legal representation? The President: Mr Speaker. The Speaker: Yes, thank you, Mr President. I have to say I am very uneasy about this, not in terms of providing reasonable legal costs if, in fact, they are legitimately required; I find it so unusual not to have any indication of a scheme apart from, as the Chief Minister has now just mentioned, the fact that they are going to use the High Court of Justice awards, as I understand what he said. I presume - and I again would like it to be confirmed - that what the Chief Minister is saying is that these costs will be contained within the vote that has already been approved by Tynwald, but it does seem to me that this whole thing is moving on into uncharted waters that we did not intend it to be in. I would like the Chief Minister to confirm that we are not talking about witnesses being represented by QCs and we are not talking about the commission themselves employing a QC to act on their behalf to question, because certainly if we are going to get into these sorts of arguments then we are talking about a whole different situation than I think Tynwald Court envisaged. All of us want to get this matter resolved and we want an independent report on the situation, but we do not want it to go overboard to a stage where the whole thing is totally out of control and we end up with something, really, that has just been taken way out of context. Serious allegations have been made; we want them investigated. We have already had one inquiry into this issue, and we are now talking about changing the game to say, ‘Well, people can also get legal costs’. What for? Does that mean that anyone who goes along can have an advocate sitting with them and claim legal costs? That is what it sounded like from what the Chief Minister said, unless, of course, they are a local authority, but otherwise they would be able to get it. The other issue is, of course, that the chairman of the inquiry said that nobody would be subject to proceedings in civil courts through giving evidence at this inquiry, so we are presumably talking about protecting people who may be subject to criminal proceedings. I have to say that the wording of the motion before us - the two and a half lines - to be quite honest, does not give me comfort to say that I am happy to support the Chief Minister on this one, because I do not know what I am voting for. I just know that I am being asked to vote, and the members of the Court are being asked to vote, to allow the chairman of the commission to award reasonable costs. I just find it strange. It might be done in the UK, but that is not how the Isle of Man operates. The Isle of Man system has always been that the Isle of Man, usually through Tynwald Court, approves a scheme. We have not even got a scheme here before us for Tynwald to approve; it does not have to be in law. The Chief Minister has already said that the Act under which this inquiry is being carried out does not allow for the awarding of costs, yet we are being asked to make it. Therefore, those who passed that Act had no intention of awarding costs. Time has moved on, I accept that, but I do think that we are not getting the proper information from the government to ask us to make a proper decision where a considerable amount of taxpayers’ money could be used, and I have to say I am very uneasy about that. I do hope the Chief Minister can give me some comfort so that if I am asked what it is about, at least I can answer my constituents and others as to why we are being asked to approve, really, what is an open cheque, because whilst they may contain it within the vote, we do know that if the vote goes over, the Chief Minister will have to come back to Tynwald Court and ask for more money. Now, hopefully he will not, but when the Chief Minister presented his case for the funds for the inquiry initially, you did make it clear, Chief Minister - through you, Mr President - that, in fact, you did not know what it was going to cost for this inquiry. Mr Corkill: I don’t. The Speaker: Therefore, I think, I am just trying to get some sort of comfort, which I do not really find in the way that it has been presented here this afternoon, to make me say, ‘Yes, okay, I am happy to support that’. At the end of the day, we are responsible for the taxpayers’ funds and we do want to see this matter brought to a conclusion because it is an issue that we are all unhappy about. Quite clearly - and I am someone who has given evidence to the inquiry, by the way - for those who give evidence, it is pretty straightforward, so why is there suddenly this need for there to be a payment of legal costs? We all know legal costs can spiral totally out of control, even if you do have some form of scheme - and we have no scheme. The President: Hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran. Mr Karran: A point of order - I do not wish to speak at this point. Will the hon. Speaker declare an interest, being the Minister of Local Government and the Environment when this issue came about? Do you think members should declare their interests in this hon. House when they do these things? The Speaker: Mr President, I am quite happy to make it absolutely clear, as I did at the inquiry, which shows that - (Interjection by Mr Karran) If I can make it clear to the hon. member for Onchan, who usually does not know enough about what he is talking about, that, as Minister for Local Government and the Environment, responsible for planning, I had no involvement whatsoever with this planning application. (Interjection by Mr Karran) The President: The indication was given, in Mr Speaker’s opening remarks of the fact that he had given evidence to the commission. (Two Members: Absolutely.) Hon. member for Ayre. Mr Quine: Thank you, Mr President. I think the situation that we have reflected in this motion is largely a consequence of our position in relation to these inquiries being somewhat outdated. I think that is the situation that we are in. I am aware, of course, that if this had been an inquiry elsewhere, in all probability we would have had counsel for the commission, which would have more than doubled the cost, perhaps, of what we are talking about now. Even if we approve what is before us today, I think we are still running the inquiry on a pretty tight financial rein, so I do not find that particularly disturbing. Turning to the crux of the matter, which is, as I understand it - indeed, the Chief Minister has said so - that the latitude that the chairman of the commission is seeking to obtain is that which already applies in the United Kingdom, I presume by that that there must be some rules of court or something equivalent to that which applies and which provides guidance in some form to the chairman in that other jurisdiction. Therefore it would be helpful, I think, if we knew whether or not such rules do exist in the UK, because it may be that it is open to this Court - if they were minded to - in approving this motion here today, to attach that type of control by cross- referencing it to whatever the rules of court may be in that other place, which would ensure that it was not as open-ended, perhaps, as some may fear. But it is really a matter that I do not think we can say ‘no’ to. We have started down . . . This inquiry is now running, and I personally have a regard to the path that we have travelled. I am not now likely to take exception to it, and it is something we are going to have to live with. We have the assurance from the chairman to the commission - we have a clear indication, at least, passed to us through the Chief Minister - as to what he intends to do and how he intends to apply it, so the only reservation that I have, the only point that I would like to make, is that if there are rules of court that relate to the exercise of these discretions in the other place where this is done, perhaps if we knew about those and perhaps if we could make reference to that, some additional comfort could be provided to this hon. Court, sir. A Member: Hear, hear. The President: Hon. member of Council, Mr Waft. Mr Waft: Thank you, Mr President. I, too, have given evidence to this commission of inquiry. I would just like to state at the outset that this is only a broad overall picture that the chairman appears to be looking for at the moment; the actual investigatory process will come at a later date. There is a possibility that maybe people will be called again, so there is a suggestion, therefore, that when you go to the court and from what you say, you could be held liable in a future court at a future date. Although there is some indemnity given and the chairman did indicate that at the outset, it is only a limited indemnity that is offered. In the case of evidence that can be given by members, I think it is only reasonably prudent to accept the fact that there could be liability in one shape or form from whichever direction it does come, and I think limited costs would be in order for everybody to understand that it is necessary in this case. Thank you, Mr President. The President: Hon. member of Council, Mrs Christian. Mrs Christian: Mr President, I think that the argument is being put that in similar inquiries in the United Kingdom such support is available. I think, though, that members have raised issues of concern, in particular in relation to, perhaps, people who have already been. Although the hon. member Mr Waft has indicated that this is a preliminary kind of canter and that the serious questioning may come later, we do not know that, and I do feel that, even in the case of those people who have been: were they advised that perhaps they should have legal advisers with them? (A Member: No.) If they were not, is it, as the hon. member for Rushen says, equitable that somewhere along the way this should be introduced? I am a bit concerned that the chairman of the commission of inquiry did not clear all these lines before the matter started. I understand and certainly support the principle that our inquiry should be run on the ‘normal’ basis. I wonder if the Chief Minister has the information to advise us about deferring this to the next sitting of Tynwald - perhaps, with Mr President’s permission, on a supplementary order paper if it is too late (Interjection) - to give members a great deal more information than they currently have, because we are saying that the chairman will devise a scheme but we do not know what parameters he is going to devise in terms of who will qualify. We know that people who qualify for legal aid will be entitled to it anyway; is he going to say that everyone else who is not a corporate entity or a local authority or in one of the other categories that the Chief Minister indicated is going to be entitled to costs? Will there be any individual limits on the facilities that legally will be made available to them? I appreciate that perhaps the Chief Minister is not in a position to know what the timetable is. I have a feeling that the commission has adjourned for the time being - but I may be wrong in that - and that they will continue their investigations later in the summer, but I can well understand that, whilst we may all feel comfortable with the principle of operating our commission on what is now regarded as the ‘normal’ basis, there are some issues which are not presented clearly in terms of equality of those people who have already been without the advice that they should have had legal representation. The President: Hon. member of Council, Mr Crowe. Mr Crowe: Mr President, I was wondering if the learned Attorney might be able to give some assistance in this area. The President: Mr Attorney. The Attorney-General: Yes, thank you, Mr President. I have, in fact, prepared a letter in relation to two questions on the commission of inquiry - a letter for the learned Clerk of Tynwald - and I am more than happy to summarise the main issues in that letter, with a view, hopefully, to explaining in some further detail the issues which are to be considered in this resolution. Perhaps before I do that though, could I just say that reference was made, I think on Manx Radio, to the fact that witnesses who were to appear before the tribunal were in some way to be given immunity from prosecution. That, I think, is the way I heard it on the radio. I do not think that that can possibly be the case; I think the intention was that the chairman of the commission wished to make it clear that witnesses who appeared before the tribunal and gave evidence as such would be immune from liability for defamation, and that is so because witnesses who appear before tribunals and, of course - the High Court is a very good example - witnesses who appear before courts and who give their evidence in good faith should not be subjected to the threat of proceedings for defamation. As I understand it, it was the intention of the chairman that that was as far as he would go. I do not think there can be any question that witnesses are immune from prosecution. There is no shield against prosecution for a criminal matter which might be disclosed as a result of the inquiry’s proceedings. Could I also say that, in so far as those witnesses who have already given evidence are concerned, that, as I see it again, is entirely proper. The chairman and the members of the tribunal wished to be advised as to the background of the issues, and what I anticipate will happen is that the chairman will, in fact, give due notice to those witnesses who have either been called previously or who are about to be called that they are likely to be subjected to some criticism and, perhaps, cross-examination, either at the hands of the chairman of the tribunal or it may be that the tribunal will wish to have the services of counsel to the tribunal for that purpose. I do not know; it is a matter for the tribunal chairman as to whether he employs the services of counsel. So, with those introductory comments, I was invited to give a view as to whether the Inquiries (Evidence) Act 1950 was sufficient to enable the reasonable costs of witnesses to be paid without coming to Tynwald to have the resolution passed which we are considering today. I think it might be helpful just to remind ourselves of the terms of the resolution, which was in February 2002: ‘that Tynwald request the Governor to appoint a commission comprising three independent persons to investigate and report on the government’s handling of the irregularities occurring at Mount Murray referred to in the Report of an Inquiry into Planning and Development and other matters at Mount Murray and to make any appropriate recommendations in relation thereto’. Thus far, not controversial. This is the important point: then the second aspect of the resolution was ‘that the chairman of the commission so appointed be authorised to exercise all the powers set out in section 1(1) of the Inquiries (Evidence) Act 1950 with reference to requiring the attendance of persons to give evidence, the protection of documents and the taking of evidence.’ Now, as we know, on 19th March, Tynwald resolved that the commission be requested to investigate also allegations of corruption made in Tynwald Court at its sitting in February 2002. And then, in his letter of 3rd April to all Tynwald members, His Excellency stated that the conduct and timing of the inquiry must be left to the commission itself. The reason why I referred specifically to section 1(1) of the Inquiries (Evidence) Act, which is the section the chairman is entitled to rely upon, is that that is a fairly narrow provision and it is designed to authorise the chairman to summon witnesses to give evidence and to produce documents and, indeed, to take evidence on oath. That is the extent of his authority in terms of the Tynwald resolution. There is no express provision in that Tynwald resolution as to the payment of costs of witnesses or the employment of counsel to protect witnesses, and therefore it was my first duty, really, to advise whether the commission chairman could rely on a later section in the Act, section 1(5). If I may refer to that, section 1(5) says: ‘The commission holding the inquiry may make orders as to the costs of the inquiry and the costs of the parties at such inquiry and as to the parties by whom such costs shall be paid, and the chairman of the said commission may certify the amount of the costs so incurred and any amount so certified and directed by the commission to be paid by any authority or person shall be recoverable from that authority or person summarily as a civil debt, and every such order may be made a rule of the High Court on the application of any party named in the order.’ Now, the reason I have referred to that at some length is that it seems to me that the purpose of section 1(5) is to enable the chairman of the commission, if a particular party has acted unreasonably and has perhaps caused the inquiry to have been summoned in the first place, totally unreasonably and without cause, to say, ‘Well, I am quite convinced in my own mind that Mr X should pay the costs of the other people who have been ordered to come along to give evidence.’ In other words, it was my view that it is rather like the powers of the deemster in the High Court to say, upon hearing the evidence, that the unsuccessful party should bear the costs of the successful party. That is, of course, a very common order which is made in the High Court. It is significant, though, that section 1(5) does not authorise the public purse to bear the costs of the witnesses involved; it is designed, in my view, to enable the chairman to make an order punishing a party who has caused the inquiry to pay those costs. It was my view that it would be quite proper to say that section 1(5) does apply to this inquiry, even though it was not expressly referred to in the Tynwald resolution, and therefore, in my view, the chairman does have those powers, but it does not take us very much further in relation to the question before Tynwald today. In my view, as I say, there is no power to order that the costs of witnesses be paid by the public purse, nor is there any power to employ advocates. Our legislation is different from the legislation in England; in England, we have the provision, set out in the 1921 Act, as amended, which says that, in addition to the other powers I have just referred to, ‘the tribunal shall have power to authorise the representation before them of any person appearing to them to be interested, to be by counsel or solicitor or otherwise, or to refuse to allow such representation.’ So, we see that in England there is an express power for the tribunal to authorise legal representation. We do not have that power, and therefore it makes it even more important today that Tynwald decide whether or not legal representation be permitted. There is a gap in our legislation, which I suggest needs to be filled in due course, but certainly, with the state of the legislation as it is, there is no power, in my view, based on the statute, to authorise payment of legal costs. Indeed, the position, I think, was unclear even in the United Kingdom, because in April of this year it was necessary for the Treasury Solicitor to issue guidance. Again, if I may refer to the extract from the guidance as follows - this is from the Treasury Solicitor in England: ‘There is no statutory authority for the payment of legal costs to interested parties at inquiries generally. In the case of inquiries established under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, section 2(b) of the Act empowers a tribunal to authorise the representation before them of any person appearing to them to be interested, to be by counsel or solicitor or otherwise, or to refuse to allow such representation, but is silent as to legal costs.’ So, even in the United Kingdom, where we had the express power to employ counsel, there was no express reference as to the payment of legal costs, and it was necessary for the Attorney-General, in answer to a parliamentary question, to set out the basis upon which the United Kingdom Government would exercise its discretion to pay costs, and I think, Mr President, that this is an important statement of principle. This is what the Attorney said in England: ‘Tribunals and public inquiries can be set up in a variety of ways. So far as ad hoc tribunals and inquiries are concerned, for example into major accidents, the government already pays the administrative costs. So far as the costs of legal representation of parties to any inquiry are concerned, where the government have a discretion, they always take careful account of the recommendations on costs of the tribunal or inquiry concerned. In general, the government accept the need to pay out of public funds the reasonable costs of any necessary party to the inquiry who would be prejudiced in seeking representation were he in any doubt about funds becoming available. The government do not accept that the costs of substantial bodies should be met from public funds unless there are special circumstances. In recent inquiries, there have been demands from numerous potential parties, at the preliminary hearing and subsequently, to be granted rights of representation at public expense. If uncontrolled, this could lead to enormous expense. Tribunals have exercised their discretion to limit the grant of such representation, expecting parties whose interests are not in conflict to have joint representation, limiting representation to those persons whose conduct was likely to be the subject of significant criticism or where it was likely they would need representation to assist the tribunal. Representation at private expense has been expected where the party concerned is in the position to pay its own costs, including corporations, public authorities and often trade unions.’ It was my view, in light of that - and I expressed it as such to the learned Clerk of Tynwald - that, in the absence of any such guidance in the Isle of Man, it was justifiable to adopt a cautious approach to the application of our legislation in relation to legal costs. But it is quite clear, I think, from that extract from the Attorney’s view, that where parties whose conduct was likely to be the subject of significant criticism could not pay the legal costs themselves because they were not significant parties and did not have the assets available to them, it was in the public interest that those persons’ costs should be borne by the public purse. I would suggest, Mr President, that those principles would be equally applicable today. I hope that that reference to my letter will be of assistance to hon. members. The President: Hon. member for Rushen, Mrs Crowe. Mrs Crowe: I just wanted to ask the Attorney-General a question, please, if I might. I, too, have given evidence and, in fact, sat through listening to some 31/2 hours of questioning of the Minister of DoLGE at that time, but what I was just wanting some clarification on was: is it the chairman of the commission who will determine who needs legal representation? Will he suggest that this person A or person B may be disadvantaged but all those who have previously given evidence, or, in fact, any people who are being called this week, do not need it? Is it in his determination who gets legal representation? And on what basis would he determine that? Because he has made some judgement that they may be disadvantaged? I am just a little unclear. I am sorry to have misunderstood your very fulsome explanation. The President: Mr Attorney. The Attorney-General: Yes, thank you, Mr President. My anticipation is that the chairman, at this stage of the proceedings, is making himself familiar with the issues, and, of course, he has the benefit of reading the Crow report and so on and so forth. I am quite certain that the chairman would be very well aware of the need to give any witness a fair hearing before the tribunal - he would be very well aware of the current human rights aspects of this tribunal hearing - and I have no doubt that the chairman will give advance notice to a person that he or she is likely to be subject to criticism. As I understand it, at the moment we have not got to that stage at all; all that has happened is that those persons who have an obvious and direct involvement in the proceedings and can give him some background as to how the Isle of Man Government works - how the Department of Local Government works - have tried to give evidence with a view to assisting, but there is no question at this stage of any party being susceptible to adverse criticism. If that happens at all, Mr President, it will be the next stage, and, as I say, I am quite sure that the chairman would give advance notice so that then legal representation can obtained. The President: Mr Speaker. The Speaker: I would just like some clarification, if I may, from the learned Attorney- General, Mr President. It is basically in relation to persons who are not Tynwald members but who, at the relevant time, were members of the Planning Committee: if we are moving into a position where there is going to be legal representation, can the Attorney confirm for me whether or not - and this could apply to members of Tynwald who were also involved at the relevant time - they would be provided with an advocate from government, in other words, funded by government, as would be the norm in cases that go before the courts? And therefore, if that is the case, are we then only talking about those persons who are private individuals and who have had no involvement in terms of their government responsibilities? The President: Mr Attorney. The Attorney-General: If I understand the question from Mr Speaker correctly, what he is asking is whether, for example, the government advocate would be able to represent any party before the tribunal. I do not think that would be appropriate. The fact is that the government advocate and, indeed, I have given advice to the chairman of the inquiry and, as you have heard, to the learned clerk of Tynwald, and it would be my expectation that the appropriate thing to do would be to have an advocate from private practice employed and that the fees of that advocate would be assessed by the Chief Registrar as to hourly rates and the required amount of time and so on, so that it is as if the person concerned had had legal aid, although I am not suggesting that the legal aid rates would be the appropriate rates, but nonetheless that would be the principle on which I think we would proceed. I do not think it would be possible, in the events that have happened, for the Attorney-General’s Chambers to provide that advice. The President: Mr Speaker. The Speaker: Yes, Mr President. Just to get it absolutely clear, is the Attorney indicating, then, that a person who acted by appointment of government in a rôle at the relevant time when this all happened - and I look specifically at the planning department, because, of course, the Planning Committee consists of non-Tynwald members may not be fully covered in terms of any legal costs? The President: Mr Attorney. The Attorney-General: Mr President, as I have analysed it, it is only those persons who are going to be open to substantial criticism who will need to have the services of an advocate funded in the way I have suggested. If a person is summoned to the tribunal and is not given notice that he or she is liable to criticism, then, of course, he or she has nothing to fear. Of course, if he or she wishes to have legal representation, I have no doubt that the tribunal chairman would have no objection to that whatsoever, but that person then, I would suggest, would have to pay the costs of that advocate. The President: Hon. member for Michael, Mr Cannan. Mr Cannan: I think, on behalf of us all, we are grateful for the explanations of the Attorney- General, who has cleared the air considerably this afternoon, but I think we want to look at the reason for this tribunal being established, which was that it was the unanimous will of Tynwald that there was to be an investigation into the allegations made and the further allegations of corruption. I believe it is in the public interest that there must be no backsliding on this matter by Tynwald (A Member: Hear, hear.), because the criticism of Tynwald and the public standing of Tynwald will be brought into considerable disrepute. We have gone down this path, the governor has appointed the tribunal, we have funded the tribunal, and, on the recommendation of the chairman of the tribunal, supported, I would suggest, by the explanations given by the Attorney- General this afternoon, that it may be necessary for legal expenses to be provided. It would, in my opinion, bring this Court into disrepute, after having heard the explanations of the Attorney- General, to start to make excuses and to start to almost undermine the authority of the chairman and the investigation he is carrying out by denying this recommendation of his that those who will be, or may be, subject to criticism will be advised by him that they may need legal advice. I believe, Mr President, that it behoves this Court today, having established the tribunal, to support the tribunal, to support the chairman and to allow this to go forward. I am confident that the Attorney-General, the High Court and the Chief Minister will ensure that there is no misappropriation of money, that it will be correctly accounted for, and that the tribunal, which is required, I believe, to report by October, can go about its business in the knowledge that it has the full support of this Court, which unanimously established it only last February. The President: The Chief Minister to reply. Mr Corkill: Thank you, Mr President. I have carefully taken note of members’ comments and I, too, would like to thank the Attorney-General for his lucid explanation of the situation. Perhaps, in my opening comments, I could have made reference to the fact that the Treasury was, in fact, concerned that there should be some control over the commission’s awarding of costs; the commission has said that it is content to use the High Court rules so that the costs are assessed by the Chief Registrar, and that satisfies the Treasury aspects. It satisfies myself in terms of moving this motion. In my opening comments, I made the point that I was acting as a conduit for this motion. It was a unanimous vote of Tynwald for this commission to be set up, so I think any member of this Tynwald Court assembled could have, in fact, been moving this motion today, because it is providing resources for the commission to carry on its independent work, and I do not wish to make any comment, as Chief Minister representing the government of the Isle of Man, in terms of the functions and the carrying out of its responsibilities. It is not for me to comment on; I await the results of the commission of inquiry with great interest, and that is all I will say on the issue of the process so far and into the future. I think what has been made clear in the debate is that there is this two-stage process, effectively, and that at this stage the legal costs have really not been an issue for those who have already been to give evidence. But in terms of natural justice, the chairman is saying that there may be significant criticism of individuals, and therefore, in the rules that he is used to, which is the UK of course, he sees that the money should be made available. I would just like to quantify the money again, because there was a comment that we are not in control of this expenditure. I think that has been one of the main concerns, and these commissions of inquiry are bound to be open-ended, but, of course, for housekeeping, we have to produce some sort of budget, which was the original £300,000. I am advised that these costs we are talking about today are within that figure and could be about £60,000. Just to explain to hon. members how that £60,000 comes about on this line of costs I have got here, which is the cost estimate, and it is broadbrush: witness legal costs, approximately 12 witnesses, five days’ legal support each at £1,000 per day, £60,000. That is the thinking behind the numbers of this motion. I will not go through the comments being made by hon. members one at a time because I think the debate has answered itself as we have gone through it, and I think the Attorney- General has done that. Certainly, there was one comment from one hon. member suggesting that we might defer this, and there is, to some extent perhaps, some merit in that in as much as we could produce the High Court rules for members to peruse. I have not got a copy of them in front of me, but I am content that they are there, but then we immediately heard the shout, ‘Cover up’, so I do not intend to defer the motion; I simply intend to put the motion so that the commission can get on with the work that this Court has charged it with doing, and so I move, sir. The President: Hon. members, the motion I put to you is printed at 11 on your order paper: ‘That Tynwald gives authority to the chairman of the commission of inquiry into Mount Murray to award reasonable legal costs to witnesses called to give evidence to the inquiry.’ Those in favour, please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Precautionary Measures) (Regulation of Livestock Movement) Order 2002 – Approved Item 12. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to move: That the Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Precautionary Measures) (Regulation of Livestock Movement) Order 2002 [SD No. 252/02] be approved. The President: We turn, to item 12 on the order paper, and I call on the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to move. Mr Rimington: Thank you, Mr President. Last month, hon. members approved an order which provides powers to institute disinfection as and when necessary if foot-and-mouth disease ever flares up again. That is a prudent precautionary measure which I hope we will not have reason to call on. The order now before this hon. Court is also connected with foot-and- mouth disease: put simply, it means that imported animals have to stay at the place where they are delivered for a period long enough for any symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease to emerge. Animals already on that holding will also have to stay where they are until the end of the period, which is 21 days, just in case they pick up the disease from the imported animal. If a problem does emerge in an imported animal, the case can be dealt with at that one location. It reduces the risk of an outbreak of cases of foot-and-mouth disease from animals which have been spread out around the Island before the symptoms can be identified. This is again a prudent precautionary measure, Mr President, and I beg to move. Mr Karran: I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 12 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 3) Order 2002 – Approved Item 13. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 3) Order 2002 [SD No. 313/02] be approved. The President: Item 13. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move. Mrs Christian: Mr President, this order applies to the Island four statutory instruments of the UK Parliament relating to social security benefits. The amendments are miscellaneous in nature. The statutory instruments provide, amongst other things, for clarification of a number of issues, as well as an increase in the permitted earnings limit for people in receipt of a disablement pension and responsible for a child or children, and a decrease in the percentage reduction of a benefit for people in hospital. We have circulated a memorandum with further detail, Mr President. I beg to move. The President: Hon. member for Onchan. Mr Earnshaw: Thank you, Mr President. I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 13. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 4) Order 2002 – Approved Item 14. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 4) Order 2002 [SD No. 314/02] be approved. The President: Item 14. Minister for Health and Social Security. Mrs Christian: Mr President, this order applies to the Island a number of miscellaneous clarifying amendments in relation to arrangements for claiming, paying and deciding on entitlement to social security benefits. Further details have been circulated. The effect of most of this is neutral in nature or providing clarification. I beg to move, Mr President. The President: Mr Earnshaw. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: The motion, hon. members, is that printed at 14. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 5) Order 2002 – Approved Item 15. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 5) Order 2002 [SD No. 315/02] be approved. The President: Item 15. Minister for Health and Social Security. Mrs Christian: Mr President, this order applies to the Island United Kingdom legislation relating to the April 2002 uprating of social security benefits which are subject to the reciprocal agreement between the Island and the United Kingdom. Hon. members are aware that every year the United Kingdom Department for Work and Pensions, previously the Department of Social Security, obtains approval for the changes in benefit rates by means of an order submitted to the UK Parliament. The relevant parts of the order are then applied to the Island by means of an application order. The United Kingdom order was not made in sufficient time for it to be applied to the Island prior to the date that the changes were due to take effect. However, the standing authority given to the Department of Health and Social Security by Tynwald has enabled the department to arrange for the changes to be implemented administratively from April and to submit the appropriate legislation for approval at a later date. The appropriate legislation is therefore contained in this order. The extract of the memorandum which was circulated in March, giving the updated benefit rates, has been circulated again to hon. members, setting out the implications of this order. I beg to move. The President: Mr Earnshaw. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 15 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 6) Order 2002 – Approved Item 16. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 6) Order 2002 [SD No. 316/02] be approved. The President: Item 16. Minister, Mrs Christian. Mrs Christian: Mr President, this order applies to the Island United Kingdom legislation relating to changes in national insurance contribution liabilities. Every year, the United Kingdom Treasury obtains approval for the changes to the contribution rates by means of an order in the United Kingdom, and we apply them in the Isle of Man by means of an application order. As with the previous order, the resolution of this hon. Court in October 1993 enables the department to arrange for the changes to be implemented administratively from April and to seek appropriate approval to legislation at a later date. The memorandum issued to hon. members in March to provide the necessary briefing has again been reissued to hon. members with the memorandum about the orders for consideration today, setting out those changes which have occurred in the national insurance contribution rates. I beg to move. The President: Mr Earnshaw. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second. The President: Hon. member Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson: Thank you, Mr President. I would just like to ask the minister one or two questions on this particular order: what is the effect of the class 3 increase on those eligible; what are the circumstances under which these contributions are payable normally; as a rough estimate, how many people will this affect; and what is the anticipated overall gain for the department in these increases? Thank you, Mr President. The President: Minister. Mrs Christian: Mr President, class 3 contributions are the voluntary contributions that are paid by someone who is not liable either to class 1 or class 2: they are the employee’s contributions for employed earners or class 2 self-employed people. They are an opportunity for people whose records are inadequate to make a voluntary contribution to bring their contribution record up to date or up to levels which will entitle them to certain benefits. The numbers of people involved I do not have available. The level of the increase of 10p was determined in the United Kingdom with regard to the analysis that they carry out to determine each year how they want to amend their regulations. The President: Hon. members, the motion before you is printed at 16 on the order paper: that the Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 6) Order be approved. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 7) Order 2002 – Approved Item 17. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Social Security Legislation (Application) (No. 7) Order 2002 [SD No. 317/02] be approved. The President: So, we will turn to 17, hon. members. Again, I call on the Minister for Health and Social Security. Mrs Christian: Mr President, this order applies to the Island two items of subsidiary legislation of the UK Parliament relating to the calculation of state pensions. All of the matters covered by the statutory instruments relating to this subsidiary legislation form a part of the reciprocal agreement, and to the extent necessary the changes have been applied administratively pending formal approval. They cover, in particular, the increase in the lower earnings threshold and the revaluation of earnings factors in certain pension calculations, such revaluation occurring on an annual basis. Further details have been circulated. I beg to move, Mr President. The President: Hon. member for Onchan. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Hon. member for Douglas North, Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson: Thank you, Mr President. I again have one or two questions with regard to this particular order. Could the minister clarify that, broadly speaking, the message from this is that we are increasing the lower earnings threshold so, in theory, more people will be brought into the benefits net or there may be some increase for them? And can she also confirm that there will not be any negative impacts from imposing this order? The President: Minister to reply. Mrs Christian: Yes, Mr President. I think we need to be clear about exactly what is occurring here. The lower earnings limit is the level which an employee must have before becoming liable to pay contributions; the lower earnings level is the margin between that and . . . It gives a barrier where people earn contributions but do not pay anything. They get credits. So, the changes are beneficial and part of the move towards increased pensions for those at the lower income levels through the S2P pensions. I hope that has answered the hon. member’s query. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 17 on your order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Pension Schemes Legislation (Application) (No. 2) Order 2002 – Approved Item 18. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Pension Schemes Legislation (Application) (No. 2) Order 2002 [SD No. 318/02] be approved. The President: Item 18. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move. Mrs Christian: Mr President, this order also applies to the Island two statutory instruments of parliament, in this case concerned with occupational and personal pensions. They are being applied to provide for specific elements of those pensions to be increased annually and to protect deferred pensions against inflation for members who leave a scheme early. I beg to move. The President: Hon. member Mr Earnshaw. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson: Thank you, Mr President. If the minister could just tell us: what is the effect, in simple terms, of the re-evaluation? Are we talking about a general increase? Are the re- evaluated figures less than what they would have been using the older figures or have people come out as generally on top with this particular order? The President: Minister. Mrs Christian: Mr President, the purpose of these re-evaluations, both with the state pension scheme and these occupational and personal pension schemes, is to make sure that valuations which were made in previous years are brought up to today’s values to take account of changing money values. So, they are all beneficial: when we retire, we are not going to get a pension in the values of 20 years ago, which would not go very far. In other words, this is an annual revaluation of pensions so that when we eventually receive our pension, it is in today’s money terms. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 18 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Income Support (General) (Isle of Man) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2002 – Approved Item 19. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Income Support (General) (Isle of Man) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2002 [SD No. 319/02] be approved. The President: We turn the page to 19, and again I call on the Minister for Health and Social Security. Mrs Christian: Mr President, these regulations amend the Income Support (General) Regulations to provide for compensation payments made to Holocaust victims and certain other categories of person to be disregarded in determining benefit entitlement, and they also provide for an increase in the threshold above which the value of the former home of a person moving into residential accommodation shall be treated as generating income at 10 per cent. That effectively means that it goes up from £73,300 to £80,700. Further details have been set out. I beg to move. The President: Hon. member for Onchan. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson: Thank you, Mr President. Further questions. These orders may be simple to some members of the Court, but they certainly, to my mind, deserve some clarification, and we need to know what is going on here. I feel that the two parts of this order should actually be separate when we are talking about slave labour camps and then, in the final part of the order, what we are talking about is a re-evaluation of the theoretical income that could be earned from somebody’s property and the raising of that, which has an impact on somebody’s possible income support. That is the way in which I read this and I want clarification from the minister to ensure that I have got that bit correct: that what we are giving out with one hand we are taking away with the other and that the increase will impact on income support. The disregard for World War II enforced labour and so on and their personal injury I could not agree more with; that is perfect and as it should be and it is a pity it is enshrined and stuck on with this other issue which impacts on the income support, and that is what I would like the minister to clarify, Mr President. The President: Minister. Mrs Christian: Thank you, Mr President. The reason they are both in the same area is that they are both general amendments. The hon. member has voiced his support for the disregard principle, which is positive - Mr Henderson: Absolutely. Mrs Christian: - and I will confirm for him too that the second change is also positive, in that you can have a property which was last year valued at £73,300, and on which income support tapered arrangements are based, recognised now to be valued at £80,700. If we did not make that move, it would be detrimental to the income support claimant. This is being done to make sure that the changing values in the Isle of Man property market are recognised in our regulations to make sure that there is no detriment to the claimant. The President: Hon. members, the motion before you is that the Income Support (General) (Isle of Man) (Amendment) (No.2) Regulations be approved. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) (Isle of Man) Regulations 2002 – Approved Item 20. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) (Isle of Man) Regulations 2002 [SD No 320/02] be approved. The President: Item 20. Minister for Health and Social Security. Mrs Christian: Mr President, these regulations replace the existing Maternity and Funeral Expense Regulations with an updated and consolidated version. There is no change to the qualifying conditions, though some clarifying amendments are made. I beg to move. The President: Hon. member for Onchan. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson: Thank you, Mr President. If the minister could answer some queries for me on this particular section. In particular, I am looking at the explanatory note on the back of the regulations at page 17, and specifically at the bottom of the page at 3.1, focused on the final two bullet points. If she could clarify what we are doing here in those final two bullet points: are we tightening up and will it mean that fewer people will be entitled to these benefits than are currently, and then does the simplification of criteria also mean that fewer people in the future will also not be entitled to these particular benefits or is it simply an administrative exercise with no real particular impact? If she could clarify that for me, Mr President. The President: Minister to reply. Mrs Christian: Mr President, I am happy to see if I can assist the hon. member. The third bullet point at 3.1 on page 17 of the explanatory note states that it is clarification. In other words, it does not actually change any of the categories which currently apply; it merely makes it clearer in terms of understanding by those who read these regulations to whom - Mr Henderson: Not a tightening? Mrs Christian: Pardon? Mr Henderson: Not a tightening? Mrs Christian: I did indicate that the qualifying conditions are not changed in any way. This is simply a clarification, so that when you read it, it is easier to understand, and perhaps to deal with some questions of ambiguity that need to be expressed more clearly. So far as the last point is concerned, it says: ‘providing simplified criteria as to which funeral costs may be included in the amount of the additional funeral payment payable’. The purpose in producing these new regulations is to set out in a clearer fashion, so that everybody understands, what is and is not included in terms of the funeral expenses which may be provided under these regulations. Paragraph 10 sets out what the amounts of the additional funeral payments are and what exactly they are for. So it is, again, clarification in setting out in a straightforward form what those additional amounts are and, I think, again, simplifying the list - well, it does not alter the list; it makes it clear so that there is no doubt about who and what can be claimed by anyone who seeks to have an additional funeral payment. The President: The motion, hon. members, is that printed at 20 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Nursing and Midwifery Order 2002 – Approved Item 21. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2002 [SD No 159/02] be approved. The President: Now, hon. members, before we deal with items 21 and 22, I want to make it clear that these two motions should have been shown on the order paper as motions for the approval of draft regulations and that they are here for approval as drafts and not as definitive orders. I call on the minister to move 21. Mrs Christian: Yes, Mr President. Thank you for commenting on that. Members will notice, if they read the actual orders, that it does say ‘whereas a draft of this order has been approved by Tynwald’ and then goes on to say what it is. The reason for this is that the legislation which underlies these orders says that a draft order must be submitted to Tynwald. It is quite unusual and I am not quite sure where this exception to the normal pattern came from. However, we have presented this draft order, as it says on the order itself, in accordance with the underlying legislation. So, in respect of item 21, the draft order for which approval is being sought today repeals certain sections of the Nursing and Midwives Act 1947, as amended, by changing the definition of ‘registered’ in relation to nurses and midwives. As part of the requirement of the Nursing and Midwives Act 1947, nurses and midwives working in the Island are required to be registered with the body set out in the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1997 of the UK Parliament. The relevant legislation in the United Kingdom has recently been amended and a new body responsible for registration has been created: the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The draft order before you today will recognise registration with this new body in Manx law and will maintain the link between the nursing and midwifery professions on the Island and their registration body in the United Kingdom. The order also restates the offences of making false claims as to registration and of an unqualified person acting as a midwife. The order has the support of the representatives of the nursing and midwifery professions on the Island, and the department acknowledges the rôle that they have in ensuring a high standard of professional practice and wishes to continue to support this by maintaining the statutory links with the new Nursing and Midwifery Council. I beg to move. The President: Hon. member for Glenfaba. Mr Anderson: I beg to second and reserve my remarks, Mr President. The President: The motion, hon. members, is that printed at 21. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Health Professions Order 2002 – Approved Item 22. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the Health Professions Order 2002 [SD No 160/02] be approved. The President: Item 22. Mrs Christian, please. Mrs Christian: Mr President, this is a second draft order. This one recognises the statutory registers maintained in the United Kingdom by the Health Professions Council for healthcare professionals permitted to use the title ‘state registered’, a list of which is included in the schedule to the order. The department is pleased to bring forward legislation to recognise in Manx law the healthcare professions included in this order. It acknowledges the work carried out by these professions on the Island and the high standard of care they provide. The Healthcare Professions Council is constituted under the Health Act 1999, an Act of the UK Parliament, which has powers to set standards for competence, education and continuing professional development. The draft order also introduces an offence for persons claiming falsely to be registered or using the title ‘state registered’ when they are not so registered. By recognising these professions in law and only permitting the use of the title ‘state registered’ by those persons who are registered with this council, the department is attempting to discourage people from acting as if they were registered and providing care which may not be of the appropriate standard. The department already recognises the statutory registers for medical practitioners, nurses, midwives, dentists, opticians and pharmacists and, subject to the approval of the Court today, will extend this recognition to those health professionals included within the draft order, and they are: arts therapists; chiropodists; clinical scientists; dieticians; medical laboratory technicians; occupational therapists; orthoptists; paramedics; physiotherapists; prosthetists and orthotists; radiographers; and speech and language therapists. It will be for our community, when using people who are not working within the National Health Service, to determine for themselves whether people are state registered and whether or not they wish to use those who are not state registered. I beg to move. The President: Hon. member for Glenfaba. Mr Anderson: I beg to second and reserve my remarks, Mr President. The President: Hon. member of Council, Dr Mann. Dr Mann: Thank you, Mr President. I am intrigued by this presentation of draft regulations. Does that mean that we are actually capable of altering them? I suggest that the penalty for misrepresentation at £5,000 is derisory, because if somebody does misrepresent themselves in at least some of these categories in both orders, there could be considerable damage, and if there is the opportunity to alter it, I would suggest that we increase the penalties. The President: Minister to reply. Mrs Christian: Mr President, perhaps I would look for some legal advice on the point just raised by the hon. member of Council. This is an unusual presentational format, I have to agree, so I am afraid I cannot answer the hon. member’s question. The President: If I may, Mrs Christian, from the chair, I would say that we would not be in the position of altering an order before us. I would be quite happy if it were to come back in front of the Court at another time (Two Members: Hear, hear.), but I think it would be wrong to alter an order at this particular juncture. Draft or otherwise, it complies with the legislation and has been properly moved. Mrs Christian. Mrs Christian: Thank you, Mr President. I do note the hon. member of Council’s concerns that if people do purport to be registered and are not, they certainly may not be offering the standard of care which people expect of those who are registered and the standard of training and competence. The penalties, I believe, are the same as the United Kingdom penalties; however, I note his belief that this is not adequate. I think that, whereas it is presented as a draft, nevertheless, the content. . . It is simply presented as a draft because of a peculiarity in the drafting of the primary legislation, and presumably other rules as to orders apply, and I note your ruling, Mr President. The department may well review Hansard of today and give due consideration to the comment of the hon. member. The President: Hon. members, I put to you the motion as printed at 22 on your order paper: that the Health Professions Order 2002 be approved. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Tourist (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 – Approved Item 23. The Minister for Tourism and Leisure to move: That the Tourist (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 [SD No 294/02] b e approved. The President: We turn, then, to 23, and I call on the Minister for Tourism and Leisure to move. Mr Cretney: Thank you, Mr President. In July 2001, this hon. Court approved new rating standards; a star standard for hotels and a diamond standard for other serviced tourist accommodation, such as bed and breakfasts, guest houses and inns. The new measure - a star standard for self-catering tourist accommodation - is the next step in my department’s policy and is incorporated in the tourism division strategy document 1999-2003. The new measure provides for the harmonisation of standards used by our self-catering accommodation sector with those used by the English Tourism Council and Guernsey. The initiative is consumer-driven and will hopefully lead to consumer expectations being met, together with a reduction in the number of complaints, given that the new standards are more easily understood and recognised. As part of the consultation exercise, presentations have been made on the new regulations to the industry, and generally the response has been very favourable. In addition, all self-catering accommodation was circulated with full details of the proposed scheme. No written comments were received by my department. On the advice of the Attorney-General’s office, the measure only applies to the minimum one-star rating for self-catering accommodation. It is envisaged that an industry handbook will be produced of one to five stars for self-catering accommodation to assist existing and new proprietors in their application. The additional cost implications of implementing the regulations are estimated at £11,000, and financial provision exists within the current year and 2003-04 revenue budgets for these. It may be that accommodation providers will seek financial assistance from my department to meet the new standards. In such circumstances, my department intends to utilise part of the existing tourism and development funding of £5.75 million to assist the industry. It is intended that part of the development funding will be utilised to assist the industry for this purpose, and I beg to move the motion standing in my name. The President: Hon. member for Middle, Mr Quayle. Mr Quayle: Thank you, Mr President. I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Hon. member of Council, Mr Waft. Mr Waft: Thank you, Mr President. I wish, as the minister has indicated lately in the Legislative Council and another place, that he would circulate all the self-catering accommodation areas and areas over which he has jurisdiction about the ability to get assistance with disabled access when there is not any in that situation. The President: Minister, do you wish to comment? Mr Cretney: Well, just that I am happy to confirm that that is the case. Anything we can do to facilitate (Two Members: Hear, hear.) easier access for persons with a disability, we will want to do. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 23 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Tourism Development Fund (Amendment) Scheme 2002 – Approved Item 24. The Minister for Tourism and Leisure to move: That the Tourism Development Fund (Amendment) Scheme 2002 [GC 19/02] b e approved. The President: Item 24. Mr Cretney. Mr Cretney: Mr President, the Tourism Development Fund Scheme 2000 was approved by Tynwald in July 2000, with a budget of £750,000 over a three-year period terminating on 31st March 2003. Funding for the scheme was later increased as a part of the 2001 budget when the Treasury Minister announced additional funding for the scheme of £4 million over a two-year period. Subsequently, as part of the annual budget review, Treasury further increased the funding available for the scheme to £5.75 million as part of the effort to improve the tourism infrastructure and diversify the economy. The Tourism Development Fund Scheme 2000 was introduced to assist small businesses in improving standards and facilities and also to provide assistance to new accommodation developments, particularly those based in the countryside. In addition, it is also department policy that part of the funding will be allocated to assist existing tourist businesses in improving their properties to meet the requirements of the new registration and grading scheme approved at the July 2001 sitting of Tynwald, which was implemented in April 2002. Hon. members will be aware that through the course of last year the tourism industry suffered as a result of the United Kingdom foot-and-mouth epidemic. Measures were approved by this hon. Court to assist tourism-based businesses, particularly due to the cancellation of the TT Races. One of the effects of last year’s difficulties could be the lack of available funding for reinvestment. This is a matter which could impact on future quality and our ability to compete in an increasingly competitive market. One of the purposes of the Tourism Development Fund (Amendment) Scheme 2002 is to extend the period of validity of the scheme for a further three years to take it up to March 2006. We have taken this step in order that local businesses can take advantage of the increase in available funding and in order to allow them to meet any extra obligations which may arise from the enactment of forthcoming disability discrimination legislation. The amendment to the scheme also allows some flexibility in the information which applicants must submit in support of their applications, and specifically it allows for some variance from a strict requirement to submit bills of quantities for projects which exceed a total value of £200,000. This change has been made in response to comments received from the industry and in agreement with the Treasury, who would, in any case, be consulted on applications for funding on schemes of this size. I am sure hon. members will agree that this further scheme for the tourism industry is to be welcomed. It comes at a time when confidence needs support and there is a particular need to encourage those involved in the industry to reinvest if tourism on our Island is to sustain a healthy future, which I am sure we all agree it should have. Mr President, I beg to move the motion standing in my name. The President: Hon. member for Middle. Mr Quayle: Thank you, Mr President. I have pleasure in begging to second and reserve my remarks. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 24 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Value Added Tax Act 1996 (Amendment) Order 2002 – Approved Item 25. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Value Added Tax Act 1996 (Amendment) Order 2002 [SD No 241/02] b e approved. The President: Item 25. I call on the Minister for Treasury to move, hon. member for Ramsey. Mr Bell: Mr President, the purpose of this order is to amend the Value Added Tax Act of 1996 in order that regulations may facilitate the introduction of a flat-rate scheme whereby small businesses may account for their VAT on the basis of a percentage prescribed for their area of business. The order inserts a new section 26(a) into the Act and makes other consequential amendments. I beg to move. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 25. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Excise Duties Order 2002 – Approved Item 26. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Excise Duties Order 2002 [SD No 219/02] be approved. The President: Item 26. Minister for the Treasury to move. Mr Bell: Mr President, the purpose of this order is to apply in the Island rises in the rates of excise duty levied on tobacco products in line with those announced in the United Kingdom budget of 17th April. The rises of around 1.9 per cent are designed to maintain duty revenues in line with inflation. The rises came into effect at 6 p.m. on 17th April. Under the terms of the Customs and Excise Agreement, the Island is obliged to maintain these duty rates in line with those in force in the United Kingdom. I beg to move, Mr President. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 26 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Value Added Tax (Increase of Registration Limits) Order 2002 – Approved Item 27. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Value Added Tax (Increase of Registration Limits) Order 2002 [SD No 221/02] be approved. The President: Item 27. Again, I call on the Minister for the Treasury to move. Mr Bell: Mr President, this order makes amendments to schedules 2 and 4 of the Value Added Tax Act of 1996. It raises the thresholds for registration and deregistration for VAT with effect from 25th April 2002. Registration will be required where the value of taxable supplies or acquisitions from member states has exceeded £55,000 in the previous 12 months or less, or their taxable supplies or acquisitions are likely to exceed £55,000 in the next 30 days. Deregistration will be permitted where the value of taxable supplies falls below £53,000 or the value of acquisitions falls below £55,000. Threshold figures are reviewed each year. The intention is to maintain the requirements to register at such a level and to exclude the smallest businesses from having to register for VAT. I beg to move, Mr President. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second. The President: The motion, hon. members, is printed at 27 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Value Added Tax (Building and Land) Order 2002 – Approved Item 28. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Value Added Tax (Building and Land) Order 2002 [SD No 233/02] b e approved. The President: Item 28. Minister for the Treasury. Mr Bell: This order, Mr President, is designed as a form of assistance for charities et cetera to reduce any costs they may face where a village hall, care home et cetera is subject to a change of use. The new method of determining the VAT due in respect of the building is a fairer one which makes allowance for the eligible use that the building has been put to. Mr President, I beg to move. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: Hon. members, the motion is 28. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Zimbabwe (Sale, Supply, Export and Shipment of Equipment) (Penalties and Licences) Regulations (Application) Order 2002 – Approved Item 29. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Zimbabwe (Sale, Supply, Export and Shipment of Equipment) (Penalties and Licences) Regulations (Application) Order 2002 [SD No 262/02] be approved. The President: Item 29. Treasury minister. Mr Bell: Mr President, this order applies in Island law the Zimbabwe (Sale, Supply, Export and Shipment of Equipment) (Penalties and Licences) Regulations 2002. The applied regulations provide for a criminal offence if certain provisions of Council regulation EC no 310/2002 are breached. This council regulation imposed EU sanctions against Zimbabwe. It is the trade elements of the sanctions which the applied regulations are concerned with; other regulations already in effect provide for the enforcement of the financial sanctions contained in the Council regulation. Mr President, I beg to move. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: The motion, hon. members, is that printed at 29 on the order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Pool Betting (Isle of Man) (Amendment) Order 2002 – Approved Item 30. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Pool Betting (Isle of Man) (Amendment) Order 2002 [SD No 248/02] b e approved. The President: Item 30. Treasury minister. Mr Bell: Mr President, the purpose of this order is to amend the Pool Betting (Isle of Man) Acts of 1961 to 1970 in order to allow for a switch from a stakes-based excise duty to one based on the profits made by the operator. New sections 3A to 3K replace section 3 of the 1961 Act and set a new duty rate of 15 per cent; lay down the methods of calculating how much duty is due; exempt bets made for community benefit from duty; and define ‘accounting periods’ and a ‘bet’. Consequential amendments are also made to the three Pool Betting Acts and to the Finance Act of 1994, allowing appeals regarding community benefit bets to be heard by the VAT and Duties Tribunal, and the Betting Act 1970. The 1999 order, which set the last stakes-based duty rate, i s also revoked. Articles 7 and 8 deal with transitional arrangements. Mr President, I beg to move. Mr Radcliffe: I beg to second, sir. The President: Hon. members, the motion before you is that the Pool Betting (Isle of Man) (Amendment) Order 2002 be approved. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Financial Supervision Commission (Financial Resources and Compliance Reporting) Regulatory Code 2002 – Approved Item 31. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Financial Supervision Commission (Financial Resources and Compliance Reporting) Regulatory Code 2002 [SD No 345/02] be approved. The President: Item 31. Mr Bell: Mr President, the Investment Business Acts of 1991 to 1993 empower the Financial Supervision Commission to make regulatory codes concerning the financial resources of permitted persons, including the assets, liabilities and other matters to be taken into account in determining a person’s financial resources, and the format and content of financial returns to be made to the commission. This regulatory code revokes and replaces the Financial Supervision Commission Financial Resources and Reporting Regulatory Code of 1991 in order to update certain of the requirements therein which were becoming outdated, especially in relation to the levels of the minimum net tangible asset requirement. The regulatory code therefore contains some of the same detail as the old code. The commission prepared a draft of this code and consulted upon it in 2001. The draft code was issued to all the commission’s investment business licence holders and their auditors, as well as certain industry bodies. There were only 13 responses received, and most of these were in favour of the changes. Therefore, Mr President, I beg to move the resolution. Mr Crowe: I beg to second and reserve my remarks, Mr President. The President: Mr Crowe seconds. The motion, hon. members, is printed at 31. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Housing – Extra-Statutory Concession 2002 – Approved Item 32. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Extra-Statutory Concession 2002 [SD No 293/02] be approved. The President: Item 32. Minister for the Treasury. Mr Bell: Mr President, this extra-statutory concession was first introduced in June 1994 and was made with the intention of assisting first-time buyers with reducing registration fees for conveyance of a dwelling with a consideration for £50,000 or less by half. The proposed amendment to £90,000 is in line with the Department of the Local Government and the Environment’s equivalent proposed fee under the House Purchase Assistance Scheme 1999, as amended. Paragraph 1(c) of the concession has been added to ensure that the concession is only available to assist those persons purchasing in accordance with the provision of the House Purchase Assistance Scheme 1999, as amended. This has been added to avoid any possible abuse of the concession. I beg to move, Mr President. The President: Mr Crowe. Mr Crowe: I beg to second, Mr President, and reserve my remarks. The President: The motion, hon. members, is that the Extra-Statutory Concession 2002 be approved under the Fees and Duties Act of 1989, printed at 32 on your order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1986 (Amendment) Order 2002 – Approved Item 33. The Minister for the Treasury to move: That the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1986 (Amendment) Order 2002 [SD No 240/02] be approved. The President: Item 33. Minister for the Treasury, Mr Bell. Mr Bell: Mr President, the purpose of this order is to amend the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act of 1986, making changes analogous with those announced in the United Kingdom budget of 17th April. I beg to move. The President: Mr Crowe. Mr Crowe: I beg to second, Mr President, and reserve my remarks. The President: Hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran. Mr Karran: Eaghtyrane, I would just like to ask: when we talk about alcohol liquor duties, is there any chance of us being able to put more on alcopops and on the stuff that is more attractive to the younger element within our community? I just wondered whether the minister could look at that. I know we have got a reciprocal agreement with the UK, but I just wondered if there is any flexibility. I just think these are the sorts of things that, maybe, we do need to hit a little bit more if it is possible. I have no problem with the order - and I know that the minister has a different view from me as far as alcohol is concerned and I respect that view and it is a matter of how you perceive situations - but I just would like to ask if there is any flexibility, especially with these drinks that are high in alcohol value but that are seen as almost pop drinks for the younger element and which are being abused at the moment, because I think that the long-term effects on that section of the community might be quite financially costly as far as the medical side is concerned later on in life. The President: Hon. member of Council, Mr Delaney. Mr Delaney: Thank you, Mr President. I will be brief. I realise more than anybody the need to keep ourselves in line with the duties paid in another place by the agreement we have, but, like other members of this Court, I have been concerned - not only recently, but for quite a time - about the way we have such a monopoly on the Island of the supply to the licensing outlets and about the cost that is occurring in relation to some of the alcoholic beverages that are dispensed to these establishments. And in comparison with their counterparts on the other island, I am afraid we are getting out of line. I know the minister will be conscious of this probably from his own constituency, but I wonder if he would take the trouble to talk to some of his colleagues, particularly Consumer Affairs, about the way we can actually help to carry out the policy that we are trying to establish in the Island. Here we are, telling everyone not to drink and drive - that is wonderful and that is quite correct - but at the same time you are paying, in a public place that dispenses drinks, the same price for non-alcoholic drinks as you are paying for alcoholic drinks (A Member: Hear, hear.), and what they charge bears no relation to what the manufacturing cost is, as a recent report from Britain will show. As we are in control of that section of it in some respect, I wonder if the minister - I know he has got a lot to do, but in his other duties - would take the opportunity to have a look at what we can do where we are involved in alcoholic liquors, particularly on the lower content - 2 per cent - to see if we can get some reality into the situation, so that you will continue to get the benefit of your duties, but the Isle of Man people will not be ripped off by the establishments who are dispensing these drinks. The President: Minister to reply. Mr Bell: Mr President, as far as I am aware, we have no flexibility at all on alcopops. We are in a reciprocal agreement as part of our customs arrangements with the United Kingdom, and therefore we have no flexibility on alcopops. As far as the price of beer is concerned, that has very little to do with the duties which this order is about; it is about the retailing policies of the brewery controlling the public houses on the Island, and that really, Mr President, is more a problem for the Office of Fair Trading, perhaps, to take up. I know there have been calls on a number of occasions over the years, not just in the Isle of Man, but also in the United Kingdom, about the cost of soft drinks vis-à-vis the cost of alcohol; that is a concern, and I think remains a concern of a great many people, but it is certainly outwith the terms of this particular resolution and, indeed, the responsibility of Treasury, as Treasury’s responsibility really just rests around the rates of duty which are being charged rather than the retail price. I would just add, though, that in the United Kingdom itself there are huge discrepancies in prices from one part of the country to another, so it is not simply a local problem. There are concerns, I know, in different parts of the United Kingdom, but it is simply down to the retail policy of those breweries and, indeed, public houses who charge higher prices than perhaps would normally be the case. The President: Hon. members, the motion I put to you is printed at 33 on your order paper: that the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1986 (Amendment) Order 2002 be approved. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Suspension of Standing Orders – Approved The President: Hon. members, I am conscious of the clock and reluctant to start possibly the next two items immediately and then maybe be faced with having a break. With your concurrence, hon. members, I think we could possibly see off the supplementary order paper at this particular juncture. Would you be content with that, hon. members? Members: Agreed. The President: In that case, we will deal with the supplementary order paper, and I call on the hon. member, Mrs Cannell. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr President. On the supplementary order paper, sir, are item 1 and item 2. I will be guided by your good self, sir - The President: Deal with item 1, please. Mrs Cannell: Item 1: Business to be considered under standing order 11.3. I would like to move: That standing order 2.4(1) be suspended in order that the following business be considered. Mr Duggan: I beg to second, sir. The President: Agreed, hon. members? Members: Agreed. Mrs Christian: Mr President, we have been given no explanation as to why this might be the case. I accept that we may hear it later, but normally, when seeking to have a standing order suspended, perhaps some reason is given. The President: Mrs Cannell, do you wish to continue, wind up or whatever? I am quite happy to leave it at that. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr President. I moved and it was seconded, and I think I have the concurrence of the Court to have standing orders suspended. A Member: We have not voted on it. Several Members: No. Mr Henderson: It is a vote, Brenda. Mrs Cannell: Right, okay, I will address the concerns raised by the hon. member of Council. It is an issue that actually came up at the time of moving the item on the following number 2, which was approved at the April sitting of Tynwald. Because I felt it incumbent upon myself, sir, that the committee would not be slowed down in its deliberations but could continue to meet effectively and regularly to deal with the issue in hand, I felt obliged to come forward at this point. Unfortunately, I was about 24 hours or so out of time for getting this on the official agenda, but, having taken advice, was advised that this was the most appropriate way to move forward in order to give the opportunity to members to consider now rather than leave it for another month. Thank you, Mr President. The President: Hon. members, the motion I put to you is that standing order 2.4(1) be suspended in order that the following business be considered on the supplementary order paper. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Select Committee on the Petition for Redress Of Grievance of Helen Margaret Hyde – Mrs Cannell Discharged from Committee – Member Elected Item 2. The Chairman of the Committee (Mrs Cannell) to move: That the hon. member of the Keys, Mrs Cannell, be discharged from the committee and that Tynwald elect a member to fill the vacancy. The President: We will deal with item 2 on the supplementary order paper. I call on Mrs Cannell. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr President. As I mentioned earlier, at the April sitting of Tynwald I did move a motion to pick up the petition for redress of grievance submitted by Helen Hyde at last year’s open day Tynwald Ceremony, and in doing so, of course, triggered a debate and subsequently a series of votes at the end, which put together a committee. At that time, I did have reservations, which I did express to hon. members prior to consideration of the item on the agenda of April’s sitting, that, although wanting to move and pick up the petition and make the case to establish a select committee to look at the very important issue that was raised by the petitioner, it might be inadvisable for myself, as Chairman of the Water Authority, to be a representative on the actual committee. However, one or two members responded at that time and felt that as we were such a small parliament, it would not necessarily matter and I should strive on and continue. I was fortunate and very lucky to be voted onto that particular committee, along with my hon. colleagues, the member of Council, Mr Crowe, and the hon. member for West Douglas, Mr Downie. The committee met initially to elect its chairman; both members unanimously ‘placed me in the chair’, if you like. We have subsequently had one other meeting, but we have not begun to take or advertise for any kind of written or oral evidence as yet. I have taken advice on this, being cautious and not wanting the good workings of this select committee to be potentially open to question at the outset of the committee reporting, in view of what has taken place in this hon. place and another - most recently there was the situation of land belonging to a Mr Radcliffe in Sulby, and the criticisms that were levelled at that time - and I felt that it was incumbent upon me to bring this matter back to Tynwald and let Tynwald decide. I personally feel that it would be better to allow me to come off this particular committee, in view of the fact that I hold the chairmanship of the Water Authority, and elect somebody who would be seen from the public’s perception as totally unbiased. That is not to say that I am not totally unbiased, but public perception is very important. It has been suggested to me that if I should continue in this position and the committee were to report with whatever they wish to report on, and if it was not agreeable to the petitioner, for example - and I am painting a scenario which could become a reality or if the petitioner felt that we had not considered it properly, the accusation could be made at that stage: ‘I do not believe that this committee has been as impartial as it could have been, because, after all, the chairman is also the Chairman of the Water Authority, another rating authority.’ And of course, this select committee has been established to look at the issue of rates in respect of those who find themselves on their own following a bereavement, so it brings into question general rates, applied across the land by all the local authorities, and water rates, and we have the difficulty where the water rates have been fixed by this hon. place for a considerable period of time - that is in terms of the increases year on year - to meet with the capital expectations of the Water Authority. Now, I feel quite happy to continue if members so wish (Two Members: Hear, hear.), but I do not believe, at the end of the day, that we should leave ourselves open to misinterpretation, accusation, misunderstanding or whatever. This is why I felt it important to bring it forward now rather than just sit and change the hats as and when and according to who I am meeting with, which, to date, we have managed quite adeptly, but of course, as we get further and further into deliberations and possibly into written and oral evidence, then the committee will begin to probe deeper, and the question has to be asked ‘Is it fair, is it impartial, is it justice to have, in the chair of a select committee investigating such issues, the person who also happens to chair the Water Authority, which is a large rating authority?’ So I have brought it to hon. members’ attention; I felt it incumbent upon me to do so. It is your decision whether to have me replaced or not; I can live with either. I do feel uneasy at the moment - and I have to be honest with you in respect of that - because I would not want the good works of any parliamentary select committee of this Court to be undermined by a perception of one sort or the other at the outset and prevailing throughout until deliberations. So, Mr President, with that in mind, I will leave it open to hon. members. I can live either way, but I think, in all fairness, the Court would be best advised, perhaps, to replace me with another hon. member from this Court. I beg to move, sir. The Speaker: I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Mr Speaker seconds. Mr Karran. Mr Karran: Can I have a ruling from the Attorney-General on whether this is a case or not? I mean, if it is a problem, then we have got to change it; if it is not a problem, then let us . . . The President: It is not a problem, hon. members; I think it is quite straightforward. The hon. member, Mrs Cannell, has indicated to the Court that she feels there could be a conflict of interest, and I would point out that, had it been quite normal - had it been in on time - it would have been on the ordinary order paper. It happened to be 24 hours late and missed. Mr Attorney, do you wish to - Mr Karran: I just want to know what the problem is. The President: There is not a problem. The Attorney-General: Mr President, just a very brief comment. It is very difficult for me to assess, but I should have thought that the hon. member who is moving this motion knows particularly well whether there is a conflict of interest. If she, in her own mind, believes there is a conflict of interest - or a potential conflict - it seems to be an appropriate case for her to be replaced, but that is just my provisional personal view. The Speaker: Absolutely. The President: Mrs Hannan. Mrs Hannan: Thank you. It was always my understanding, Eaghtyrane, that the position of parliament came before everything else (A Member: Hear, hear.). The wish of parliament was that the member for Douglas East should form part of this select committee, and she was elected, I believe, by 20 votes in this hon. Court on 16th April. I would have thought that if the member is concerned, the member has it within her position to resign from whatever is causing the embarrassment. The President: Mrs Christian. Mrs Christian: Yes. Mr President, the hon. member moving the resolution has referred to perhaps a perception of conflict of interest rather than an actual conflict of interest, and if one looks at the petition, which is, after all, what the committee is supposed to be considering, I find it perhaps difficult to appreciate that there is a conflict. The position of the Chairman of the Water Authority, which receives revenue from rates, that is fair enough, but I do not believe the Water Authority establishes rateable values, which is part of the issue in the petition. The principal element of the petition is that single occupants, in the view of the petitioner, are unfairly discriminated against by the absence of any discount for single occupancy. Now, the way in which any discount may be managed might be in terms of the rateable value. I presume that any rating authority will want to have the same rateable income irrespective of how we structure the way they get their income, and to that extent I think that I would suggest that there is not any particular conflict of interest here and that if we look at the wording of the petition, and if the committee is to focus on the petition, then there should not be any difficulty. The President: Mr Speaker. The Speaker: Yes, thank you, Mr President. I am a little bit surprised that there is the concern expressed. Clearly, where there is a connection with the rating system, as in this case because the hon. member is the Chairman of the Water Authority, and the issue of rates is the petition, albeit that the rateable value is set elsewhere, the hon. member, with her board, has a responsibility given by this hon. Court to operate under a system where it has a rates system. If a member feels uneasy that they are going to be asked, on the one hand, to investigate whether or not they reduce X, Y or Z, which of course the hon. member may well have - in fact, we know has - views on, and on the other hand may well have her own authority having a reduction in income, in theory, because of any changes that may come, then I think that that is potentially a conflict. But I think what is more important is that if the member is clearly indicating an unease at being the Chairman of the Water Authority and being on this committee, Tynwald Court should respect that. I think it is different if it is not that close. If the member came along and just said, ‘Well I am sorry, Mr President and Tynwald, I just really do not want to do this work because I am not interested’, I think that would be different and I think we all know what the answer would be, but clearly we have the chairman of a statutory authority that sets a rate and charges households rates in a system, and it is that system that is being investigated. I would have thought the question was quite straightforward, and I thought the answer was simple, and I would have hoped that we would respect the member’s view. The President: Mrs Cannell to reply. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr President. I am most appreciative to Mr Speaker for seconding the motion and also for speaking and supporting the move. I am very grateful to him indeed. I understand and fully expected a comment or two from the previous chairman of water; perhaps he may feel that he could have handled the many number of different hats better possibly than I. I do not know. Mrs Hannan and the hon. member of Council, Mrs Christian, have both said they cannot see there is a problem, et cetera, et cetera; I can see that there is a problem - and did do before even attempting to pick up the petition - and made my view known to a majority of members within this hon. Court, but for their own better judgement they felt that they wanted to support me and they supported me with the vote, which put me on the committee. I am merely, Mr President, trying to protect the interests of the good name of Tynwald Court in this respect. Having heard such things as Mount Murray and the Radcliffe affair and so on and so forth - question marks - I would not want to add to that in the future. I would wish our select committee of this parliament to be perceived as having no conflicts of interest in terms of what they are about to consider, and I think it could be perceived by the public that I would have one. I do feel uncomfortable about the situation; I am not happy wearing a number of different hats. There are all sorts of awkward situations which could arise if I am allowed to stay in post, but I think I have the understanding of the majority of hon. members here. I have also spoken to the petitioner and explained to her that I will be making this move, and she herself fully accepted the situation without question or argument. Mr President, I beg to move, sir. The President: Hon. members, the motion I put to you is that the hon. member of the Keys, Mrs Cannell, be discharged from the committee and that Tynwald elect a member to fill the vacancy. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. A division was called for and voting resulted as follows: In the Keys - For: Messrs Anderson, Cannan, Quine, Rodan, Quayle, Gill, Henderson, Cretney, Duggan, Braidwood, Mrs Cannell, Messrs Shimmin, Karran and the Speaker - 14 Against: Mr Rimington, Mrs Crowe, Messrs Houghton, Downie, Mrs Hannan, Messrs Corkill and Earnshaw - 7 The Speaker: Mr President, in relation to item 2 on the supplementary order paper, the House of Keys has voted in favour, with 14 votes for and 7 votes against. In the Council - For: The Lord Bishop, Dr Mann, Messrs Radcliffe, Delaney and Crowe - 5 Against: Messrs Waft, Kniveton and Mrs Christian - 3 The President: Hon. members, the voting in the Council is 5 votes for and 3 against. The motion therefore carries. Hon. members, it now becomes incumbent upon us to elect a member to fill the vacancy. I call for nominations. Mr Downie: I would like to nominate the hon. member for North Douglas, Mr Henderson. Mrs Christian: I beg to second. Mr Corkill: I will second that, Mr President. Mrs Cannell: Mr President, I would like to nominate the other hon. member for North Douglas, Mr Houghton. (Laughter) Mr Quine: I am pleased to second that, sir. Mr Henderson: I nominate Mr Downie. Mr Downie: I am on it already! (Laughter and interjections) Mrs Hannan: I propose Mr Quine, the member for Ayre. Mr Houghton: I second that, sir. Mr Crowe: I nominate Mrs Hannan. Mr Henderson: I propose Mr Braidwood. Mr Houghton: I beg to second, sir. Mr Quayle: I propose nominations close, Mr President. Mr Duggan: I second that, Mr President. The President: Okay. Now, hon. members, according to me, we have four, Mrs Hannan not being seconded. The Clerk will make it plain. The Clerk: Mr President, the members nominated are Mr Braidwood, Mr Henderson, Mr Houghton and Mr Quine. The President: Mr Kniveton will count on behalf of the Council. Mr Speaker. The Speaker: Hon. member Mrs Crowe to act for the Keys, please. A first ballot took place. The President: Hon. members, the result of the ballot is: Mr Braidwood, 2 votes; Mr Henderson, 14 votes; Mr Houghton, 11 votes; Mr Quine, 2 votes. Now, hon. members, no member has received the minimum required, which was 15. Hon. members, I propose that we drop off the two who were at the bottom, each with 2, and the vote will be between Mr Henderson and Mr Houghton. Members: Agreed. The President: May I ask that the same tellers continue with their duties, please? A second ballot took place. The President: Hon. members, the result of the ballot is: Mr Henderson, 13 votes; Mr Houghton, 14 votes. Now, hon. members, there were two spoiled papers and nobody received a majority. You must vote again. A third ballot took place. The President: Hon. members, the result of the ballot is that Mr Henderson has been elected with 16 votes, Mr Houghton receiving 12 votes. So, hon. members, I think it is an appropriate time at which to take a break, and we will recommence our deliberations with the next item at 5 o’clock. The Court adjourned at 4.40 p.m. and resumed its sitting at 5.00 p.m. Petition for Redress of Grievance of Margaret Bendall – DHSS Report Received – Recommendations Adopted Item 34. The Minister for Health and Social Security to move: That the report of the Department of Health and Social Security on the recommendations in the report of the Select Committee of Tynwald on the Petition for Redress of Grievance of Margaret Bendall be received and the recommendations therein approved. The President: Hon. members, having completed up to item 33 and also our supplementary order paper, we are now left with the two final items to deal with this evening. I call on the Minister for Health and Social Security to move item 34. Mrs Christian: Mr President, hon. members will not only have had an opportunity to read the department’s report on this matter but will be fairly familiar with the subject because it has had a considerable airing. There has been some campaigning for years to have the pension supplement payable on the basis of residency only rather than contributions and residency. Mr Peter Chapman presented a petition of grievance on the subject to this hon. Court assembled at St John’s in 1995. The petition was found to be in order. A select committee was appointed to consider the grievance and it reported to the October 1996 sitting of the Court. The committee concluded that the contributory nature of the supplement was quite correct, a view that was endorsed by the Court. Then Mrs Margaret Bendall presented a petition of grievance on similar lines to the July 2000 sitting of the Court at St John’s. I say ‘similar lines’ because specifically the grievance was that the supplement was not paid on the basis of 10 years’ residency in the Isle of Man. A select committee was appointed to consider this grievance and, as regards the grievance itself, came to the same conclusion as the previous committee: that the contributory basis of the supplement should continue. However, the committee saw fit not only to make recommendations regards the grievance - that was, to reject it - but also to make three further recommendations, all unconnected with the grievance, albeit with two of the three relating to the pension supplement. When I spoke on the motion of the chairman of the select committee in the 2000 petition of the October sitting of the Court last year, I commented that the committee’s report contained certain statements and made certain assumptions which were not accurate and I also commented that the report failed to address the issue of how their proposals should be financed; that, of course, is a key issue. For that reason I moved that the report be referred to my department for a further report not later than next month’s sitting of Tynwald, an amendment that was accepted by the Court without division. The motion in my name today and the circulated report are the department’s response to that decision. The main recommendation of the committee is the first one, the one which actually deals with the grievance itself. They recommended that qualification for receipt of the supplement should continue to be based on contributions rather than residency. In this there is contained a slight misunderstanding by the committee in that, under existing rules, qualification for the receipt of the supplement depends on contributions and ordinary residence. The department has therefore construed this recommendation as meaning that the status quo as regards both the contribution condition and ordinary residence should continue. There are two issues that need to be addressed in relation to this recommendation: firstly, the principle of whether or not operating the pension supplement on a contribution basis is fair; and secondly, how extending any entitlement to it on the basis of 10 year’s residency could actually be financed. The principle of contributory benefits is one of long standing. What was then the old age pension was first introduced in the United Kingdom in 1909. The UK Government of that time was faced with a dilemma with a familiar ring today. The public were demanding better welfare provision, yet that government thought that an increase in the rate of income tax to pay for it would be extremely unpopular. However, many on low incomes at that time contributed to life insurance policies if only to meet their eventual funeral expenses. Therefore, so that government thought, if the necessary financial contribution to meet the cost of old age was presented as a sort of saving for your own pension in terminology that was familiar and acceptable to the public as insurance, it would be acceptable. And they were right: the contributory principle was accepted then in the United Kingdom and it has stood us well over the years. Here on the Island, contributory old age pensions were first introduced 20 years later, in 1929, and today the contributory principle is still, I feel, very strongly supported. Contributory benefits do have a further advantage: they focus on the inadvisability of consuming today all that we earn today, even if national insurance contributions are not being saved to meet the cost of our own old ages individually. As hon. members are aware, the cost of today’s state pension is met out of today’s national insurance contributions, and when today’s contributors eventually become pensioners themselves, they will be relying on us as today’s politicians not to make extravagant commitments in terms of pensions that will bankrupt the system when demographic changes worsen the ratio between contributors and pensioners. I feel strongly that the contributory principle has much to commend it and that, if we were designing a welfare state with a clean slate, a contributory arrangement would still be a strong candidate. Most countries throughout the world have state pension arrangements based on the contributory principle. Of those who do not and where the entitlement is based only on residency, no contributions are payable at all; the pension is financed by taxation. In Australia, for example, there is a flat rate state pension payable on the basis of 10 year’s residency, no contributions are payable and the cost is met out of taxation. Interestingly, though, this pension is means-tested and therefore not universally available. The weakness in the case for change as put forward by the petitioner, I feel, is that she does not actually appear to be challenging the contributory principle itself but only one element of it. If her grievance were to be conceded, therefore, we would have a state pension based neither entirely on contributions nor entirely on ordinary residents but rather a hybrid between the two. The basic state pension would continue to be based on contributions but the 50 per cent top-up to it would be based on residency. The department does find such a proposal somewhat illogical and it therefore supports the select committee in its conclusion that it had received no evidence sufficiently persuasive to suggest that the present relationship between contributions and receipt of pension or pension supplement should be changed. This, of course, was a conclusion supported by this hon. Court last October without a division. I did suggest that there are two issues relating to the main recommendation: one of principle and the other of cost. It must be understood that the Isle of Man national insurance works on what is known as a pay-as-you-go principle, with the cost of today’s pensions and other benefits being met out of today’s contributions. So in the present financial year, the department expects that it will expend just over £100 million within the national insurance operating account, of which £84 million goes in state pensions including the pension supplement. How is the cost of that met? Well, just under £80 million will be paid into the operating account in national insurance contributions levied in the Isle of Man and on people working in the Isle of Man and their employers. The balance of some £20 million plus comes via an annual settlement with the United Kingdom. This represents the net annual cost of pensions paid in the Isle of Man which have been earned by payment of contributions in the United Kingdom. I say ‘net annual cost’ because it is a two-way arrangement. The United Kingdom Government nets off from this the payment of cost to pensions it pays in the UK where the entitlement arises out of contributions which were paid in the Isle of Man. Where does the UK Government get that £20 million plus from? It comes from UK national insurance contributions. Thus the entire cost of national insurance benefits this year in the Isle of Man will be met from national insurance contributions of which four-fifths are paid in the Island and one-fifth in the United Kingdom. There will be a small transfer to or from the national insurance investment account during the year depending on how income and outturn actually develop, but relative to total expenditure that would be small. Thus little or no income from the national insurance investment account is required to meet national insurance expenditure, which is hardly surprising when we consider the healthy state of our economy resulting in substantial receipts in national insurance contributions and minimum expenditure on unemployment-related benefits. In fact, at present, for every one person of pension age, there are 2.9 between the age of 16 and pension age. However - and this is a cautionary note, Mr President - during the coming decades, on the basis of actuarial projections the ratio between contributors and pensions and the extent to which outturn is met by contributions are both going to worsen. Because of a projected ageing population, by 2061 it is projected that the 2.9 people between the age of 16 and pension age will have reduced to about 2.3, given a conservative assumption for net immigration of about 250 people a year. Also, the pension age population will have risen from 15,000 to over 19,000, but the working age population only rising by 2,000 to 46,000. This surprising latter figure is explained by the fact that net immigration is assumed offset by the low birth rate from the 1980s onwards. On top of the future worsening support ratio, important changes were made to state pensions in 1978 and again from this year that will impact on future costs, and I make no apology, Mr President, for emphasising this issue of future costs. In 1978 the rôle of women with family responsibilities was recognised for national insurance purposes. Their option to pay a reduced rate of national insurance was discontinued and their rights to the basic pension have since been protected even though they may not be in work, so long as they are receiving child benefit. A consequence of this is that whilst many women over pension age today are receiving a 60 per cent rate of pension on their husbands’ contributions in future years many more will be entitled to received 100 per cent rate on their own contributions, and that, of course, has to be paid for by the working population when that point comes. In 1978 we also marked the introduction of state earnings related pension - SERPS, as hon. members will know it. Many existing pensions receive little or no SERPS because they reached pension age in the 1980s, but the pension awarded today contains an average SERPS addition of over £26 a week and many pensions accruing from this year will receive even higher earnings-related additions because of reforms, benefiting carers, the disabled and people on low earnings, and all these increases are going to have to be found even in spite of this changing and worsening ratio. The result of all of this is that national insurance expenditure is projected to more than double by the year 2061 in today’s money terms, but that income from national insurance contributions is projected to increase by less than double. So, as a result, it is projected that there will be a deficit on the national insurance operating account of over £30 million a year, again in today’s money terms, to be met from the investment account. However, the projections do indicate that the present balance on the investment account equivalent to around four years’ expenditure will remain, and that has been the policy adopted by the department and this hon. Court. The petitioner has failed to address this important issue of cost. Indeed, the suggestion being made by those supporting her case seems to be that it be met out of the national insurance fund. With respect, Mr President, this is simplistic. The national insurance fund is, in effect, an accounting arrangement, the working part of which is the operating account, the income of which comes from national insurance contributions. It would be irresponsible of government to meet an ongoing annual commitment of increased expenditure on a pension supplement by running down reserves in the investment account. That would lead to the scheme’s eventual insolvency and it would breach that trust which we have established in the national insurance pension provision between the generations. If we are to retain the structure of contributory benefits - and no-one, not even the petitioner, I believe, is suggesting that we do otherwise - there are only two ways in which the aspirations of the petitioner to extend its scope to those who have 10 years’ residency but do not satisfy the contribution conditions could be met: the first is to reduce the rate of pension supplement pro rata for everyone so that the total cost remains the same, and in very broad terms the supplement would reduce by perhaps two-thirds of its present rate to accommodate up to an additional one-third of new qualifiers; or the other way would be to leave the rate of supplement as it is and meet the additional cost by way of an increase in national insurance contributions. Although the data on the number of pensioners not receiving the supplement but who would satisfy a 10-year residential qualification is not available, it is not unreasonable to estimate that the extra cost of this option is presently within the range of £5 million to £6.8 million a year. Because of the lack of precise data the department has not sought a future projection of costs from the government actuary on this option. However, it should not be assumed that this present cost would reduce as mortality removed the initial surge of residentially qualified pensioners from the picture. Working in the other direction would be an increasing number of pensioners due to demographic influence and an increasing number of women qualifying on a full basic pension in their own contribution right. To meet this extra cost in broad terms, either employers’ national insurance contributions would have to increase or employees’ contributions would have to increase, and both would have to increase by a margin of one per cent or more. Not only would there be considerable administrative difficulties in such an arrangement, but it would have the effect of increasing business costs and, if the employees’ contribution option was chosen, of reducing net pay without any gain to the employees’ eventual pension entitlement. To reduce the rate of supplement for those entitled to it on the basis of contributions paid or to increase national insurance contributions in both cases to pay for additional pensions for those who have not contributed sufficiently or at all for it seems to the department neither fair nor realistic. I turn now to the second recommendation - that is, that those who have contributed for less then 10 years should receive a pro rata supplement. A case in favour of this recommendation I believe to be less flawed than the case for extending entitlement on the basis of residency only. A pro rata supplement does at least not run contrary to the contributory principle, and the case in favour rests on the anomaly of someone with a bare 10 years’ contribution gaining entitlement and someone with only nine years, not. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and had we in 1992, when we were preparing the ground for this supplement, anticipated the strength of feeling of the small but vocal minority who had paid some but not sufficient contributions for the supplement, we might have graded entitlements so that a full supplement was only payable if one had a full Isle of Man contribution record of 44 years in the case of a man reducing to 43/44ths for one year less than a full record, and so on. That, of course, would have made what is already a complicated arrangement inordinatedly complicated. It would be very difficult to introduce it now because we would be taking away an existing entitlement. Against the case is the fact that it is so easy to qualify for the supplement. A man may choose to retire early in the United Kingdom at age 54, come and live in the Isle of Man. He i s entitled, as is a woman, to pay an unemployed contribution of £6.85 a week at present rates and qualify. If he is married, it may be possible for his wife to qualify for a supplement on his contributions, and alternatively a husband may do so on a wife’s contributions. If a person is in part-time employment, he may pay even less to qualify. Indeed, if someone is earning between £75 and £85 a week, he will be attributed with a zero rate contribution and may qualify for the supplement when actually paying no money at all for it. The supplement was intended to be awarded to people with a significant Isle of Man work record, and the 10-year qualification period was set so as to err on the very generous side so as to allow some resident people who had decided on an off-Island employment for part of their working lives to qualify. The aggrieved people in this case are essentially people whose working lives have been substantially or, in the case of some early retired people, entirely off the Island. On balance, therefore, the department believes that it is right and fair that the 10-year rule should remain and it supports the narrow majority vote of Tynwald last October to reject this recommendation. Hon. members last October were provided with inaccurate information in the select committee report. The committee suggested that the annual additional cost of this recommendation of some three-quarters of a million, now rising to £2 million in 2031 in today’s terms, could be met, as they put it, ‘out of the fund’. As I have already explained in relation to the main recommendation, such a view is simplistic. What they are really saying is that an annual ongoing cost should be met by drawing down on the reserves in the investment account. This would be unsound financial practice indeed, meeting an ongoing cost essentially out of capital. On the basis of the government actuary’s projections, if this course was adopted, the balance in the investment account would deplete from the present four years or so equivalent benefit expenditure to just 1.7 years by 2061. In other words, a future government would no longer have the income from the investment account to meet the benefit commitments that this government would have bequeathed to them. That would not, in the department’s view, be responsible, and if this recommendation were accepted, the responsible course would be to meet the extra costs by increased national insurance contributions at a rate of an additional 0.22 per cent in the short term. The department does not believe that such a course of action would be fair to contributors for the reasons previously stated. Turning now to the third recommendation, this provides that the pension supplement be disregarded as income in the calculation of income support. I am bound to say that I find this recommendation somewhat ironic, because when the grievance being considered by the select committee arose out of a perceived unfairness in the system, income support sets minimum levels of income for pensions in order to ensure that their incomes do not fall into poverty levels. Different levels of income are set according to the personal circumstances of the pensioner. A pensioner couple will have a level set higher than a single pensioner, and so the levels vary according to housing costs, age, disability and so on. Certain income is disregarded for special reasons. Generally, a special reason is extra cost, so a pensioner will have attendance allowance disregarded because attendance allowance is not considered income but rather a payment to meet the extra expense incurred because of a disability. Yet the select committee proposes a different level of minimum income, not on the grounds of personal circumstances but on grounds on receipt of the pension supplement. A pensioner in receipt of the pension supplement at the full rate would be considered as needing a minimum income to lift them out of poverty of £37 plus more than a pension not in receipt of the supplement. What sort of message would this send out about fair treatment of pensioners on low incomes? If there is disaffection among a minority group of pensioners now, I can image that disaffection multiplying considerably if we were to proceed with this particular recommendation. Of equal concern, and perhaps more concern, is the message it would send out to people of working age who we are currently asking to think seriously about planning for retirement. Effectively for this group, in the case of a single person, we would be saying we are going to raise the income support threshold by £37 a week so that if you are presently contributing to an occupational pension which you expect to provide you with, say, £40 a week income above the income support level, the contributions you have paid towards the first £37 of that pension have been a waste of time. Frankly, Mr President, when assessing the worth of the general principle of this recommendation, I can find nothing of merit to support it all. It is unfair, it is divisive and runs contrary to government policy of encouraging people to save for retirement. The cost to general revenue is estimated at an extra cost of £2.5 million a year plus the long-term unquantifiable effects of discouraging personal savings, which would ultimately end in there being further demands on the state for income support. The department strongly supports the decision of the October Tynwald of last year in recommending a rejection of this suggestion. The final recommendation is obscure and inaccurate. People on long-term incapacity benefit, disability living allowance or attendance allowance do not receive the winter premium, which has since been renamed the ‘winter bonus’, unless they also receive income support. Entitlement to winter bonus rests on entitlement to income support, not the other benefits mentioned. Essentially, the select committee intended to recommend that the system of winter fuel payments operating in the United Kingdom be introduced in the Isle of Man, but that the position of people in the Isle of Man in receipt of the Island’s winter bonus who would not qualify for winter fuel payments because they were under age 60, be protected. The United Kingdom winter fuel payment is a lump sum of £200 payable in December where there is someone in the household aged 60 or over. It is payable only to people resident in the United Kingdom. It is worth noting that in the department’s report originally it was payable where there was a person in the household over pension age - 60 for a woman at present and 65 for a man. Eventually equality of pension age of 65 by the year 2020 would have resulted in this payment being made to households where there was a person aged over 65. However, due to a decision of the European Court of Justice in the United Kingdom, the UK has had to amend the scheme to treat men and women equally. It did so by amending the qualifying age to 60 for both sexes. This is particularly bad targeting, because in the United Kingdom many men between 60 and 65 are either still in work or have retired early as they can afford to do so. Here on the Island, of men between 60 and 65 on the basis of the latest census figures of those people, 58 per cent are in work, 26 per cent are retired before state pension age and only 16 per cent were either unable to work or unemployed. The department believes that the UK-style winter fuel payment is poorly aimed and indeed unnecessary, given the Island’s more generous contributory benefit system. The additional cost is estimated at over 2.5 million per year to general revenue. If such an additional sum were made available to the department there are, in the department’s view, more worthwhile developments which it could be directed to. Accordingly, it supports the view of this Court, as expressed in October last, that this recommendation be not accepted. Mr President, I have given some detail on our recommendations on the select committee report. The department also offered a presentation to members in which we presented quite a range of numbers and statistics which I hope was helpful to members, and I beg to move. The President: Hon. member for Onchan. Mr Earnshaw: Mr President, I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Hon. member for Michael. Mr Cannan: Mr President, hon. members, at a sitting of Tynwald held on 24th April last year the petition for redress of grievance of Margaret Bendall, which had been presented to Tynwald at St John’s in July 2000, was referred to a select committee for consideration and report. The committee voted by this Court was Mr George Waft, Member of the Legislative Council, Mr Alan Crowe and myself, and at the first meeting of the committee the other two members suggested that I should be chairman. The committee, under the acting Clerk of Tynwald, Mr Robert Quayle, as its secretary, heard oral evidence from the petitioner and her husband and took evidence on a number of occasions from Mr Tomlinson and Mr Hull of the Department of Health and Social Security, and in the report much of that information is there in the appendix if members wish to refresh their memory - perhaps I should have circulated this report again today. The committee also advertised for written evidence and received a large number of letters. The majority of the letters, which was to be expected, were from those who supported the petition, but there were a considerable number also which were obviously uninstigated, shall we say, expressing the view that the petition be rejected, and those letters were available for inspection. Now, the committee took this matter very seriously and gave much consideration and had the benefit of the legal advice of the then acting Clerk of Tynwald. The first matter we had to decide was whether pensions and the pension supplement in the Isle of Man should be on a contributory basis or, as the petitioner wished, on residency in respect of the pension supplement, and the committee took the firm view, endorsed by this Court when this report was debated last October, that the only justifiable system was a system that those who had paid into the fund should benefit from the fund. We could think of no private insurance company, whether it be Scottish Widows or Standard Life, who would pay on their profits a supplementary pension universally to retired people if they had not actually contributed to Scottish Widows or Standard Life or any other retirement fund. The basis of all payment is on contribution. That, we felt, was a fundamental principle. We also looked at the matter of whether somebody could go and emigrate to a country and expect to be paid by that country a pension, supplementary or otherwise, when they had never contributed anything in the form of insurance or pension contribution, and we did not investigate too closely but we could find no country that did so. And so that then was the basis of the principle of the supplementary benefit, paid to those who had contributed to the fund. Then we looked at the issue of the supplementary pension, because basically that is what the issue was all about. The grievance was the supplementary pension that is now being paid. That is the grievance. We decided that it should only be paid for those who had contributed, but we also found that having a cut-off point at 10 years left many who had perhaps served 91/2 years in the Isle of Man, had given a contribution of 91/2 years with nothing, eight with nothing and so on, and they too had a grievance that they had almost reached that cut-off point. The committee again gave much thought and consideration as to whether there should be a sliding scale. The view was put to us by the DHSS officers that if a sliding scale was to be introduced, as the minister has just said, we should start at 44 years, but that is historical. The pension supplement is paid now at 10 years. If I can digress for a moment, the petitioner asked for those with 10 years’ residence. The petitioner at no time thought, ‘What about those who have lived here nine years, or eight years?’ They would then immediately have their grievance too, as well as those who have a grievance because they have contributed to the pension fund for nine years. In fact, the committee asked Mrs Bendall what her view was; if the committee recommended residency for 10 years, what about those that had lived nine years and the response we got, if my memory serves me correctly, was that that was not the issue; the cut-off point was 10 years, and over that they wanted the pension supplement. In giving consideration to a sliding scale, the department of Health and Social Security has estimated the total cost of the fund of such a proposal. At the present time it would cost an additional - that is when this report was written this time last year - £741,000 per annum rising to £2 million in 2031, and this cost would be equivalent to an increase in national insurance contributions of 0.22 per cent rising to .35 per cent over the same period, over 30 years. But at the present time it could be funded out of the surplus, including investment income on the fund. Now, those who have attended the DHSS presentation last week saw that there is a surplus each year. It was there on the screen, a surplus. And that surplus was much, much more than £741,000, much more than £2 million, and for many years we asked the chief executive if there had been a surplus on the pensions account and this is how the fund has built up over the period of time. Now, it is correct that the department had been advised by the government actuary that the fund may move into deficit at some stage due to the confluence of an ageing population and the inadequacy of the total of the contribution plus the contributions from the UK fund, but actuaries err on the side of extreme caution, and the committee in all fairness considered that such a potential problem should stand in the way of resolving something which is presently a justifiable grievance on the part of those persons who have spent at least part of their working life on the Island making contributions to both its economy and to the Manx fund did not really justify not giving them a sliding scale on the supplement. There were many letters which we considered from those who had worked here for perhaps 91/2 years, nine years and 28 weeks were nothing; . . . those who had for some reason worked the extra 24 weeks were getting the full supplement, and when this motion of this report was debated last October members may recall that the voting was on the four items. Contributory based, as I have said, it was passed unanimously. On the fact that there should be a sliding scale on the supplement as proposed by your select committee, the voting in the House of Keys was 12-12 and the motion was lost. We then come to the third recommendation, which was that there should be disregard of the pension supplement, and the thinking behind this was that the Christmas bonus is a disregard in terms of income support, and quite rightly so, and that here was a supplementary pension which went to the pensioner and saved the government. If there was no pension supplement, those in need of income support would cost the government £21/2 million but, because those people are getting a bonus from the pension fund, they are saving the general revenue £21/2 million and we felt that if there was a bonus, to be fair and equitable you are distributing a bonus; let us distribute it to all rather than to those at the bottom of the pensioners scale or social scale or whatever you care to say. They become the most disadvantaged, because John Smith living in a house who is not on income support, pension support, gets the bonus in full; John Jones living next door who, in order to have his pension upped to the living level, got income support, the supplement came in - he did not get the full supplement; he only perhaps gets £14 of it whereas the other £20 of it was taken away from what would have been his income support. So the government would, if there had not been any pension supplement at all to these people, be paying £21/2 million. The government is not paying that £21/2 million because these people are getting supplementary pension. But that is a matter of opinion. The minister does not agree with it; so be it. All of us in here have our own opinions, and we consider our own opinions and the minister, with the greatest respect, does not have a monopoly of opinion on payment to pensioners. Nor do I. The final recommendation was to do with the £200 winter fuel allowance. It was brought to our attention in the evidence given by Mrs Bendall when she put forward all the disadvantages that those who had come to reside in the Isle of Man were subject to. They came, they did not get the pension supplement, they did not get the winter allowance which pays £200 to every single household in the UK over the age of 60, whether it is a single person household or a double person household; it is paid to every household. We looked at this and thought about it and offered it more as a suggestion rather than something which we had deeply held views on, but we most certainly, as a committee, had a deeply held view that it should be contributory- based, with which you all agree. We had a strongly held view that it should be a sliding scale, and we held the view that those pensioners at the bottom of the pension scale who - and I repeat this - in normal circumstances, if there was no pension supplement, would get income support out of the general revenue fund amounting to £21/2 million, but, because they are getting from the pension fund, from one hand part of it is then taken away in income support and the general revenue saves £21/2 million. So, hon. members, we had the debate last October, we are having the debate again now. The motion on the order paper is that the Petition of Redress of Grievance of Margaret Bendall be received and the recommendations therein be approved. In other words, you are being asked to approve the recommendations of the DHSS as Tynwald policy in contrary to the views expressed by the committee that you yourselves appointed. And I believe that the matter should be left open, should not be signed off today in finality as Tynwald policy, and so I am moving an amendment, Mr President. That all words after ‘received’ be deleted. So the motion will be, ‘That the report of the Department of Health and Social Security on the recommendations in the Report of the Select Committee of Tynwald on the Petition for Redress of Grievance of Margaret Bendall be received’ and then it will give an opportunity for further thought to be given and for members to resurrect the matter if they so wish at some future date rather than finalising it and approving in finality the views of the DHSS. Mr President, I am pleased to move the amendment. Thank you, sir. The President: Hon. member, Mr Crowe. Mr Crowe: Thank you, Mr President. I rise to second the amendment as a member of the select committee that looked into this, and we did, I believe, put a lot of work and a lot of effort into this, we met with the petitioners and we met with the staff of the DHSS and we had quite a lot of evidence. First of all, I would like to confirm that we were absolutely clear that the retirement pension had to be contribution-based, not residence-based. There was absolutely no doubt about that, and I think it is in our petition that it is clear from the present scheme that for anybody who wishes to receive a full pension forty years’ contributions or credits have to be paid into their national insurance account. As for the second recommendation, the committee were trying to correct what we perceived to be a defect in the current scheme, and we suggested a sliding scale arrangement to overcome this defect as the hon. member for Michael and chairman of the committee has said. Just for example, a person, even to get any retirement pension at all, has to contribute at least 10 years of pension contributions and under current rules would be entitled to a quarter rate of retirement pension, and if those 10 years were in the UK, then they would get a quarter pension, if they were 10 years in the Isle of Man, they would get the same rate of retirement pension. However, what we were trying to say - and I am not sure that it is absolutely clear in the document - is that if one up to nine of those 10 years of contributions was the Manx pension fund this would entitle them to one-tenth up to nine-tenths of the Manx pension supplement depending on the number of years. So, for example, if a person had 16 years’ contributions, they would receive 16/40 or 2/5 of the normal retirement pensions but, because six of those years had been in the Isle of Man they would get 6/10 of the Manx supplement. So really, this is the point we were trying to make: to smooth out what we felt was the inequity because at present, it was put to us that people were paying five years or six years or eight years, and I think there was one example of nine years four months, where the person missed out and it seemed to us that on these proportional bases’ and having a percentage basis of your retirement pension linked into your percentage bases of your Manx pension supplement, the whole thing would be manageable, it would smooth out some of these anomalies, and we felt it was reasonable. That was the conclusion that I was very comfortable with and I felt that Tynwald would have agreed to that. However, the debate did not recognise that, but I think it is an issue that I would not like to see the book closed on, and that is why I am seconding this amendment today - because time, I hope, would enable further thought to be given to this and maybe possibly bring it in. Thank you, Mr President. The President: Hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran. Mr Karran: Eaghtyrane, I think that we cannot support the amendment because I think that it is important and we have just recently seen a great controversy about the fact of parliament making recommendations and votes in parliament being sacrosanct and being the way that it should go forward as far as the executive is concerned, but this is just the political cop-out; this is just lhiam-lhiat politics, the situation where you are on both sides against the middle and that is what we have got as far as this amendment is concerned. I think that it is wrong, and that is why I hope, in the next House, to bring a motion forward about honouring commitments that are put in parliament by the Council of Ministers, but this is not a commitment, it is the political fudge and, let us be perfectly honest about it, if we support this it means nothing. It means everything to everybody else and we can be the great heroes to our friends and say, ‘Yes, I supported this’ but there is no real commitment. Let us stop the crass hypocrisy. Either vote for the report or throw the report out, but to do this would be wrong, in my opinion, and we must make sure of that as a parliamentary assembly which one has great concerns about at times - the way that the executive and the parliamentary assembly have virtually verged into one. Here is something that we are putting down that it be received. It means all to everybody and nothing to anybody, and that is the truth. Now, as one of the people who have fought for this proposal here, in the late 1980s, one of the architects of this proposal appeared in the late 1980s, another non-achievement, the issue that concerns me. . . and we have done well; I picked up the issue because I wanted the petition debated and I want a debate about those issues, and that is what we should do. We made sure that we looked after our economic refugees that were forced out of our country because there was no employment in the 1950s and 1960s and who came back. We have done lots of things to try and make it more flexible. But before we start just giving this situation any more thought, it outrages me that what annoys me more than anything is that everybody has been on about the ones who have a vote, and we know we are going to lose a certain amount of votes over this and that is why this is manna from heaven, because we can say to one lot one thing and the other lot another. But what about the people who worked all their lives in a low-paid economy, namely the Isle of Man, who had to see their family split up because there were no job prospects on the Isle of Man so they had their children forced off the Island because there was nothing for them to do and then they come to their twilight years? Well, to be fair, when I came in here, the government has done so well on improving the welfare state out of all recognition to what it was 17 years ago when, quite frankly, altitude-sick sheep got more priority than some poor soul who did not have a coat on their back, but the fact is that that has been improved out of all recognition, but they are forced, in their twilight years, to have to leave the Isle of Man because their children are in the UK and they do not get anything, but they contributed. If there was going to be a priority, I believe the priority should go to the likes of them. I can name a dozen people that I know of without even thinking about it. I think he is dead now, but I used to get a letter on a regular basis about the fact that he had worked 54 years contributing into the welfare state, had to go to the United Kingdom and did not get . . . and got taxed on a small occupational pension here and he could not claim it back, to add insult to injury. Let us be honest with these people. I am not saying that I actually think that the thing has addressed all the issues, but if hon. members want to pick up different angles like the likes of I picked up the angles as far as economic refugees that had to leave the country to go to the United Kingdom and came back at the end of their lives so we give them the contributions back that they lost after 1978. I think that that is an issue that maybe somebody wants to pick up, but I think it is wrong for this House to do the cop-out. I expect better out of the parliament. We expect the Council of Ministers to do the cop-out but not the members of this hon. Court, and I believe that to support the amendment is wrong. If the hon. mover, the hon. member for Michael, has things that he feels that we should address, then bring a motion to this hon. Court and let us debate those issues and, if they are worthy of a committee, then let us debate them, just like the issue, as I say, of the likes of the old dears that I know who have had to go across and have lost out on this after spending a lifetime where there have been no occupational pensions and scab employment. That is what I think and I believe it would be wrong to do this because it gives out a wishy-washy response to an important issue. The hon. member for Michael wants to move a motion at a later date on certain aspects. I would maybe want to think that this issue should be looked at, then let us put single issues down on those issues, but I do want to say I think it is wrong to leave this hanging in the air as if we can promise our constituents, the ones that are affected by it one thing and promise the other lot, our locals, another thing, and that is the sort of lhiam-lhiat, ‘with me, with thee’, with nobody but ourselves sort of situation that brings this Court down, in my opinion. Either vote for the recommendations of the minister or vote against the recommendations and, if people want to do something, let us see some motions in Tynwald. We want the executive to be accountable for recommendations in this Court. This is not a recommendation, it is a political fudge, in my opinion, and I think it should not be supported. The President: Hon. member for Rushen, Mr Gill. Mr Gill: Thank you, Eaghtyrane. The issue I would seek advice and reassurance about relates to the status and entitlement rights of Manx men and Manx women who served the Isle of Man by enlisting in Her Majesty’s armed forces. (Mr Delaney: Hear, hear.) Clearly by its nature such service will require service men and women to serve in the UK or abroad, but in doing so they are very much representing and promoting the interests of our nation. Can the minister, therefore, please advise the Court about the status and entitlement of Manx men and women serving or having served in the armed forces, and will she confirm that such service will not count against them in this matter? The President: Hon. member for Council, Mr Delaney. Mr Delaney: Thank you, Mr President. First of all, just in case there is some misunderstanding, I thought the chairman of the committee that originally looked at this did bring resolutions to this Court and we all debated them - Mr Cannan: That is right and we voted on them. Mr Delaney: - and we all supported them. A Member: Only one, only one. Mr Delaney: I thought the ones he mentioned we supported, but maybe I did miss an awful lot, I know, but I thought that I did not miss it. I will not speak about pension supplements - I am from Barcelona, I know nothing! The situation is, I can remember in detail, those that were here and how everyone’s stance at that time was. I can remember the debates about going bankrupt in the year 2035. I can remember all that, because that is all the pension fund would last to and now it has gone up to 2065. Funny how the actuaries were that far out! Or were we out? What we want to do first of all is all pat each other on the back on behalf of the that we have achieved one of the wonderful things in Europe, probably in the world: we believe our pensioners are better and should be treated better than other pensioners, and that is why I am delighted with the Isle of Man pension supplement, which I am still grateful for and I hope in the future to live long enough to be able to get it, (Laughter) (A Member: Hear, hear.) but I think if most of the Manx people would congratulate members of Tynwald on any issue, this one is the big one that they are thankful for and grateful for. There is no doubt about that. Now we come to where we are in relation to the recommendations coming here today for the minister. I first of all say I have no intention of voting to give something to somebody on a pension who has not contributed to it. That would be crazy. It would mean that somebody comes to the Isle of Man as a dependent of somebody and we immediately give them £36 of our taxpayers’ money to welcome them to the Isle of Man. No country is going to do that and even the Australians, who were mentioned by the minister, are rethinking their pension scheme in relation to the number of new people arriving on their shores, who have paid nothing in and are taking advantage of fleeing the country of their birth to arrive in Australia. And that rightly so - you cannot spend the whole of your life just giving out to other people. We all give it to it in charity and the Manx, if you will note, are the most charitable people in the world per head of population, in my opinion, and most figures, when you look at the poppy fund and everything else - we are, but we are not going to spend the rest of our time paying out to keep the rest of the world who want to come here just off the cuff. That is a fact, but we are doing well for our pensioners. Now the situation with Mr Gill, for example - and I do thank him because he has been helpful to me in this issue and I understand it - my concern was on this that people who are serving in the armed forces and had a Manx insurance number, as I understand it, were going to get, when they came back, the Manx pension supplement, because the nature of their employment in the forces meant them being off the Island and they had to contribute to the British fund, but if they had a Manx insurance number they would get the pension. I would like the minister to confirm that. That is one of my concerns and I know Mr Gill and others in the Court have been concerned about that as well and that is only right, or are we going to do to our people what was done after the First and Second World Wars and you can fight for your country, but you are not going to be very welcome when you get back? I hope those days are finished. The situation, as I see it, on this is that if you come to the conclusion that you are not going to pay out to people who have not paid in, you then have to see if there is any injustice in the system, and I think the chairman and the member that we appointed to do this job, when they reported to us, did an excellent job. Of all the reports that have come to this Court this was an excellent one. It highlighted the errors and, in my opinion, the very one really that really came to the pinnacle I was delighted with, but you cannot give out with one hand, which we have all said, I think, at some time, and take back with the other. But that is what we are doing again. The ordinary man at the bottom who has not got the income levels - that does not require him to go for benefit or help from the state and he does not get the benefit of the £36 - the very people who we want to assist. They are pensioners. If you do not want to be discriminatory, all you have got to do is take the age. What makes a pensioner is the age, not their income. Yet here in the Isle of Man we have decided that it is not your age at all; it is how much the state is giving you that i s what we are going to give you as a pension supplement, and if you listen to what the chairman was saying about this, are we going to carry on down that road, discriminating against our own? I hope the members are not going to do that. Let us kill that once and for ever and just kill it completely, that we believe that in this case pensioners are defined by age, not by the amount of money they have managed to put away in the bank. That is what we should be looking at. That is one reason I hope members will support the amendment. I know under standing orders that six months could elapse in the case of the member for Onchan. I understand possibly where he was coming from there. In six months’ time this issue could be resurrected by any member again, but do we want to go down that road? Voting for the whole of the resolution you would be virtually voting it out and then have it thrown back at you. You did not want to know when it was debated today; you were going to throw it out. It is time for a second thought to look what the committee did recommend and why they recommended it, and it is not going to cost us a penny piece to have a look at it again. The case has not been put of why we should not disallow this amount of money from the pensioners when we are estimating what they need to live on. We give it to them because they are Manx pensioners, paid into the system and getting out of it, so that goes against the bit of where you pay in you get out. Everyone should be treated the same for that purpose. Mr President, having said that we congratulate ourselves, I honestly do, and I think that the minister, her department and her predecessors have done a wonderful job, there is no doubt about that, and a lot of work has gone into it and a lot of effort, but this is the time, I believe, rather than ‘Say enough is enough’, to look at those people who maybe in some way we are not giving the quota to who are entitled, and I ask members sincerely, because this is going to come back now for the next four years if it is not left on the amendment. It is going to keep coming back until we get to the situation of five years’ time when everyone has got to stand up and justify their situation, and I hope in five years’ time we have sorted . . . You will not sort them all out, you never will when you come to payment, but I hope most of the irregularities, as I call them - I am sure the department does not - in relation to payments can be sorted out in the next four years. Thank you, Mr President. I wish you all well. The President: The hon. member for Garff. Mr Rodan: Thank you, Mr President. I think the minister understands that I have had a position on this which I have raised in this hon. Court and indeed discussed with her and her department, and she will understand, I think, that I am not wholly in agreement with the department’s position on this, in particular the 10-year residency qualification. In dealing with the two committee recommendations, I would just invite her to comment first of all on what seems to be the essence of the complaint by the petitioner, which is to do with the contributory nature of the scheme and of the supplement and to be qualified for the supplement. Now, it is very easy, Mr President, for us all to agree, of course, that the only beneficiaries from a scheme which is contributory in nature should be those who have contributed into it. I would say, though, that the decision to introduce the Manx pension supplement was on the basis that there were surpluses built up in the fund. The question is, are all those surpluses due to the contributions made by contributors? The contention seems to be that they are not. Those surpluses have been built up in part by the fact of the success of the economy, whereby there has been less demand upon that fund on the basis of need, and the success of the economy has in turn been partly due to all members of society contributing towards that economy. So in other words, pensioners who are part of the economy and who have not contributed into the fund have nonetheless, by their economic contribution, indirectly been responsible for the growth in the fund, and certainly when we talk in terms of investment, the investment element, an investment account, this is going to be called upon in future years, as the minister has said, to pay for demands upon the fund, but at this point in time, and particularly when a decision was made in 1993 to return some of the benefits that had accrued into the fund, the decision was made to return that solely to those who had made contributions into the fund directly. But the contention is that those surpluses are not solely due to those contributors, but to the strength of the economy. The point is also made - and perhaps the minister could just clarify misunderstandings, because I think I would agree there have been misunderstandings in relation to the UK transfers to the Isle of Man in respect of UK contributors, because it is certainly a feeling that it is the investment growth of those moneys, at least in part, which has been responsible for surpluses available for distribution. I think the point in raising this is that when the supplement was introduced in April 1993 at a rate of £5 a week, the differential was not particularly grievous or gave rise for concern. The trouble is, having grown over the years and especially to a point whereby in April 2001 the decision of this Court, an endorsement of this Court, was given to the supplement being pegged at a rate of 50 per cent of the pension, it is now that that particular differential has become extremely noticeable. It is so huge now that, like it or not, a situation is evolving whereby there is a large chunk of people, 3,000 to 4,000 out of the 15,000 pensioners in this Island who by definition under the rules will not qualify, who now feel a sense that there is a two-tier system emerging and that a two-tier society has emerged of pensioners who face the same living costs as pensioners who are getting the supplement, and it is this that has given the sense of grievance now which has led to the calls for residency being the basis and not contribution. I believe that contribution should be the essence of the system, but I would appreciate the minister clarifying the fact, or the contention at least, that surpluses in the fund that are being returned do not arise 100 per cent solely due to the activities of contributors but for other reasons to do with the strength of the economy. The other points I would wish to reinforce are one or two points made by others in relation to the minimum qualification period of 10 years. The hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran, I think, made a very good point: that if this was a truly equitable system we would be giving the benefit of the disbursements out of the fund to those who have contributed, whether they are resident of not. Why is it that those who choose to retire to England after a lifetime of making contributions in the Isle of Man should get nothing? If we were being truly equitable we would recognise that particular unfairness. The others have been documented, which are to do with the case of the armed services, and the minister well knows that it is possible, it was the case that in 1948 an individual could leave this Island having been called into the King’s service and to have served in the armed forces, having completed the three-year period, then to have started their career of making contributions for the rest of their working life, having started to make those contributions in the UK and not to have recognised the fact they were technically at that time resident in the Isle of Man, and those years spent in the armed forces straight from school, let us say, in the Isle of Man are not recognised towards the qualifying period. There is an injustice, albeit on to a very small number of individuals, that currently remains unresolved. We also have the unfairness of the 10-year qualifying period in respect of women who have not had the same opportunity over a working life to make contributions as men and therefore the chances of their only having been able to make 81/2 years’ contribution is that much higher. A graduated system, I believe, notwithstanding the cost - I think there is an element there of equity that remains to be addressed, and I do not believe today we should be simply closing the book on the matter. Thank you, Mr President. The President: Now, hon. members, I am aware of the clock and at this juncture I have to put it to you whether or not you wish to continue. I have three further names on my list here; can I ask if you wish to continue? Members: Yes, agreed. The President: In that case, hon. members, can we try not to be too repetitive? (Mr Cretney: Hear, hear.) I call on the hon. member for Peel, Mrs Hannan. Mrs Hannan: Thank you, Eaghtyrane. I just rise because of what was said by the last two speakers. They, maybe unintentionally, gave the impression that this was reported, it has been looked at, it has just had a cursory glance by the department and come back, and I would just say that the department has considered this particular issue in great detail before coming forward with these recommendations. I think I would also comment to the last speaker; he said that we should do it equitably notwithstanding the cost. There is a cost in everything that we do. There is discrimination, as the member mentioned himself: men and women - women retiring at 60 and getting the pension and, as the member for Council has said, he hopes to live long enough to get, but he has to wait until 65, and so there are a number of discriminatory facts with regard to this. If somebody has saved, they have got more money than somebody who has not saved, and therefore the person that has saved is getting this as a right and is able to live a better quality of life than the person who has not saved, but there are discriminatory facts in relation to pensions, in relation to what we contribute to and in relation to what we do not contribute to. I think we have to remember that we still do have a good quality of life here and that attracts people to live here. I think in the future it will attract less because of the cost of housing, but it is still attracting people to come to live here, to retire here, for the quality of life, and what we forget is that their pensions here are paid out from the UK, but they get a different amount in their pension than our pensioners do because of the different way that it is made up. So in actual fact we are not looking at this amount of £37 as opposed to nothing. There is a difference when it comes to what is paid on the average rates in the UK and in the Isle of Man. I think we must not forget that with any other pension that we would be paying into we would have to pay in for a specific time before we paid out, and that is what this particular pension actually says: you pay in for this period of time before you get anything out, notwithstanding that it relates to this particular issue, but other issues as well. Even if it comes to sick pay and you have not paid your national insurance, you do not get it unless you have got this two years of full commitment. You would then have to apply for income support. It is up to people to apply for income support if their income is not sufficient to see to their needs, and there are other items too within the social security that people can pick up to make up their income. Maybe there is resistance from this, but it is there and it is there for people to make use of if their income is less than is deemed necessary for living purposes. National insurance - I think we sometimes forget that we are not just paying in for our pension; we are paying in for a number of other issues - as I mentioned before, sick pay and these sort of issues - that are also coming out and can come out over the period of our lifetime as long as we have got these two years of payments for sick pay and these other issues. I also accept that there are surpluses, but those surpluses could be wiped out tomorrow if our economy changes. It has only grown because these funds have been invested over the years to grow, and I think we have to be very careful that what we are giving today to our pensioners could be lost in a very short period of time if our situations change. But in considering all of this, the committee looked at this particular issue and came forward with recommendations. The recommendations were accepted totally by the Court. Some votes were 12-12, but I have to say that the department has looked and considered all these issues carefully and it is not a straightforward ‘them and us’; some get, some do not. There are different amounts paid from the UK to pensioners than are paid to our pensioners, and so in some instances the difference is not that much, but if you have not paid in a full amount or if married women have not paid the full amount, I mean I have a constituent who did not pay the full amount for a time; she retired at, I think, round about 65, but her husband was not retirement age, so she will get nothing until he retires at 65, and she could not, when she found out her situation, then make up and pay the back date because she was over retirement age to do that. So there are iniquities within our set-up; it is not a case of ‘them and us’, I would put it to this Court, and I would hope that members will support the motion that is on the order paper because I really do not understand what the amendment is doing. The amendment is saying that the report should be received. The Department of Health and Social Security has to continue paying. They are not going to stop tomorrow because we reject or just receive this report. It will continue as it did after the select committee reported. So I would hope that members will support the motion that is on the paper, which I think is the right way to go this afternoon. Thank you, Eaghtyrane. The President: Hon. member for Council, Mr Waft. Mr Waft: Thank you, Mr President. I would just clarify one point: I was on the select committee and all the recommendations certainly were not agreed with by the Court. In fact, on the amendment by the hon. member for East Douglas, he decided to do each one in turn and they were voted on separately, and eventually it was referred back to the department. That was the situation at the time. By the debate today we can see what a quagmire this can eventually read into if we start. It is like walking through treacle trying to work out pensions, how much it is going to cost and what the actuary said, what he has not said and whether the actuary was right or wrong in his estimates over the years. That happens from time to time, but you have to take advice from somebody; right or wrong, you have to have somebody to blame at the end of the day. It is a nice ethos to think that you get out what you pay in. Unfortunately that is not the case; you do not get out what you pay in at all, but it is nice to have something to hang on to when you are defending a situation, as the department was defending with regard to this particular issue. If you have not paid in for 10 years you are not getting anything out, which is fine and I agree with that, and what the committee were left with was a situation which we had the petitioner presenting her case and what the committee did was to present some ideas and some options that Tynwald could look at, it the department could perhaps look at and made some recommendations, they were debated and it was a close thing, but the department eventually got the situation to look at. But I think the committee was treated a little bit unfairly by the minister and perhaps in some cases rather derisorily when there was criticism of all the facts and figures. I would put it to the DHSS that the committee did not have the facts and figures, only the ones that were supplied by the DHSS - Mr Cannan: That is right. Mr Waft: - and the members who came to see us at the time. So if there was a mix-up in the figures, then maybe we are to blame at the end of the day, but you have to consider the fact that we were trying to get something out before the election came upon us fairly quickly, and that was the situation. In fact, if I remember rightly, I think the whole report was sent to the Department of Health and Social Security prior to its publication and we took advice. Mr Cannan: Correct. Mrs Christian: Two days to respond. Mr Waft: If the department did not agree with anything I would have said, ‘This is a load of rubbish’ and have another think about it; we probably would have had to do so eventually, but we tried to find a way through and get something done by the time that it was involved. So the consultations did take place and I do not think the department can say that they did not take place. They might not have agreed with the political end decisions that the committee came to with regard to the 10-year period and the sliding scale. We were trying to find a way through and a way out for the problems that people had and the situation we thought perhaps might be a way forward in this regard. With regard to the disregard of pension supplement for income support, we thought that was just the old trick of handing it with one hand and taking it back with the other and, (Mr Delaney: Hear, hear.) quite honestly, what we thought was that it needs looking at, really; if you are going to give them a supplement, do not take it off their income support. I mean, that is absolute nonsense: you are giving it with one hand and taking it back with the other. So what we suggested was that maybe you could look at that and maybe think of some way round this to try and have some empathy with the people who are receiving it and, if you take into consideration, for instance, the 10-year situation with regard to the reduction for eight years, nine years or whatever, we did get advice, and the advice was that that is administratively possible. So that is why we thought, ‘Well, it is a possibility.’ There were not any sort of walls built up with anyone saying ‘Oh, no, you cannot possibly do that because of. . .’ A,B,C or D. In fact, it was administratively possible to do so and they do so in other instances, apparently. So that was a problem that we thought could have been overcome if the political will was there. Now, that is what I would like to say: at the end of the day, the select committee make the reports, they have tried to find a way through all the quagmire of benefits that can arise, and I have always tried to keep away from the DHSS and the benefits side because I know how complicated the work is in that department. With regard to what you pay in - as I say, ‘What you pay in you get out’ - it is not the case. For instance, I think it was the sick pay scheme that does identify that. If any of you members for whatever reason go off sick and have to retire early, despite the fact that you have been paying in towards a sick pay scheme all your life, you probably will not get anything from the sick pay scheme if you are earning over £80 a week, because they take 50 pence in the pound off anything you earn over £80 a week. So what you pay in and what you get out does not actually work all the time. You have to look at where they are sometimes playing at being Robin Hood and doing this sort of thing within the DHSS. That happens, as we know. So all I would say is that the committee acted as best they could with the time that they had, and trying to find a way forward for Tynwald and the department to do and offered some ideas, that was all. I mean, you can accept them or you disregard them, but that was the situation we found ourselves in. Thank you, Mr President. The President: Hon. member for Ayre. Mr Quine: Thank you, Mr President. I think any person that looks objectively at the present position regarding the pension supplement could only conclude that it is unfair; they could only conclude that there are grounds for a grievance. Having said that, I will very readily admit that finding a solution is not that straightforward. I can just mention now that perhaps one question that we should be addressing today is whether or not we have exhausted, whether government has exhausted, whether ultimately this Court has exhausted, an examination of all the options as opposed to just saying ‘Yes, there is a grievance’ and then casting it aside here today. I say there is a grievance here, for I think it is fairly transparent: we have a scheme that is based on residency and contributions, as the minister has pointed out. I think they both come into play and I have no problem with that at all, but why I say there is cause for a grievance - indeed I will go stronger: I think it is unconscionable, in a way - is that what we are saying is that although we have a scheme that is promoted on the basis of the contributions and the residency, we are saying to people who have made up to but not achieved the 10 years that that should be cast aside for a reason - and I will come to this a little later, but this 10 years is sacrosanct and that 10 years worth of your contribution should be cast aside, the person with 11 years should be taken into account, and again, before somebody else reminds me, yes, I know all about the problems of benchmarks and I know all about the problems of where you cast them et cetera. I can understand all of that, but to effectively write off people who have up to but have not achieved the 10 years’ contributions from a scheme that is promoted, founded, on contributions - I think even those of us who may not have a great deal of understanding of the social security arrangements can see that there is something astray; something is not right. So, right, we have a pension supplement scheme, we have a scheme which is, in effect, or could be described as an extension of the retirement pension scheme. The retirement pension scheme is quite simply constructed; it is based on our contribution years. It is not a simple calculation; there are credits and there are all these other matters that come to play in operating our pension scheme, but we do not throw our hands in the air and say, ‘Oh, this is too complicated, we are not going to operate this scheme’ which is one way to read part of the DHSS contribution to today’s debate - not at all. We say, ‘This is the scheme. We will work with it. We will operate it’ and I believe we operate it fairly well and quite fairly - no problem; based on contributions, it is not too difficult for us to manage. What we are today trying to deal with is a proposition to refine an extension of that scheme. So I would have thought that the logical way to extend that scheme would be to apply the same principle of contribution that we apply in the basic pension scheme to the supplementary scheme: you have got x years, so you have x percentage of the 44 years if you are a man - a lady has a different number of years - so you get a percentage of that, and it would seem to me that if you take that basis we could have said in 1993, or whenever it was we brought in the pension supplement scheme, that one of the options then would have been, ‘Right, 44 is 100 per cent, 22 is 50 per cent and so you go down the scale - a different concept of pro rata than that which is promoted here today. That could have been adopted and we could have disregarded the bottom two years; that would have been a marginal matter. We did not do it and I am sure a number of us will remember why we did not do it: because at that time we were told the money was not available to do it, and we were working backwards from what was available to produce a scheme that could provide some benefit to the largest possible number of people. The moneys were not available at that time, or that was what we were told. So I think that the scheme that was put in initially - indeed, the minister virtually said this in her contribution here today - is less than perfect, to put it mildly; I think that is a matter of broad acceptance. Now, if I can just move on to the next point here: if we have pension schemes in a company. . . and I have had experience of this myself: you have a pension scheme that applies in a company and then, for a number of reasons, a decision is taken to introduce a different pension scheme, to run alongside of that, you have got two schemes, some variables in the benefits or other aspects of that scheme and you just carry on running the old scheme out with those who are benefiting from it and any new scheme can run in parallel to it. Now, that is just one example, and I am coming back to the question I asked myself at the beginning, and that is, ‘Have we exhausted all the options?’ Looking through the comments here, I have been looking to see if that approach has been picked out by the DHSS. In other words, you have got an existing scheme along with which certain grandfather ownership rights stay, but surely there is also the possibility of not only correcting what was wrong in 1993 when we brought in the original scheme but bringing in something which is fair and which has a direct relationship to year contributions, and run that in and run the other out. Just one possibility. I certainly have not done the costings of this. It was my understanding that these alternatives were going to be looked at by the DHSS and they were going to come back with some ideas for us to consider. So I am not satisfied in my own mind that we have looked at all the options to redress this grievance. In fact, I am convinced we have not looked at all the options to redress this grievance, and therefore to kick it out of Court and effectively say to the parties that have been aggrieved, ‘As far as we are concerned that is the end of the matter’ - because that is how it will be seen by those parties. There does seem to be some logic in having the matter just noted at this point in time and leaving the option open to progress and to delve into these matters further. It may be that the DHSS do not wish to action those matters; it may be, as far as they are concerned, that they would just sit on their present stance in this matter, but it would still be open to some of us, as it would be in six months anyway, I know, to try to work up a scheme and bring that back here for discussion but it seems to be a somewhat circuitous and not the most expedient way of trying to find an answer to what I honestly submit is a justifiable grievance for a number of these people. Mr President, I do not wish to go into the other recommendation, but just one final comment: we have said with a certain amount of flourish, ‘You can’t afford this.’ That may be right, sir. It has been said here today that if you did this you would ultimately wipe out the funds. All I would say is this: if anybody can honestly stand here today and tell me whether in 2061, we are going to be up a couple of million or down a couple of million, then they are better people than I am. Mr Cannan: But nobody would be here in 2061! (Laughter) Mr Quine: Don’t you bet on it! Mr Braidwood: Speak for yourself! Mr Cretney: I will be 107. Mr Cannan: Not this lot, anyway. (Laughter and further interjections) Mr Cannan: The point I am making, sir, is that it is cosmetic. We do not know on the plus side or the minus side what the position is going to be there and we are going to have to work to a much more realistic timeframe adjusting those figures and reacting to the needs to provide for future pensions than to take that kind of broad swipe at it. It really is cosmetic in the extreme. Thank you, Mr President. The President: Hon. member for Rushen, Mr Rimington. Mr Rimington: Thank you, Mr President. I must learn to preface the start of my speech that I am going to address everything objectively and therefore get the ring of elder statesman’s confidence about me, hopefully! Mr Quine: Ex-department member - you cannot be objective. Mr Rimington: No. Mr Corkill: So are you! Mr Rimington: As an ex-department member though, if I felt uncomfortable with those recommendations as written, I would not be standing up to speak now because I do not have that departmental loyalty that would naturally draw me to my feet, but it is because I do feel 100 per cent comfortable with those recommendations that I stand up to support that the report be not only received but its recommendations approved. There is a need for finality on this issue which has been, not only in this recent period, serviced and debated and debated again but in previous years it has come forward and been debated and debated again. That, in a sense, needs to be put to bed, and if any individual and hon. member of this Court feels that one particular item should be addressed, say, on the sliding scale issue for over 44 years, then they are more than free to come to this Court with a resolution on the same and that could be addressed as a specific matter in due course, but I think it should not just be left floating in the air because the department have got to get on and not be left with this void that its policy is somehow not accepted but it has somehow got to carry on. There are anomalies in any system, in any social security system, income tax system, whatever, in our society, our country in the Isle of Man, in adjacent isles and anywhere else. There will always be anomalies. There are anomalies with the way pensions are at the moment. Reference is made to the 10-year cut-off point which was being used for the supplement, and that corresponds to the 10-year cut-off point for any entitlement to pensions. So it is an anomaly that you can have work for 91/2 years and get nothing, but you work for 10 years and one day and you get £25.60. That is an anomaly, and I would appreciate hon. members coming forward with proposals to correct that anomaly. It is an anomaly that you may have worked for 20 years on the Isle of Man and that is the total amount of years you have worked and paid contributions which count for this purpose, because you may have been abroad or whatever. You paid 20 years into the Manx national insurance fund or however you might describe it, but because it is only 20 years, you are going to get half a pension and half a supplement, but Joe Bloggs, who has worked nine years, under these proposals would get nine-tenths of a supplement, so there is another anomaly. The anomalies are everywhere which is why you have to start off and you take a point and say, ‘Right, this is what is the accepted point, 10 years, and that is where you work from.’ And there is a valid case that if you were going to go for a sliding scale then you go for a sliding scale, completely because then you would be taking out some of those anomalies, but it would be practically quite difficult and there would be this small problem of the people who are proposing that explaining to those many people who are receiving the full supplement that in fact you are not going to receive that full supplement, you are just going to get a sliding scale element of that, and then there will be another whole host of grievances and a whole host of political shenanigans in relation to that. I suspect with honesty that no-one will have a position where they can do that. Reference has been made to these historic transfers from the UK and I am sure the minister will explain this to a greater clarity and greater depth of knowledge than myself, but that sort of money is not large and is very insignificant compared to the sums of money that are in the account at the moment, and has not been the contributing factor in creating the wealth of that account, and those moneys were appropriate in necessary transfers, they were not just a little handout from the UK - ‘Here you are, chaps from the Isle of Man, we are going to give you a few hundred quid to kick off your national insurance fund so you can pay it out later’, but those were actuarial payments in 1978, when they changed the way that pensions were dealt with to account for those pensioners on the Isle of Man at that time who had to have their moneys, due from the UK, paid over to ourselves on an actuarial projection that this is the amount of money that you will need to pay for those pensioners for the remaining part of their lives, and that is what the transfer is. Now, how you can twist that round and that therefore then becomes part of the UK’s pensioners who come over to retire here in recent years and therefore they can get their hands on that as part of the supplement is taking financial logic to the extreme. There are these other points about the people over here, pensioners who contribute to the economy. Yes, of course they contribute to the economy; so do tourists. They come over here and contribute to the economy, and all sorts of people come over here and work on contracts for a few years and go back again and they contribute to the economy. But pensioners - yes, they do contribute to the economy to an extent but they benefit from the economy as well, and that equates. They benefit from the fact that we have a very good health system; we have good social services; we have good social security system. They benefit from the fact that if, when they had come over and after five years they find suddenly - whoops-a-daisy! - all their investments have gone haywire and they have got no money, far more generous than in the adjacent isle we have got a generous income support system that will retain that minimum income, and that after five years - whoops-a-daisy! - they have got no funds themselves but we will pay for them and their costs in residential homes and nursing homes for the remainder of their lives. Now, really, when you are looking at groups of people in a population - I say this with no disrespect - pensioners are actually overall, as a body, a drain on the state in terms of economic analysis. Mr Delaney: I beg your pardon! Mr Rimington: I am sorry, hon. member, but that is the truth. Mr Delaney: The pensioners are a drain on the state? They will be glad to hear that! Mr Cannan: I take exception to that! Mr Delaney: That is a wonderful thing to say! The President: Hon. member! Mr Rimington: That is the truth, in terms of contribution made to taxation versus benefits received, (Mr Delaney: Euthanasia!) pensioners as a group are at the receiving end, and obviously down at the other end of the scale, young people, who obviously are going to be the future earners and contributors, you might say they are a drain on the state while they are young; they are receiving but not putting in. Mr Gill: And the sick. Mr Rimington: But there is - and I would suggest people could look at that in the course of time - good economics behind that. And I would ask, how many of these 3,000 to 4,000 pensioners who are aggrieved, although I understand the numbers that are actually coming forward are distinctly less than that, and actually poor? And how many pensioners, in fact, are actually poor? The statistics from the Income Tax Division of how many pay tax, what is coming out of social security, what pensioners receive, new claimants receive, they are receiving well above the basic pensions and earnings-related and so on. There are not that many who are poor. Where they are poor, we support them and we support them well, and the issue of whether we should take income support in and disregard the pension supplement in relation to that does negate the whole philosophy of the likes of social security and what it is about, because income support just means support of income and the pension and anything else is income. Yes, there are exceptions in terms of attendance allowance, but you are taking a person’s income and you are submitting that to a means test, and you cannot have two levels of means tests. One, you have got to live in the Isle of Man and pay your contributions over here and therefore you will be means-tested at the higher level and no, you have not, so you will be means-tested at a different level. That just creates these anomalies and these injustices which the hon. members are trying to get rid of. I would say that we actually do need to support this now and bring it to some sort of finality and, if there are individual proposals which you think are worthwhile bringing forward, then so be it, bring them forward and then they can be studied in isolation, but the issue does need to be put to bed now. The President: Hon. member for Onchan, Mr Corkill. Mr Corkill: Thank you, Mr President. I do not intend to speak for long. A lot of the issues have been covered that I wished to cover but I wanted to add to the debate in a couple of areas that I think have not perhaps been touched upon in general terms. One of those which I am quite keen to state in the middle of all this debate, Mr President, is that United Kingdom pensioners - in fact, pensioners from wherever they are who choose, for a number of reasons, to live on the Isle of Man and contribute to our society - are very welcome people (Several Members: Hear, hear.) and the concern I have had about the debate as it has gone on over the last few months and longer than that is that there is this feeling amongst some that we are into this two-tier structure, class 1 and class 2 pensioners on the Island and, as far as I am concerned, people who are in retirement choose to live on this Island for a number of reasons. Now, some of those may be for taxation reasons to take advantage of lower rates of tax, the quality of life, family connections - there are a thousand and one reasons why people choose to reside on this Island, and the people I come across, as we all do, make an excellent contribution in many, many ways, whether it is charitable or spending in the economy - a whole host of reasons for being part of our society. I was also very pleased to accept an invitation to the newly formed Isle of Man Pensioners Association. It was an invitation I just could not refuse, and I have to say I went to meet these people with a certain amount of trepidation because there are strong views in this area, and I would also like today to thank them publicly for the way they conducted that meeting. There are strong views. They collected their thoughts as a group and presented them very forcefully but in a very civilised way to myself, and I would also like to thank and put on record my congratulations - perhaps that is not the right word - to Mr Hull for his help in all of that (Mrs Crowe: Hear, hear.) because I think his technical assistance in this area and in this debate guides all members in the way that (Two Members: Hear, hear.) we come to our conclusions. So I thank the pensioners for their courtesy, but it was quite clear from their collective few that they did not agree with the issue of a contributory record of any type. They thought 10 years’ residence on the Island should be sufficient, and I think quite clearly this Court in the debate has demonstrated on more than one occasion now that they do not agree with that, and I think we all come at this issue from a number of angles but I think that issue is fairly clear. Another point I would like to make is that the department was charged with responding to the petition and the select committee’s report on that petition, and the thing I found interesting during this debate is that a number of the issues that are high in people’s minds - and I have made a list of them, as I am sure the hon. minister has - are not actually part of the petition or part of the department’s response, because they are to one side of that and the issue of off- Island people who live in the UK. . . and I have a lady who wrote only this week to me who, because of forced family circumstances, now lives in Inverness and is now disqualified from the Manx pension supplement. So I was interested to hear that - that is the non-resident Manx contributor. But of course this whole issue is not really about nationality, it is to do with contributory record, and there were other areas of HM services personnel but the core issue of debate is this sliding scale of 10 years, whether we should go down that road or not, and that was in the report and the department has responded to that. I was interested in the hon. member for Ayre, Mr Quine’s comments, really, because he made some fairly strong statements. He thinks the situation is unfair although he admits the solution is not straightforward - I think we all have to admit that - but he asks the question, have we exhausted the options? and I would say again that the department is responding to a particular set of statements and not responding on the breadth of the whole scheme and so, yes, I am sure there are other options that the department will be continuing to look at because Mr Quine made the statement that up to 10 years - cast aside, and this 10 years has to be sacrosanct, but then he went on to say that he did understand benchmarks, then went on to say it is not a simple matter, went on to say about 44 years on a pro rata basis - ‘why perhaps did we not consider that in the early days?’ but then, as a cast-aside, said, ‘Of course you could discount the first two years’ and I immediately thought to myself, ‘Well, whoever has contributed for a year and 11 months is immediately going to start having the same discussion and so, wherever you come from on this, there will be benchmarks getting set and I was interested in the way Mr Quine said that, because he then went on to say that he is not convinced that the grievance has been covered. I think that this grievance has been extremely well considered by members on more than one occasion and been considered by the department, and so I would ask hon. member not to support the amendment in Mr Cannan’s name, because I do feel there are certain issues in this whole debate that we can resolve as a Court today, but I do acknowledge that there are other issues surrounding this on which the debate will continue and, as other hon. members have said, resolutions can come back to this Court anyway. I am sure that the whole issue of the Manx pension supplement, as it evolves, as it grows, will come back to this Court from time to time, but I think if we just receive the department’s report today, we really are just floating when in fact there are certain issues, not all of them, that we can actually resolve today. So that was the point that I wanted to make, Mr President: that primarily I would hate to think that we have any number of pensions on this Island who think that they are, in fact, being discriminated against. We have all agreed, I think, that a contributory basis is important, and yet some of those who feel aggrieved have not made those contributions, and that is the core issue, I think in that potential division. I hope that the democratic process can bring all of us along that we can live as a unified community. It is certainly part of the reason why I stand for politics and why I am in this Court: to try and keep a community which is at ease with itself. That is a task for us all, and I certainly hope we can achieve that. The Speaker: Hon. member for Douglas East, Mr Braidwood. Mr Braidwood: Thank you, Mr President. Speaking against the amendment I will be voting for the substantive motion and I will try not to be repetitive, sir. It started off with Mr Cannan saying, yes, a re-run of the October 2001 debate, and, as it was correctly pointed out by the hon. member of Council, Mr Waft, yes, I moved that standing order 3.12 so we could vote on the recommendations separately, and in a simplistic view, I thought the department were only going to be looking at recommendation 1, which was the only one which had been approved by this hon. House. But, giving them credit, they have come back with great detail in their report. Now, I have to also disagree with the hon. member of Council, Mr Delaney, when he had to congratulate the select committee. To my mind they were outwith the prayer of the petition (Mr Downie: Hear, hear.) with their recommendations because the prayer of the petition was only to look at 10 years’ residency qualification to apply for the pension supplement. I have sympathy, and it was mentioned by the minister and also by the hon. member for Ayre, Mr Quine, who has spoken because I know he is in receipt of pension and supplement so, of course, he has good grounds to speak on this - Mr Quine: You think I am. Mr Delaney: You lucky Quine! Mr Braidwood: - and it is proportional; as the minister said, in hindsight in 1993, if we would have based this on a male’s contribution of 44 years or a female’s of 39 years or, let us say, equivalent of 40 years so every year of contribution was 21/2 per cent of the supplement that would be fine, but to look back now and say a proportion of a person who has done nine years, then gets nine-tenths of the supplement, that is not a proportion. If we look at it - and the hon. member for Rushen, Mr Rimington, mentioned a lot of abnormalities in this if you are looking at it - what about the person who has paid nearly 11 years’ contributions in the Isle of Man for a pension and then moves abroad? He does not even qualify for a pension. Mr Karran: Fifty years. Mr Braidwood: So we have to look at that and it was, as Mr Karran said, those people who have paid all their lives, and it was mentioned by the Chief Minister as well, who have paid all their national insurance contributions on the Isle of Man and move to the UK, they lose that supplement and have to pay UK tax. I think there is all this perception about this capital allowance which was transferred to the DHSS. For those people who became resident in the Isle of Man pre-April 1978 and then worked for, say, four years in the Isle of Man paying national insurance contributions, they qualify for the supplement, and that capital allowance was transferred to allow for that, and it was mentioned by Mr Rimington as well on actuarial projections. That was only based on probably investing the money in gilts. We are very fortunate that the Isle of Man Government invested it in equities and it has done particularly well. I do not want to go on too much. I think, yes, as the minister said, on proportion but that has gone; that is finished with. We might be able to look back in the future and it is going to be very difficult and there are people in the Isle of Man who are going to criticise and say, ‘We have done our 40 years’ contributions and you have these people coming in with nine years’ residency or 10 years, getting the full contribution. Mr President, I will be voting for the amendment and voting for this substantive motion. The President: Hon. member, Douglas East, Mrs Cannell. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr President. I rise to my feet in support of the amendment and hold a slightly opposite view to my colleague for Douglas East. When looking at the reports submitted by the department with its view of the recommendations which were presented by the select committee, I was quite pleased with how the report has been put by the DHSS, but I feel that it was very defensive of the present situation, very defensive of keeping the status quo. I felt that some of the information that perhaps the department has is somewhat dated, because when you look at page 5, sub-clauses (9) and (10) are talking about the government actuary’s report, and it says that the latest report for the five years ending 31st March 1997, which was five years ago, was laid before Tynwald in March 2000, which is three years later. That report is in fact somewhat out of date, I would suggest. The Island has changed substantially economically since 1997 and so therefore a lot of the assumptions in this report, I think, are based on outdated information. I do not believe it is dynamic enough in terms of looking at what the potentials, the possibilities, could be in order to rectify the two tier system that we have heard referred to today in debate. The Chief Minister, when he got to his feet, told us of how well he was received and how well-behaved the pensioners in Onchan were when he attended a meeting, and said that they feel there is a two- tier system, and then he more or less ended his contribution here today by saying: ‘I would hate to think there is a two-tier system.’ Well, clearly, there is now a two-tier system, and that is what we are faced with, that is the reality of the situation whether we like it or not. Those who are in receipt of more obviously have shared the information with those who have received less, and those who have received less feel as though they are being discriminated against. Now, whether that is right or wrong, of course, is in the eye and mind of the person who feels aggrieved. What concerns me with booting the recommendations out via the DHSS’s view on the report, is that you are clearly booting them out and saying to the petitioner by way, ‘Sorry, but we do not agree that you have a grievance and this is what Tynwald thinks of it. Tynwald agrees with the assumptions made by the department and we agree with that, so we are booting it out.’ I would feel it would be very hard for any member in this hon. place to come back and revisit one of the issues in respect of the recommendations, even if it was on the sliding scale issue of addressing that issue where somebody has worked for a period of time, not extending to 10 years but, say, eight years, five years or whatever, has worked, has put money in, but will not get anything out because our scheme is set at a minimum of 10 years’ working and residential qualification. So you could have had somebody living here 20 years and only working for the last 10 for whatever reason - for family reasons, for disability reasons or whatever, but just short of the 10 and they do not get anything back. So we will be booting that out and saying, ‘That is not an issue, that is not a concern. If you think it is a grievance, well, we are sorry because we do not agree with you.’ We are going along with the judgement made by the department on the recommendations that were submitted and presented by a select committee that looked into the issue, investigated, reported back and made their recommendations. So I feel to receive it would be appropriate. We receive the policy document most years. We do not receive all the action plans et cetera various departments have approved, we receive it, and that is an indication of the way forward by the government, by the leadership of the day, in terms of where the departments would like to be and how they are going to get there. We may, all of us, not agree with everything in the policy document but we will still vote to receive it because we are noting its contents, so I do not see anything abnormal in doing the same here today with this report. I believe it is a difficult issue; there are arguments on both sides and I would not want to bolster up and prop up an unfair and inequitable system, particularly for people of pensionable age who, by the way, are the salt of the earth, and if it had not been for the pensioners we probably would not have had a welfare state and the prosperity that we have today, so I do not regard them as a drain on the state or the nation. (Members: Hear, hear.) I do believe, though, that if you pay into a fund for x period of time, you should clearly expect to get something back out of that. We have heard arguments of 50 per cent, 25 per cent, 5 per cent - whatever; I think you should expect to get something back. Just as aside, a Manxman born and bred nearly 90 years ago and educated here left during the depression to work abroad in an area where they did not have a welfare state and they certainly did not have pension provision and all of that, and there was no such thing as national insurance contributions. Most of his working life spent out there because there was no work here, and he came back at the age of 60 and worked part-time until he was 65 and for the last two years, of his life he has enjoyed, from the Isle of Man, a payment of 53 pence a month in his state pension - and he was a Manxman. Now, he did not complain about that because he had not contributed. He did not pay into the national insurance fund in the Isle of Man and therefore he did not expect anything back and he was very proud of his 53 pence a month, which he got by cheque. I do not believe that just because you are resident here you should kick in to a fund or a provision of benefit that is afforded to those who have paid in through working here; I do not agree with that, and so in that aspect I cannot agree with the petitioner. I think if you pay in, you must expect to get out. If you do not put something in, you cannot expect to get something out unless you are in dire straits, and we have a benefits systems that kicks in for dire straits. But I would like the Court to consider receiving the DHSS’s opinion of the select committee recommendations. I would not like to see this hon. Court just boot out a grievance simply because they cannot agree on a formula to take it forward into the 21st century, and that has been raised here today, that the system that we have at the moment is not the be-all and end-all and that it needs to be reformed. I think it would be a dishonourable thing if the Court booted it out today. Please support the amendment in the name of Mr Cannan. The President: Mr Speaker. The Speaker: Yes, thank you, Mr President. I have listened with interest to the debate this afternoon, or this evening as it is now, and I have to say whilst it has been an interesting debate, I am somewhat confused and I think members, with respect, are somewhat confused. We are not being asked to do anything with the petition of grievance; we dealt with that in October 2001, and if we have a problem it is because the minister in a department has been overgenerous in responding to the decisions made by Tynwald, which rejected everything from the select committee except the first recommendation, which was to keep the residency as part of the basis of a person being eligible for receiving the payment of this supplement. So I think we just need to be clear on that, because the impression, maybe for those in the public gallery, may well be that in fact we are starting again. We are not starting again, because in October 2001 - and I do not think we should forget that it was right before the House of Keys went to a general election, so it was at the worst possible time, some would say, to put that matter before the elected House - Tynwald, based on the facts, decided on a way forward and dealt with the petition, and the only thing that was referred to the minister, so we are clear, was recommendation 1 - A Member: No, it was not. The Speaker: Well, my recollection was - and I stand to be corrected and the minister can respond later - that when they were all split down, the only one approved was recommendation 1 and that the minister’s department, because the last bit of the motion was in there, should report back to Tynwald on those recommendations but, because only recommendation 1 survived, that was the only one that was meant to be reported back on. Now, the minister, I think, and her department has provided a helpful report based on what has gone there and responded even to the ones that were rejected by Tynwald Court, and the document here goes clearly through that. The difficulty is realistically that this issue is not going to go away. There is no doubt that the introduction of the Manx pension supplement, which is a worthy step forward from day one, was going to split our community. I said that at the time, I have stuck by that all the way through, and in fact that split is being enhanced even greater because now the payment is so much greater. That is the reality of the situation we have, and the politicians, those of us in here, while we are in here, have got to make our decisions that we believe are the right decisions, reasonable and fair, because every benefit we deal with through the social security system is different for every individual who receives it, and this is no different than that. And if you, Tynwald Court, really want to pay everybody in the Isle of Man a pension supplement at the rate it is today, you can do it but you will have to top up the insurance fund system from taxation and you will have to reduce services on the other side to compensate for that. If you want to do that then make that decision, but if you do not want to that, which is the view of Tynwald Court at the moment, then you stick with it; you say no. Whilst it might not be a hundred per cent perfect, the system we have, it is in fact enhancing payments to a vast number of pensioners on the Isle of Man. There is a qualification on that and we are happy to stick with that qualification, and then we have to try and explain it and justify it, and people will either accept that justification or will reject it and that will be based on their own individual circumstances. The other thing again I would like the minister to clarify, because this is my understanding, is that the 50 per cent that is paid or that a person is eligible for is in fact reduced if their SERPS is there, so you can have somebody who is not getting the full 50 per cent because their SERPS may be giving them, let us say, 40 per cent and they are topped up with another 10 per cent to give them a total of 50 per cent equivalent of Manx pension supplement. Well, that was my understanding. I stand to be corrected and I would like it to be clear, but I did think that a Manx person - if I use that term carefully - a person who is qualified in the Manx term, got a basic pension and they got SERPS and then they could receive up to the maximum of the Manx pension supplement. (Interjections) Well, I hope I am making it clear because my understanding in the early days was that when it came in at about £7 or whatever it was - £5? - there were many people in receipt of SERPS who only got £2 of that because the SERPS element that they had paid into in fact gave them an amount out of their SERPS and they only got topped up. So in other words, if that is right - and that is my understanding - you can actually have somebody who does not qualify for the Manx pension supplement but in fact can be getting what would equate to somebody who cannot get SERPS at all to a percentage of an equivalent of the SERPS, because they have earned SERPS. It is quite difficult to explain in this place but that is my understanding of it. So in other words, it is not black and white. It is not that you have got people just down on the basic and nothing else and the Manx getting the 50 per cent; there is actually an equation in there that makes a difference. I am not being very clear; I am sorry about that. So I know I will have confused everybody now (Mr Houghton: Hear, hear.) but clearly there are components to this and my understanding, if I get it right, is that the Manx pension supplement is not over and above SERPS in its total. If it is, then that is a major change that I must admit I have got a bit rusty on in the time (Laughter) that the change was made, but I just want it clear; whichever way it is, it is important that it is clear, so we are saying that somebody can get a basic pension, SERPS, and the full 50 per cent of the Manx pension supplement. Right, so that was one of the changes, so I am glad to be reminded of that and I am sorry about the confusion. Mr President, just very quickly, I would just finish off by saying the decision regarding the petition that was put before Tynwald Court was reported on by a select committee, we dealt with that issue quite clearly in the October 2001 sitting and all we have got back is now the department reporting on the recommendation that was approved and the recommendations that failed and, because of that, we have had the debate we have got today, but clearly what matters is that we are not just debating the petition of grievance, we are debating the recommendation as approved by Tynwald in October 2001. The President: Hon. member for Douglas West, Mr Downie. Mr Downie: Thank you, Mr President. I will be supporting the motion as it appears on the agenda today. I have listened to the debate. It has been a very interesting debate, I think, and a lot of useful information has come out of it, but I think that those who do not receive the enhanced pension, the supplement - you have to look at the other benefits that they are entitled to when they live on the Isle of Man: they get a Christmas bonus; they get free bus fares; if they are over 75 they get their TV licence paid. Now, this does not apply in other jurisdictions so you have got to add a little bit of balance to the argument. The question of domicile - I feel that if you are going to get these benefits, you really should be living in the Isle of Man, and I cannot accept the argument that people who may have made a contribution here and have moved away should have access to their benefit. I do not think it is right. I think the Isle of Man has done a tremendous job in the last few years to make this extra money available. You cannot possibly be all things to all people and, no matter what decision you make, you will be disappointing someone. There are a lot of local people who have contributed to this fund over the years, they have built it up, there are people who have worked extremely hard through difficult circumstances and I think they generally would feel aggrieved if someone came into the Island who had not made the contribution and was entitled to the same level of benefits. I think the department itself will keep the matter under review; there is no need to keep raising this matter time after time, and I think that we have got very good offices in DHSS and, if there is a way of apportioning some additional revenue out to other people, we should leave the department to come back with recommendation as to how that is done, not continually pressurise them, because anybody who understands pensions will know that it is a difficult issue at the moment. The situation is very far from clear and in fact a lot of jurisdictions in Europe are in very serious trouble now with regard to their pensions. I am content to leave things as they are and I hope that hon. members will support the motion as it is written. The President: Hon. member for Rushen, Mrs Crowe. Mrs Crowe: Thank you, Mr President. I was really trying to help Mr Speaker out with I think what I know has been clarified at the time, but there are other points about the pension scheme and I am fully supportive of the motion before us because there are numerous anomalies, and my constant encouragement to women to obtain a pension forecast for themselves from the department is certainly because of the disadvantages to women in numerous ways: divorce, remarriage, people like myself who married in the 1960s who paid the married woman’s stamp - we do not qualify for a full pension. If we do not qualify for a full pension, we do not qualify for the full Manx supplement. People do not seem to realise that your pension is linked to the supplement, so if indeed a person qualifies for a 40 per cent pension, then they get 40 per cent of the Manx supplement, so it is not an automatic right that all Manx contributors get the Manx supplement in full. It is linked, once again, to contributions, and some people’s contributions that are linked to their husbands suffer greatly through a lot of instances, as I have mentioned: divorce, marriage, remarriage - all these issues affect a woman’s pension rights apart from the numerous women, as I say, like myself who paid a contributory stamp in the 1960s that really no-one advised would disadvantage pension rights in the future. So whilst I fully understand that there are those feeling disadvantaged, they are not the only group of people that feel disadvantaged, and that was just the point I was wanting to make. I think the point Mr Speaker was trying to make was that not everyone receives the full Manx supplement, and that is certainly the case. The President: Minister to reply to the debate. Mr Henderson: Hear, hear. Mrs Christian: Thank you, Mr President. I will try and summarise some of the points that have been raised. Can I first make the point and reiterate that the department’s remit was to report on the select committee report (A Member: Hear, hear.) and not to look into some of the other issues which have been raised during the course of the debate, however interesting they may be. With regard to the point made by the hon. Mr Speaker as to what our remit was, it was indeed to look at the recommendations of the select committee, and I understand his feeling that perhaps we need not have looked at those recommendations which Tynwald Court rejected. In fact, the department had some debate with itself as to what it was required to do but felt that it ought to stick to the precise wording of the amendment that was accepted by the Court. We have had something of a re-run of the debate of last year when the select committee submitted their own recommendations, but at that time we did feel that it was appropriate, because these issues are complicated, that members should have the benefit of an examination by the department in order that we could put before you the consequences either in terms of costs or in terms of the impact on national insurance contribution levels of the recommendations which were so moved. During the course of today’s discussions I do not think anyone, perhaps except for the slight ambiguity on the part of the hon. member for Ayre, has rejected the contributory principle so to that extent I feel the Court is satisfied. Indeed, it did express its view in voting on these issues a number of times in the past, so I do not want to dwell on the contributory issue in relation to the pension supplement. With regard to the other recommendations, the second one was the pro-rated element of the supplement in respect of the 1 to 10 years issue which a number of members have referred to. Now, it has been said that members are of the view that this might be considered to be unfair. The department has explained in its report that it believes that to tie this to the basic requirement for a basic pension, which in itself is a minimum of 10 years or, in the case of a man, 11 years, is not an unreasonable thing to do, and that if you were to, for example, allow a person who had made one year’s contributions to the scheme to receive an element of pension supplement it would represent a greater unfairness to the person who has contributed for 40 years or so who receives the same as a person who has received 10 years, so the issue of pro- rating is one which may well come up in another debate. Today we are recommending. We have pointed out in our report that it would have consequences for national insurance or for the surpluses in the fund and therefore recommend that no change be made. Whether or not in due course of time members feel that that issue has to be revisited is a matter for them. There are some specific questions which have come up, one in relation to the supplement and Manx national insurance contributions for members of Her Majesty’s forces. The issue there is whether or not they have a Manx contribution record. Any persons starting with a Manx national insurance number when they go to the forces will have their contributions paid during their time in the forces remitted to the Manx national insurance system and therefore their time in the forces would be considered to be qualifying for the supplement. The hon. member for Garff has, I know, a constituent whose situation was somewhat different. After a very short spell of time in the Isle of Man he removed to the United Kingdom, had a United Kingdom national insurance number and spent the rest of his forces and working career over there with the effect that he does not qualify and feels that there is a grievance there, but I have to reiterate that a person with a Manx national insurance contribution number will qualify. The issue too of UK transfers is one that is perhaps somewhat misunderstood or confused, although some hon. members have assisted in the clarification of those issues during the course of the debate. The pre-1978 transfers of capital from the United Kingdom in respect of pensioners who transferred at that time - well, in respect of everyone who transferred at that time - were on an actuarial basis designed to meet the actual costs of those pensions, and I think that any pensioner who transferred in 1978 and is still receiving a pension now has certainly had some years of pension paid in the Island. These are probably quite elderly people now and the amount, if any, of surplus in our funds attributable to them would be, I would suspect, extremely small. In fact, there have been adjustments to the capital transfers on an actuarial basis to ensure that the Isle of Man’s contributors were not being burdened by UK contributors, so I do not believe on that basis that there is any surplus in our investment account attributable to those pensioners. With regard to contributors who transferred before 1978, they are qualified to receive the pension supplement provided they have the necessary 10 years. Their UK contributions have been deemed to be Isle of Man contributions and they therefore qualify. This brings me to the next point in relation to the disregard that was proposed in the report in respect of income support and the pension supplement. The hon. members who have expressed concern, and particularly, I think, the hon. member for Ayre, Mr Cannan, the hon. member Mr Delaney, the hon. member Mr Waft, who feel that this is wrong, I feel still have not grasped what it is we seek to do with income support, nor have they, I believe, grasped how absolutely divisive this proposal is in terms of our community, and the comment made about a two-tier society in respect of the supplement ignores total income, and what we should be looking at is total income. We do look at total income and in total income terms we treat everybody the same in respect of income support. If you want to treat people differently, then introduce these variable disregards which are totally confusing to recipients and the public at large. If people believe that there should be a change in the level of income support, that is one issue, but do not bring it about by introducing disregards. They are the worst possible route to improving the lot of anyone on low income if you want to be equitable in this issue. The hon. member Mr Waft. . . and I accept he felt that perhaps I was being critical of the committee; what I would say is that I just feel that perhaps we have failed to get across to the committee some of the complexities to which he has alluded in terms of social security structures. With regard to the department’s involvement in commenting on the report of the committee they submitted a draft report to the department on 24th September 2001 to the Social Security Division asking for comments back by the 27th in order that the report could be circulated on the 29th. Frankly, that is unreasonable. Added to that, the officer to whom that letter was addressed was on leave, so hoping to get any response in that period of time was, I think, one of the reasons why the report came forward in a form which, from the department’s perspective, had in it misunderstandings and factual inaccuracies. The question of surplus contributions - and I think the hon. member for Garff, Mr Rodan, referred to general revenue contributions into the national insurance fund - general revenue transfers were made in the first instance to meet deficits on the national insurance contribution, so that they were paying pensioners of that day the required level of pension. It was for a very limited period of time that general revenue transfers were made into the fund when there was not a deficit situation, and in terms of any contribution that that might have made to a surplus as compared to the buoyant economy of the Island and the overall level of contributions coming in over a period of time, I would suggest it would be minimal and extremely difficult to allocate in respect of whether or not those tax contributions were being made by Isle of Man contributors or UK pension contributors resident in the Island. So I do not think that that is a legitimate argument in favour of regarding those general revenue contributions to national insurance as somehow qualifying taxpayers who do not pay contributions to the supplement. Also, in terms of the suggestion that there is a two-tier society and my belief that total income should be looked at, we need also to look at total pensions. The hon. Mr Speaker has asked for clarification as to the relationship between the pension supplement and SERPS. The position is that the pension supplement is based only on entitlement to the basic pension; it does not in any way relate to or link with SERPS, so that if your basic pension entitlement is a full one, then you will be entitled to the full supplement. If it is half a basic pension, then you will get half the supplement, and so those matters are interrelated. It is interesting to note - and I do accept that this is only a snapshot of pension provision - that the department’s analysis of new pensions issued towards the end of last year, taking into account basic pension, SERPS, graduated pension and all those components, shows that notwithstanding that Isle of Man pensioners qualify for a supplement, the difference between UK pensions for that group of people and Isle of Man pensions was not the £37 of the supplement, it was £7 because, generally speaking, people who have worked in the United Kingdom over those periods of years were earning much better levels of salary, were able to contribute more to SERPS than pension recipients now in the Isle of Man who formerly worked here in, as the hon. member for Onchan described it, a low income economy at that time. So I think we need to be balanced in our assessment of the relative positions of pensioners in the Isle of Man irrespective of the question of whether they get the supplement, we need to look at overall income and there I believe that we should sustain the position that we treat them all equally on income basis in terms of our income support. Mr President, the final recommendation has received really no comment at all so I will not take the Court’s time in commenting on that. I do believe we should reject the amendment moved by the hon. member for Michael, Mr Cannan, simply because it does nothing; it leaves things in limbo. The Court can either accept this report or reject it, but just to receive it leaves us absolutely stranded in limbo, and I would implore that the Court support the report of the department. The President: Hon. members, the motion before the Court is that printed at 34, and to that we have the amendment in the name of the hon. member for Michael, Mr Cannan, and circulated to you on a white paper. The amendment, hon. members, means that the motion on the order paper will cease after the word ‘received’, all words thereafter being deleted. We will vote on the amendment first, hon. members. Those in favour of the amendment please say aye; against, no. The noes have it. A division was called for and voting resulted as follows: In the Keys - For: Messrs Cannan, Quine, Rodan, Henderson, Duggan and Mrs Cannell - 6 Against: Messrs Anderson, Quayle, Rimington, Gill, Mrs Crowe, Messrs Houghton, Cretney, Braidwood, Downie, Shimmin, Mrs Hannan, Messrs Bell, Karran, Corkill, Earnshaw and the Speaker - 16 The Speaker: Mr President, in relation to item 34 on the order paper and the amendment moved, it fails in the House of Keys, with 6 votes for and 16 votes against. In the Council - For: Mr Waft, Dr Mann, Messrs Delaney and Crowe - 4 Against: The Lord Bishop, Messrs Kniveton, Radcliffe and Mrs Christian - 4 The President: Hon. members, the voting in the Council is 4 votes for and 4 votes against. The amendment, hon. members, therefore fails. I put to you the motion as printed on the order paper, hon. members. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. A division was called for and voting resulted as follows: In the Keys - For: Messrs Anderson, Quayle, Rimington, Gill, Mrs Crowe, Messrs Houghton, Cretney, Braidwood, Downie, Shimmin, Mrs Hannan, Messrs Bell, Karran, Corkill, Earnshaw and the Speaker - 16 Against: Messrs Cannan, Quine, Rodan, Henderson, Duggan and Mrs Cannell - 6 The Speaker: Mr President, the motion standing at item 34 has been passed by the House of Keys with 16 votes for and 6 votes against. In the Council - For: The Lord Bishop, Messrs Kniveton, Radcliffe and Mrs Christian - 4 Against: Mr Waft, Dr Mann, Messrs Delaney and Crowe - 4 The President: Hon. members, 4 for in the Council, the motion therefore carries. Hon. members, it is now quarter to eight by the Court clock; I am somewhat reluctant to start a further item on the order paper. Could I have first some indication as to how many feel they would wish to speak on item 35? The Speaker: I propose, Mr President, that we continue with item 35 and that completes it. Mr Duggan: Let us get completed, sir. Mr Delaney: Surely the mover would like to speak on 35. (Laughter) The President: Hon. members, could I have some indication? At the present time I have the indication from one member that he would wish to speak, other than the mover who has already indicated that he will take quarter of an hour in his opening brief. Mr Cretney: There has got to be a seconder. Mr Karran: I cannot second. Mr Cannan: Oh well, in that case there is no point in moving it. The President: Hon. members, we will continue. Foot-and-Mouth Disease Policy Document – Approved Item 35. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to move: That Tynwald approves the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Policy Document of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Mr Rimington: Thank you, Mr President. Hon. members will recall that at the January sitting of this Court I promised to return as soon as possible with the department’s policy in respect of foot-and-mouth disease. A significant part of that policy would also relate to the disposal of livestock carcasses which had been slaughtered in pursuance of foot-and-mouth disease containment. The original motion was amended to include disposal of carcasses of livestock slaughtered as a result of any disease which required such drastic action. The policy document presented for members’ consideration today is in two parts. There is a third part, which is the detail of the contingency plan which, I have to apologise to members, has been placed in the Members’ Reading Room and we had hoped that that would have been placed there some days ago and it has unfortunately only recently arrived. I must apologise on behalf of the department. The documentation was contained on an old computer programme which refused to release its information, and there were various technical difficulties in reproducing the contingency plan, but that is now there. The first part of the document outlines our policy for the control of foot-and-mouth disease. The Island currently enjoys the highest international foot-and-mouth disease status - foot-and- mouth disease-free without vaccination, and we maintained that status through last year’s epidemic. To protect that status it is our policy to take whatever measures are necessary to keep the Island free of foot-and-mouth disease and, in the event of break-out on the Island, achieve its total eradication as quickly as possible. Our strategy is to minimise the risk of the disease being introduced to the Island, reduce the potential for spread of the disease should it occur and prepare and hold in a high state of readiness a contingency plan and the equipment necessary to combat an outbreak. In the event of an outbreak in the neighbouring isles, the contingency plan remains as that successfully implemented last year. In the event of an outbreak on the Island, again the plan remains the same, although I will return to the issue of carcass disposal shortly. I am sure that everybody would like to see a change of policy from mass slaughter to vaccination, but science has yet to develop an appropriate vaccine. Therefore, with the current state of available vaccines and the international rules on disease control and trade, vaccination can only be used to help contain the outbreak. To regain full international status, all vaccinated animals must be eventually slaughtered and it is worth noting that the Netherlands, who used ring vaccination, ended up slaughtering proportionally more animals per confirmed outbreak than did Great Britain. The second part of the document relates specifically to the disposal of carcasses. The experience of the slaughtering of pigs on one farm and their subsequent on-farm burial has highlighted the shortcomings of this approach. Whilst it may be useful in limited circumstances, this method of disposal cannot be recommended in the event of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak as we do not have the manpower and machinery resources to handle burials on a number of sites and a burial of significant numbers of carcasses in bare ground may cause serious pollution of ground water and watercourses. At present we have a highly unsatisfactory contingency plan of uncontained mass burial at the only site on the Island where there is an existing road infrastructure, suitable ground conditions and the site is in government ownership, and that site is Jurby airfield. My chief veterinary officer has stood back and reappraised the disposal options and these are listed in appendix 2. Unfortunately, we are caught by being a small island, and many of the options available to the adjacent isle are not practical for ourselves. Our incineration and rendering facilities could not cope with the volume of animal waste. Commercial landfill is a realistic option in the UK. There are huge, fully engineered landfill sites taking large quantities of domestic and commercial waste from urban areas. Animal carcasses can be dissipated within the overall mass of waste and be quickly covered up. The resulting leachate will only be a fraction of the overall leachate collected and treated. Even if all our waste was sent to a lined landfill site, just ignoring incineration for this moment, our site would be overwhelmed by animal carcasses. It would create a public health hazard besides taking the leachate treatment beyond its capacity. Therefore our only option is mass burial in an engineered site owned by the government, and this is progressing with an interdepartmental project team comprising of officers from the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Environment, Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Home Affairs. At my specific request the project team looked again at the issue of whether there should be one site or several sites. They concluded that the policy of one site should stand. We should remember that the Island is only one quarter the size of a Great Britain region and that one site is sufficient to hold all the livestock on the Island. Sites are expensive to build and maintain and there are not sufficient logistical or manpower resources to run more than one facility properly. Nor is it an easy process to identify a site, establish public support and take it through the planning process. History is a witness to these matters. The project teams have now identified a number of possible sites and are ready to examine some of these more thoroughly before making a recommendation to the Council of Ministers to progress to the planning stage. Before there is more serious expenditure of public money in this direction, it is right and proper that this policy is brought to this hon. Court for your approval. Mr President, I beg to move. The President: Hon. member for Onchan, Mr Karran. Mr Karran: I beg to second and reserve my remarks. The President: Hon. member for Douglas North, Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson: Thank you, Mr President. In making my remarks to this report, I want to state for the record and to make it categorically clear that I am absolutely in favour of keeping this Island foot-and-mouth free and that the job that was done last year was unquestionably fantastic and that all the staff who heaved to in the process to prevent a catastrophe did a marvellous and fine job (Members: Hear, hear.), and I want that set on the record now and not for my comments to be confused with the observations that I have to make and they are but a few, but I feel certain that they may well become or be taken out of context of what I am trying to put, so I need to put that rider in first. There are one or two things in this report that I feel are not being adequately addressed - and could I just indicate to the Clerk, Mr President, not to issue anything as yet; I did have an amendment sorted out but I have indicated that I may or may not move it, and as yet I do not wish to move my amendment. Some of the comments I have to make, as I say, I feel this report does not address, and there should have been some serious lessons learnt from last year with the situation as it was. One of those situations was in fact to do with the slaughter of the herd of pigs at Ballamodha down south, and my concerns there were the way in which that was carried out and the length of time that that took. I do not know whether members of this hon. Court realise that the slaughter of all those hundreds of animals took something like two or three days to achieve, bringing in additional slaughtermen, extra volunteer labouring staff from other government departments to get on with this grisly task, men who were not trained and men who were physically sickened by the sight of what went on down at that farm. Now, I am not saying that we did not have to do it; what I am trying to point out is the fashion that it was done, and can the minister take on board my concerns for the humaneness for the animals in future so that if, God forbid, we ever have to face this situation again, there are some additional pages in this report that address proper slaughter techniques, modern technology, enough equipment, and if we are going to face the fact that several hundred animals may need to be put down, if we are having to draft in labourers and people who are not used to this situation, then that is something that this contingency plan and report need to address for the future so that we have not got folk who are just pulled in to help any old how but do have some sort of knowledge and idea of what it is they are being tasked to do. Certainly, when it come to the slaughter of hundreds of animals, I think that is absolutely essential. I will not go into the grisly observations that were made on the farm, but I think it is something that DAFF need to take seriously on board and to work into this policy. It is not here now but I would ask the minister to take my comments on board and for his departmental officers to look at all aspects of slaughtering techniques so that there is enough equipment and if there are additional staff needed, God forbid, should something in the future cause us to slaughter several hundred animals again, there is enough modern and approved equipment all round so the job can be done quickly, humanely and as pain-free for these animals as absolutely possible so that it is, in other words, clinical and animals are not slaughtered in front of each other and all the rest of the grisly things that happened. We need to be modernising our techniques as much as we possibly can and we need to be building on other lessons learnt from other countries. The other thing this report does not reflect, or I have not picked up on it, certainly in the minister’s speech, is that the department sincerely needs to have a look at what lessons the UK are drawing at the minute from this awful experience and it needs to have somewhere in here that the department will take notice and build into the report and contingency strategies any new developments that may occur as a result of lessons learnt, experiences that have come to the fore from the UK or further scientific evidence. I do not want us to be panicked here and to vote for this tonight just because everyone thinks, ‘Oh well, we cannot have it.’ What we need to do is learn lessons as well. We should not be panicked from this, we should be brave enough to face it and face it clinically, not in a panic measure and certainly on page 1, where is says: ‘The department to take whatever measures necessary to ensure that the Island is kept free of FMD’ we agree with that, but to take whatever measures necessary. Then it goes on: ‘In the event of FMD disease breaking out in the Island, to achieve its total eradication as quickly as possible.’ This is actually giving the department carte blanche to basically do whatever it likes to eradicate something or even before it gets to the Island. What I am saying is that we need to be clinical in our approach to this. It is not a dire straits emergency to implement this policy tonight at eight o’clock, but it is imperative that the minister guarantees members of this hon. Court that he and his department will pull the lessons learnt from across the water into the department’s policy and I want him to give us an assurance that it is an evolving policy and contingency plan and that we are not just stuck with some what I would term panic measures. As I say, I am the last one who wants this awful disease to get anywhere near our Island and I do not want us to experience it, but what I do want us to do is to move forward from last year and those dreadful scenes and I want us to learn and take on board all the lessons that were learnt and to try and put some sort of positive thinking in as well, not just ‘Let us just kill everything’ but, if we have to, then we need to have some lessons learnt there and that is what I am on about. I would very much like the minister to come back in his summing up to say that this is an evolving document and it may well be subject to change as lessons learnt and information come out of the UK or, indeed, new technologies and so on, so that we are not just stuck with one particular set of criteria but we can change and evolve and address new situations as appropriate. Mr President, as I say, the other thing I would like the minister to come back on is the appropriateness of slaughtering and killing methods and to give me some sort of assurance that lessons will be learnt and that an evolving situation there will be put in place as well, certainly with men’s training and equipment. Thank you. The President: Hon. member for Michael. Mr Cannan: Mr President, first of all I would like to say that we must all congratulate the department for its efforts last year in containing any outbreak of foot-and-mouth in the Isle of Man. It was a wonderful achievement and the then minister and his staff are to be congratulated. Knowledgeable people have told me that had an outbreak occurred in the Isle of Man, it would have spread exceptionally quickly. In Cumbria, in an area of 240 square miles where it was at its peak, almost every single farm within a period of four weeks was infected. If the unfortunate or the unthinkable occurred here and we had foot-and-mouth disease, I believe that it would spread rapidly throughout the Island. But we have in the report ‘Outbreak on the Isle of Man - Measures to be implemented with immediate effect: cessation of all livestock movements including imports; implementation of contingency plan; closure of all department lands; banning of all gatherings; disinfection measures on Island roads; implementation of disinfectant measures; controls on the exportation of meat and dairy products’ - all very worthy. But the sole recommendation of this report, which you will see, is that option 5 be taken, and option 5 is the Chief Veterinary Officer’s recommendation to the department that ‘the provision of a mass burial contingency site be progressed as the best disposal option in the special circumstances pertaining to the Isle of Man.’ On the one hand we are going to try and contain it in the Isle of Man and the next moment we are going to have only one site, and this to me - and I have talked to a very large number of people since last September, we had the debate in October at which that policy was rejected or the manner of wanting to be introduced was rejected, and we said that if we were to have an outbreak on one farm in the Isle of Man, the policy should be containment and complete isolation of that area. But what we are saying here is we are going to have cessation of livestock movements, implementation of contingency plans, disinfectant measures et cetera but we are going to start - and I have said all this before and I will say it again, and such a large number of people agree with me - moving dead animals, infected animals, all over the Isle of Man - an outbreak in the south of Isle of Man and the mass burial sites in the north. Instead of containing and isolating the area, what are we doing? We are going to cart the dead animals north. Or alternatively, if the new site is in the south, then we are going to cart contaminated animals through the towns and villages of the Island. At the same time, everything needs to be disinfected and knowledgeable people tell me that is a nonsense; that is the one way that this is going to be spread. The other side is this: that if it takes effect in the Isle of Man and isolation methods are not employed or it is unable to be controlled and it moves rapidly through the Isle of Man over a four- week period, it is almost meltdown for the agricultural industry. There are 213,000 livestock animals in the Isle of Man. In a four-week period, if there was meltdown and it is through the Island, an area of 240 square miles - a small area when you base it on what happened in Cumbria - that is the disposal of 50,000 animals a week, 7,000 animals a day, on a 10-hour day 700 animals every 10 hours. The United Kingdom Government says the civil authorities are unable to cope with disasters of that magnitude. The army would handle future outbreaks of farm disease. How on earth are we going to handle it by having one contingency area - trucks backwards and forwards, dead animals over the Isle of Man? This is not scaremongering; this is the basis of this report. You get an outbreak in the Isle of Man and you start transporting the carcasses, and I know that certain people will take positive action to prevent dead carcasses going through certain areas. It is a very serious matter as to how you are going to do the logistics of 213,000 animals or 50,000 animals a week because, make no mistake, unless you can have absolute isolation to the first outbreak it will move, because it has happened in the United Kingdom. On that basis I find that I am unable to support this report. The United Kingdom is now saying mass burial should not take place; they are offering a different policy. They have investigated it; they are having inquiries. Is the Department of Agriculture not prepared to learn from a place that has been through this terrible trauma? It would be an exceptionable trauma, with all these actions that are being proposed. ‘The disinfection measures implemented on all Island roads and for all essential workers in the countryside, implementation of disinfection areas, departure areas’ - well that happened. ‘Banning of all gatherings, sporting events et cetera being held in the countryside.’ Vast numbers of events would be banned. The people in the Isle of Man would feel as much hostage to it as they did in Cumbria and they are still not recovering over there, and I am saying to this Court, just think carefully of the arithmetic of the logistics. These fine words are fine - 213,000 animals, 50,000 a week if it went through the Island in four weeks, because once it starts and you do not totally isolate the area, then you are virtually allowing the disease to spread, and transporting these dead animals through or past other farmers’ farms and agricultural holdings is, according to knowledgeable people in the agricultural industry, courting disaster in a very big way, and all I can say is that I shall not be voting for this report because I am being asked to vote for option 5, the mass burial in a government-owned site for all the animals in the Isle of Man. I have been through the arguments before, I went through them in October and I have given you a brief resume of them now. It is unacceptable to the farming community that have spoken to me and it is unacceptable to large numbers of people living in the countryside. The thought of transporting animals from one end of the Island from east to west or north to south to one central burial site will cause a total opposition. The President: Hon. member for Ayre. Mr Quine: Thank you, Mr President. I have to say that for such an important subject this is one of the most inadequate documents that, really, I have seen dealing with such a key issue, and I do not say that to cause any embarrassment. I think it is transparently so if you look at not only what is in the document but the way the document has been constructed. The motion is that Tynwald approves the foot-and-mouth policy document. We approve the document; this is the policy on the subject. Now, we can take that literally and we can say, right, we are being asked to approve everything that is in this document. I think that is the only way you probably could take it - in the literal sense. I do not think that is the intention. Ordinarily we would be looking at a number of recommendations, which would be the bones of the policy which would be endorsed by Tynwald, but I do not think that is the intention here at all. We only have the one recommendation, which is tucked away in appendix 2; that is the only one I can find. There is a recommendation tucked away in appendix 2 which says, ‘It is the Chief Veterinary Officer’s recommendation to the department that option 5,’ - there is no identification of an option 5, although there are under ‘Options to the Isle of Man’ a number of paragraphs which are paragraphed numbered to 5 - ‘the provision of a mass burial site, be progressed as the best disposal option in the special circumstances pertaining in the Isle of Man.’ Now, are we being asked to approve simply that? Is that what we are being asked to do today? (Mr Cannan: Yes.) I do not think that is what the motion says. The motion says we have been asked to approve this policy document in its totality. So I feel that we are moving into an area which is liable to give rise to some misunderstanding here. The specifics are not spelt out as to what we are approving but take the motion, it is this document for better or worse. Only one recommendation, as I say, a number of conclusions which are here which do not seem to amount to anything. The conclusions - for example, the first bullet point refers to ‘the protective measures listed at scenario 1’. I have not yet found scenario 1 - presumably it is in this document somewhere but it must be well concealed. Perhaps the minister could tell me where scenario 1 is identified in this document - Mr Rimington: Get on with your substance! Mr Quine: Thank you, well I am glad for your advice; I am glad for that intervention because what we have got in front of us here is a load of absolute rubbish! If this is what the department is holding out as its policy on foot-and-mouth, then it really is a shame. It is double-Dutch. Moving on from there, we then go up to: ‘The department maintains an updated contingency plan’ which he admits himself he has not been able to produce on time, and I doubt how many members of this Court have had time to read the document. I doubt if anybody has, because it has only just been pulled out off the shelf and put up there and tucked away. That is not the way the members of this hon. Court should be treated. Mr Cannan: Conducting business. Mr Quine: A matter as important as this. In the conclusion it just says that it is unhappy with the present disposal and is working towards a better solution. Well, I would hope so. Then we come to appendix 2 here, which says that mass burial which, of course, is the nub of the matter which I believe has been recommended but that is not clear; then, of course, ‘mass burial in a government-owned site. This would appear to be the only viable option in the Isle of Man. Local opposition is inevitable but should be minimised by seeking the least unpopular suitable site’ - not a matter of the site being the most suitable but the least unpopular suitable site. What kind of a government policy is being constructed on that terminology? I think this is an absolute disgrace, and if it was not twenty past eight at night I would have a few more comments to make on this. Suffice to say, Mr President, that I would not dream of supporting this and any member of this hon. Court that supports this in these terms, I think, really needs to reflect on just what purpose they are seeking to serve. This is unadulterated rubbish! The President: Hon. member for Glenfaba. Mr Anderson: Thank you, Mr President. I did not indicate that I would speak on this subject this evening but I am brought to my feet by a few comments that have been made by hon. members. I would just like to say that I think the report clearly shows there will be many areas of the Island that will be unsuitable for burial and therefore, whether we like it or not, there will have to be an element of mass burial somewhere on the Island. I would like, maybe, when the minister sums up if he would confirm that actually when animals are slaughtered they become very much less of a risk of infection than when they were alive; if this is the case, I believe the department’s option for a properly engineered site is a logical conclusion. I do not know where the preferred site will end up being, neither does anybody else in this hon. Court. It might be in my backyard but reluctantly, if that was the case, I would have to go along with it. None of us would like to see it in our own backyard but it is the logical conclusion from this report that one site is obviously the way to go forward, because when the animals are dead they then become so much less of an infection risk. The minister also indicated, when he spoke in his introductory comments, that they have not the resources to cope with mass burials on more than one or two sites and I think that has been highlighted already from the experiences that have been learned in the UK. They were not prepared for many different sites and they have learnt from their experiences. So reluctantly I think this is the only option we have, and I will be supporting the minister’s recommendation. The President: Hon. member for Peel, Mrs Hannan. Mrs Hannan: Thank you, Eaghtyrane. I have only really got to my feet because of the comments made by the members for Michael and Ayre. They gave the impression - and it may only be an impression - that the Department of Agriculture willed this on us and they have got this thing where it is foot-and-mouth and nobody else is responsible, and ‘How dare they look for a solution!’ This document, I would say, is practical; it is not flowery by any means, but it is a practical document which says what the problems are and reluctantly how they can be solved. I am sure the Department of Agriculture would just love to wave a magic wand and produce some sort of animal incinerator, shove them all in and forget about them so they have not got to go anywhere, or have something that you could take round to each farm and throw them in so that they disappear or whatever. Foot-and-mouth was the most horrendous thing that happened to the UK and yet - one of the members is talking about Cumbria - a small percentage of the farms in the UK were affected by foot-and-mouth, but it was horrendous; it affected every part of the UK. It was not something that they wished upon themselves. I did not think it was helped by the way that they approached it. This document is practical, looking now in the cold light of day that it is possible that we would get foot-and-mouth in the future, and what would we do in the cold light of day if we did and where would these animals be put? Nobody wants to see animals killed just like that if there is some other way around it but it says even in here that where you use vaccination they still have to be disposed of, so that does not solve the problems in the future. But I just got to my feet because I did not want it to be thought that we do not want it in our area but getting at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; it is not their fault if we get foot-and- mouth. As we saw when it was in the UK, all the prevention was set up but it is possible that people would have got through with something which could have brought the disease in. As it was, we were all put out, we know that, it affected us all - not as it did in the UK but we all had to cope with it, and I just hope that members can be practical in what we can do in the future for it. The President: Hon. member, Douglas West, Mr Downie. Mr Downie: Yes, thank you, Mr President. I have just got a couple of comments to make. First of all I would like to make some reference to the issue that was raised by my hon. colleague, the member for North Douglas, Mr Henderson, regarding the situation which resulted in the loss of Mr Newton’s pig herd. I, along with the chief vet, made the decision. We had no other decision to make at the time and it was vitally important that what was perceived as a major risk was dealt with as quickly and practically as possible. The department had no real resources at its fingertips. There were volunteers sought; volunteer labour was sought. Those amongst you who can imagine what it was like to try and move a dead animal - very heavy, hard work. My view is that the department coped admirably with that situation. The pigs were very humanely euthanased - in fact, a lot of them, the weaners and the smaller pigs, were actually injected, which was a very swift way of dealing with them, and all in all I should put on record that there was no question whatsoever of animals being mistreated or being dealt with in a cruel manner. It was a difficult task for the department but, in fairness, they rose to the occasion and my view is they did a difficult job. I understand that some concern was expressed by those who had volunteered because the larger animals, the boars and the sows, before they were actually put into the pit and buried, had to be split so that when they did start to decompose they would not blow up with gas and rise to the surface. So that was bit off-putting for some people but, all in all, I am content and the veterinary staff who were there throughout the whole operation were content that things had been done in the best practical way, given the circumstances of having to slaughter a large number of animals on a farm and in very confined spaces. As far as the situation goes with regard to a burial or a contingency site, if the situation that Mr Cannan, the hon. member for Michael, paints is that it is impossible to contain an outbreak, I would not worry about carting animals around because we will not be able to do anything for about six weeks and after six weeks, you will have about 220,000 or 230,000 animals lying rotting in the fields, and the reason why we have to leave animals lying rotting and putrefying in the fields is that we do not have a contingency site. I wish I had a magic wand that I was able to wave over an area and say, ‘This is going to be the contingency site.’ We have not got a site at the minute and that is one of the problems. I hope to God we never ever see this disease and I hope that whatever infrastructure is put in will never have to be utilised, but we have to be realistic. We are trying to learn from the problems that they have had in the UK. It was a complete and utter disaster over there. I have spoken to members from the milatary; I have spoken to people who had first-hand experience, and the message that they give, loud and clear, is that if you have got a contingency site and facilities at least you can hit the ground running. Now, the hon. member Mr Anderson came up with a very good point: when animals do die and they do start to change and they go into rigor mortis, their whole pH changes within their meat, they no longer breathe so they are no longer a source of infection after a certain time, and even when they are transported they are in sealed lorries. I would envisage that if we did get the disease into the Isle of Man, one of the first things you would see here would the military, there would be a military presence, there would be vehicles brought over on the ferry straightaway, properly sealed; they have all these socks available now on contingency sites in the UK so it is quite easy to be able to link what we are trying to do with a major contingency plan. I accept that the document will not be all things to all people but I would ask hon. members to accept it as possibly a background or a statement of intent. The main emergency documents which are kept in the Chief Secretary’s office are larger; this is only a r≥sum≥, really, of what the department have been trying to work up. It will not suit everybody and it is very easy for somebody to step back and hope that we never get the disease, but you have got to look at it from the other side of the table as well. If we are unfortunate enough to get caught, we really need to have some sort of a plan or we will be caught with our pants down and the people of the Isle of Man will not forgive you for leaving dead animals lying rotting in the fields for six to eight weeks until we get our act together. So please, just bear that in mind when you vote, hon. members. The President: I call on the minister to reply - no, the Hon. member for Council, Dr Mann. My apologies, sir. Dr Mann: Thank you, Mr President. First of all I am very sorry that this matter is being discussed at this time of night because I think a large number of issues that are very relevant have been totally ignored. At the last debate I pointed out that, as is in this document, there has not been an outbreak here for a hundred years, but in a hundred years there has been no change in the way in which we are dealing with this situation. This is appalling! The response of the department is negative in the extreme. The only positive thing is that we are going to now bury everything in one site. This is a very complex situation, not because the infection is so terrible; it is the impact on ourselves and other countries, and when we say how important it is, it is the loss of production and trade sanctions against affected countries that determines the policy; it is not epidemiology that determines the policy, and how proud we are to be free without vaccination. I would claim that we should be free with vaccination and that the use of vaccination to contain an outbreak is the wrong way of doing it but that one should, in fact, be building up a mass resistance. I know this disease has difficulties in creating a vaccine, but so have many other diseases and, apart from mentioning the fact that there may be some developments, surely, in the international situation between countries, there are going to be some improvements, some other way of looking at the situation. It does not matter how fine the words are as to how you deal with an epidemic; almost every epidemic starts because of human error. Now, all the producers around the Isle of Man will be very aware at the moment of what possibly they are looking for, but in three years’ time, five years’ time or even next year a large number will have forgotten. The first episode will be ignored initially because either the producer does not recognise the symptoms, because unless the producer recognises them and calls upon the veterinary service, the diagnosis is not made. There needs to be a total re-look at the way this is being dealt with, and I am bitterly disappointed that this department has come forward with nothing more than the fact that we are going to react more quickly. It does not matter how quickly the department is going to react; it depends on the person looking after the animal, and while we are overlooking the fact that we could create resistance so that when, or if, there was a breakdown in human error there would not be a wide or rapid spread, you are looking at it the wrong way round epidemiologically. I cannot support this at all. Somebody ought to rewrite it. The President: Hon. member of Council, Mrs Christian. Mrs Christian: Mr President, I appreciate that I did not acknowledge that I wished to speak on this before but I cannot help responding to the hon. member of Council. Whilst what he is saying seems fine in theory, that we should perhaps be looking for a vaccination which will build up resistance, in the meantime what happens to the industry? We know what the practical considerations are in terms of our trade relationships with other areas who do not practise vaccination and until such time as there is a wider agreement on the vaccination issue, it seems to me theoretical only to talk about vaccination issues. If that were possible, I am quite sure that the industry itself and the whole community would welcome it with open arms, but I think the indications are at this stage that it is not a viable option in terms of the survival of our industry and therefore it is not recommended in here. If it was possible, I am sure it would have been in here, and I would just ask members, whilst we may feel a sympathy with the expression of concern by the hon. member of Council, to look at what we can do in practical terms at this time. The President: Minister to reply. Mr Rimington: Thank you. First of all I would just like to thank all those people who have supported the document, accepting that it is not written in a select committee form and in the nice flowery language and recommendations 1, 2 and 3. It did arise probably, yes, out of a working document for the department and it is a practical working document and, yes, I am sure you could find the odd mistake and, yes, scenario 1 does not relate to. . . But, that said, the essence is there, very clearly expressed as to what the problems are, how they can be dealt with and what the options are in terms of disposal, and that was clearly there, the criticism being possibly that option 1 was not labelled ‘option 1’ but just came under the heading of ‘Options’ so I am sorry, that is a bit of semantic nonsense that it had to go down that route. I do welcome, actually, the hon. member of Council, Dr Mann’s contribution because you gave your views clearly, without rancour and so forth, and expressed your concerns about the whole issue. I accept that and I accept the manner in which you put forward those views. I do not agree with those. It is, actually, probably an appalling response, not just of the department but of mankind in general that this is all we can do at this stage and time, but the department is only one little tiny cog in a larger wheel and we cannot break loose and start rolling in our own direction because, if we do, you can say goodbye to agriculture on the Isle of Man. So we are, whether we like it or not - whatever we may or may not think about the manner in which we can deal with these things - actually bound into the system around us in terms of production and in terms of trade and, yes, I hope that in future we will be able to have better responses, and it does recognise in here - however inadequate we might say this document is - first of all on the second page that as regards future developments and control, yes, we have to see what is going to happen in the future and take that on board. We hope there will be vaccinations and we can manage events through that way. In response to several members asking, ‘Are we in contact and is this a static document?’ no, it cannot be a static document, not in this area. Is medicine a static thing? It is not. Is science static? It is not, and the department, the Chief Veterinary Officer has - and he quite clearly says so in here - been reviewing what DEFRA has been saying their options are and the information they have been putting forward; listed their first set of recommendations; listed their second set of recommendations; and, as it says quite clearly, the Chief Veterinary Officer had discussions with DEFRA’s head of the veterinary exotic disease team and so forth. So there is contact there on a regular basis anyhow irrespective of foot-and-mouth, we have got to be alive to what is taking place elsewhere and this has got to be an evolving document. We have got to look at improvements in controlling this situation as they come forward. I welcome, obviously, the support of the previous minister, the hon. member for Douglas West, who has addressed some of the issues in relation to the hon. member for Douglas North’s questions about the slaughter, and obviously I can confirm that only qualified slaughtermen were used for the slaughter. Yes, there were people who had to be brought in who were not qualified slaughtermen to help with disposal, but you do not use surgeons to transport the patients around the hospital, you use porters, and there is a difference there. All those animals were slaughtered in the prescribed manner under the supervision of a government veterinary officer. You have to also remember - and I am just saying this from the top of my head - that this happened right at the very beginning of the outbreak and they had to pull those resources together right at the beginning and we had not had foot-and-mouth for 100 years. Of course it is going to be a vastly new experience and you have not got a well-oiled machine that slips into top gear instantly, and there is going to be, obviously, a learning curve in the operation of these things through that. There is not a conflict between the policy of mass disposal versus isolation, as the hon. member for Michael was suggesting. Obviously, if you are in a position where you can isolate, then you do, and if that means a review of the situation to stop the spread you use limited on- farm burial to help that process of isolation, yes, you would, but the chances are that isolation will not work. You try, obviously, your very best to do that but it is recognised, really, by the time that it shows on the first farm that it is probably already spreading. Mr Cannan: They could not stop it. Mr Rimington: So, yes, you try and isolate and do the limited on-farm burial, but you cannot do mass burial on farms; you have not got the resources of manpower and you do not want to be doing mass burial in areas where you are going to create major pollution problems. There are, as the previous minister remarked, techniques for moving carcasses safely around the countryside and they have been developed and made much more sophisticated by the outbreak in the adjacent isle, and obviously that is the experience that we need to learn from. I would have been interested to hear who all these knowledgeable people were and these large numbers of people who agreed with the hon. member for Michael and had these wonderful alternative policies or views, because unfortunately it came over rather negatively that you knew best and all these other people agreed with you and there are all these knowledgeable people who agreed with you, or you agreed with them, but where was your policy? What was your solution to this difficult task? There was nothing there. Mr Cannan: Your policy in your last report said you could not control it? Mr Rimington: All he could do was stand up and criticise because you have got that historic position of being in there to criticise and you cannot let go of that. Mr Cannan: Not at all. Mrs Cannell: Point of order, point of order, Mr President! The President: Hon. member, the hon. member for Rushen has the floor. Mrs Cannell: Point of order, sir. The President: Mrs Cannell, a point of order. Mrs Cannell: The hon. member is not directing himself through yourself as chair and is getting rather personal. Member: Oh! The President: Hon. member for Rushen, continue. Mr Rimington: Through you, Mr President, I would say that the hon. member for Ayre was in a similar position, had this historical position, where there was an opposition to the policy for whatever reasons going back and felt obviously that for some reason he could not let go of that. Indeed, we have had an outburst of incredible proportions which just concentrated on the technicalities and the wordage written in the document but, as I most wrongly intervened in the middle of his contribution, such as it was, to ask him to get on with his point of substance, no substance came out of that contribution - (Interjection) - not one element of substance. It did not even refer to the very point that he wished the department to go back and consider when the issue was discussed earlier in the year, which was whether it should be regional sites or single sites and the issues related to that. His opposition was on the nature of the report and how it was written, not actually on anything that was contained in the report. I did make a comment on my piece of paper - I make comments on various things that people have said so that I can answer them - and all I have got down under Mr Quine was ‘drivel’. Dr Mann: Oh, shame! Mr Rimington: It was unfortunate. The issue of 213,000 livestock that have to be slaughtered in four weeks, if you arrive at the situation, which heaven forbid we do not, where your whole Island is covered by the disease that has spread that quickly - Mr Cannan: That is what your previous document said: you could not contain it. The President: Hon. member! Mr Rimington: If you arrive at that situation and you actually are in a situation where you have not got an outbreak to contain in the sense that your whole livestock has gone, obviously you have got to make sure it does not go off the Island, you have got to take all those measures et cetera, you keep them on farms and then, in a controlled manner, you slaughter them, but you do not have to do it in that case, the scenario that was outlined at the rate of 50,000 per week, because if you could do it, if you had the people et cetera, you would not do it, but you would do it at the rate that you could practically manage, and that is a different issue altogether. Excepting that, it is not a pleasant situation to be in that we have to consider this alternative of a mass disposal site and that, unfortunately, is the position we are in. We have looked at the other options; this is the only practical option that we can see as a way forward, and the department is making its way very carefully through that process and I am trying to identify sites and ensuring that no area is actually unlooked at as a possibility to try and do that in a way which is the most acceptable for a difficult decision to the people of the Isle of the Man. I beg to move. The President: Hon. members, the motion I put to you is printed at 35 on your order paper: That Tynwald approves the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Policy Document of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Those in favour please say aye; against, no. The ayes have it. A division was called for and voting resulted as follows: In the Keys - For: Messrs Anderson, Rodan, Quayle, Rimington, Gill, Mrs Crowe, Messrs Houghton, Henderson, Cretney, Braidwood, Downie, Shimmin, Mrs Hannan, Messrs Bell, Karran, Corkill, Earnshaw and the Speaker - 18 Against: Messrs Cannan, Quine, Duggan and Mrs Cannell - 4 The Speaker: Mr President, the motion standing at item 35 on the order paper has been approved by the House of Keys with 18 votes for and 4 votes against. In the Council - For: The Lord Bishop, Mr Waft, Mrs Christian and Mr Crowe - 4 Against: Dr Mann - 1 The President: Hon. members, 4 for and 1 against in the Council, the motion therefore carries. Procedural The President: Now hon. members, it has been raised with me in relation to item 34 that in fact there was some concern as to the ruling that in fact the motion carried when in fact the vote in the Legislative Council is tied. In order to be quite specific and to make the ruling which I gave from the chair correct and to explain how it arises, can I point out to hon. members standing order 3.18(11) which simply says: ‘Where there an equality of votes in the Council, the President shall have a casting vote but shall only exercise such vote to ensure that the vote of the Council is the same as that of the Keys.’ Hence, hon. members, in the case of equality of votes in the Council on that particular item the motion carries in line with the Keys. I just want to make that perfectly plain, hon. members, so that it is on record. Hon. members, that concludes our order paper for today. The Council will now withdraw and leave the House of Keys to transact such business as Mr Speaker may wish to put before you. The Council withdrew. HOUSE OF KEYS The Speaker: Hon. members, the House will now adjourn until Tuesday next, 25th June at 10.00 a.m. in our own chamber. Thank you, hon. members. The House adjourned at 8.51 p.m. Corrigendum Tynwald Court, Thursday, 21st March 2002, pages T650 to T698, in the header on each page, for ‘TUESDAY’ please read ‘THURSDAY’.