Miss the action in Tynwald this month? Don't worry...Phil Gawne has all the details you'll need...
Manx Newscast
Manx Newscast - November Tynwald in Brief
Well, for us political nerds November 10 was quite special, as much for what wasn't being said in public as for what was. There were lots and lots of interesting debates and discussions. There was, behind closed doors of course, the lots of discussion going on as to who would be the new minister and Chief Minister, Alf Cannon, was being suitably discreet at the fact that he was building a new ministerial team and of course the new ministerial team was announced the following week after the November 10 world. But to start with there were a range of questions, questions on tuition fees and discussions about the Manx Care Board and Jason Muhrhaus was particularly interested about what appeared to be a public rift between Manx Care's position and the position that the Chief Minister was adopting, particularly in relation to the potential cuts in services that were being suggested. So that was that, Laurie Hooper had some questions in relation to housing and the answer that the doi minister gave upset or concerned Laurie Hooper in that he was asking about how many public sector houses knew public sector houses had been built as opposed to refurbishments or rebuilds of existing properties and the answer that the doi minister gave was why. There haven't been any new houses, so there are houses that are new but they aren't additional houses, perhaps that's the better way of putting it so that we have the same number of public sector houses after three years of this administration and bearing in mind the housing crisis that everyone standing for election was talking about. You might have thought there would have been a few more houses than that. So then we move on to the the main order paper, lots of issues there. The Minister for Infrastructure made a statement on the select committee report on poverty on housing and homelessness and the Minister of Environment Food and Agriculture gave quite a lengthy statement on food hygiene assurance and possibly she was right to do so because she hardly had any queries or questions raised as a result of giving a very, very detailed statement. Then we moved on to possibly the biggest issue that Tim Mould has debated certainly this year which is the Manks National Insurance Fund addressing the long-term sustainability of the island social security benefits and national insurance scheme and this is quite a big issue. For various, well 2016 a report was produced which showed very clearly that the National Insurance Fund was going to be, was going to run out and urgent steps were required. Some steps were taken in 2016 probably not enough and I say that as one of the ministers who was involved in that discussion but subsequently certainly the five years of the quail administration there doesn't appear to have been a lot done in relation to the National Insurance Fund and three years into the Canon administration, Alex Allen comes forward with a conversation about the future of the fund and the reason of course for all of this is the strong recommendation of the actuaries that have produced the various reports or the indication the direction of travel seems to be. If you want to have your fund preserved and secure into the future you really do have to think about doing something like removing the triple lock pension promise and that is going to be a difficult thing to do particularly as we get closer to the general election. It is fair to say that, well Lottie Hooper included an amendment which was looking to support the four principles outlined in the document, bearing in mind this was a Council of Ministers document. Lottie Hooper was surprised that the Council of Ministers didn't back that and didn't support him in supporting the four principles outlined in the document. The reasons of course given by Alex Allison were well actually you know what this is a conversation it's down for a general debate not down as a well it's not a general debate but there was no recommendations it was merely to receive the report and that was supported generally by Tim Mould but Lottie Hooper's amendment only five voted in favour of that. Then we moved on to the energy strategy, the agriculture strategy and food security plan and those items received a fair amount of debate. Some members commenting that perhaps there was a difference in interpretation between what the energy strategy said and what the MUA were actually saying in terms of achievability of some of the renewable energy project but yes an interesting debate and again agriculture and food security those matters. Again quite a good debate some raised the point that farmers would probably welcome many of the words but they're looking for a little bit more than warm words at the moment they're actually looking for some some funding to back this up and of course the minister is trying to deliver some fairly big policies with existing budgets. Then we got on to the Department of Education, Sport and Culture's departmental plan which had a lot of fairly critical comment and bearing in mind this was Daphne Kane's first opportunity as education minister to move the plan. It's fair to say members weren't giving her an easy ride by any means but the plan ultimately was supported. Similarly Isle of Man post office plan that was put forward by Stu Peters not so much criticism there because I think Stu Peters had had lots of questions on this so people members had already vented their respective spleen's in relation to the post office and any concerns they might have. There was then the report on policy principles to inform the Isle of Man's approach to tackling harm caused by drugs. The biggest criticism of this was well actually you know we're three years into this administration and you're just talking about principal policies to inform the approach. Shouldn't you really be getting a bit further down the track than that and actually getting your approach into black and white and getting on with taking that approach rather than just informing your approach. Well the minister's response to that was well these are quite difficult things that we have to accept so you know that we are accepting principles which recognise that you know drugs exist in society they're not talking about legalizing but they are talking about perhaps less vigorous pursuit of people who have for various reasons become addicted to drugs and end up often in Victoria Road I think it's not Victoria Road now as it is Derby in the prison something like a third of prisoners in in Derby are there for drugs related matters now some of them will always end up in prison and I don't think that's going to change but I think there was a recognition in the report that maybe too many people are getting jailed for relatively minor drugs matters then we moved on to the manks care annual report and some members were concerned that the the chief minister had asked that Tim will note that work is currently underway to align the mandate to manks care the manks care operating plan and the budget and members were saying what surely the budget must follow the manks care operating plan you know that was the most important thing was the operating plan but of course you can't spend money that you haven't got and we are getting to the the the situation where there is going to be much less flexibility in in terms of what reserves are left to spend ultimately the keys and legco supported the motion but there were some attempts at amendment I think what was it amendment I've got I've got I've written down the the votes but I haven't actually written down what they were what they were voting for so apologies for for that Isle of Man war pensions committee the person was appointed to that then we got on to again a pretty weighty item the constitutional legal affairs and justice committee and that's hard enough to say in itself first report for the session the constitution of the Isle of Man internal self-government and external self-determination and some very interesting recommendations in here some relatively modest some you would think would be relatively simple like Tim or the of the opinion that the word dependency does not reflect clearly the constitutional status of the Isle of Man which it doesn't but you try finding a term that everyone's prepared to agree with bearing in mind as well you have to get Jersey and Guernsey to agree as well because it's their crown dependencies too but yes some very weighty matters in there and if you look out in a week or so's time you'll see a podcast on that perspective there's going to be covering that shortly also the the constitutional legal affairs committee we're recommending a judicial officer should be appointed as a permanent chair for of the employment and equality tribunal while councillor ministers weren't having that they wanted to go a lot further and look at all the various tribunals that exist and so they they amended it to include a much broader consideration of the various tribunals Rob Colister was successful with his dyslexia dyscalculia dyspraxia and dysgraphia petition for redress he managed to get that through and the committee was formed the hydrocarbon resources and film funding items from Mr Thomas and Mr Ashford were delayed for a further month and the government conference general debate put down by Mr Glover was was interesting this was a general debate about the item in the government conference relating to public service and yes there were some very interesting comments they're well worth listening to if you get a chance and i'm sure Andy Ralph's the chief executive officer of other man government will have listened carefully and hopefully will have picked up some ideas and then finally we got to the orders and this was on day three yes day three we were well into the afternoon on day three before we got to the orders there were two four five orders i think yes five orders at the end of the order paper and those included airports and civil aviation related matters and animal health matter from the obviously from Deaf and two income tax measures that i'm hoping to catch up with Alex Allison and get a bit more detail on in a future possibly a future agenda so that was what was going on front of house so to speak internal but behind the scenes there was an awful lot of speculation about the new ministers and i spoke i think i spoke to probably a dozen of the keys members all of whom denied that they were um they did that they'd even been offered a role let alone that they were prepared to accept a role in council of ministers but ultimately possibly is it what i forget which of the of the apostles it was that denied Christ three times before the crucifixion it felt a little bit like that in in in tenmold with people oh no no i wouldn't want to be part of council of ministers and ultimately a new team was formed within relative relatively short time of tenmold finishing its business uh um just three how many days 30 30 yes three three days later the announcement was made so that was tenmold in brief maybe not so brief but as brief as i could manage bearing a mind we did go into three whole days thank you for making it to the end of the manxeradian newscast you are obviously someone with exquisite taste may i politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of manx radio podcasts at your favorite podcast provider so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone thank you [MUSIC PLAYING]