'We need reform not a removals van': Executive parties react to SDLP call to move Assembly out of Stormont
Executive parties have reacted to a call from the SDLP to shift the centre of government for Northern Ireland away from Stormont.
The SDLP published the proposal in a new policy document today titled ‘Politics for the Common Good’.
A day earlier, opposition leader Matthew O’Toole had referred to Stormont’s Parliament Buildings as an “inaccessible mauseleoum”.
Today’s SDLP document says that the historic east Belfast building should be put to commercial use, with the Assembly moved instead to some existing building in Belfast city centre.
The party has not specified a building to which it could be moved (though the document accompanies the proposal with an image of Belfast City Hall).
The party also proposes hosting debates and committee meetings in towns outside Belfast (with the Guildhall in Londonderry pictured next to the proposal in the policy document).
Reacting, UUP leader Jon Burrows told the News Letter: “Stormont needs reform, not a removal van and it requires new people not a new postcode.
"Parliament Buildings is both beautiful and historic.
"Most importantly, the vast cost of relocating to the city centre is not what we should be spending public money on.
"An expensive relocation won't solve a single problem that we have in our politics and the abject quality of governance here."
An Alliance Party statement said: “As it stands, we have half a million people sitting on waiting lists and families are struggling with the cost of living.
“Of all the problems that need fixed at Stormont, its location is nowhere near the top of the list.
“The proposal that we spend hundreds of millions of pounds on new offices for MLAs while public services are crumbling could not be more out of touch with the people we represent.”
DUP MLA David Brooks told the News Letter: “The SDLP must be scraping the barrel for relevance if changing the Assembly’s postcode is their latest big idea.
"The suggestion that relocating an entire legislature wouldn’t come at a significant cost is for the birds.
"People want shorter hospital waiting lists, better schools, safer streets and help with household bills, not new offices for politicians.
"The SDLP might want a change of scenery, but the public have far more pressing priorities.”
Sinn Fein was invited to respond, but has yet to do so.
The SDLP’s policy document states: “For almost a century, Parliament Buildings has stood on the Stormont Estate, physically removed from the centre of Belfast and the everyday life of the city...
"Its location, set apart from the city within an extensive estate, reinforces a sense of distance between our elected representatives and the people they serve.
"Even the word Stormont has become a symbol of dysfunction and a source of contempt.
"It is in short, both an anachronism and a source of ridicule.
"Across these islands, legislatures in Dublin, London, Edinburgh and Cardiff occupy prominent central locations, closely connected to the cities around them and accessible by public transport.
"This place should be no different.”
Stormont’s new home should be “a modern, accessible building” in the city centre, and that the move should be made by May 2032, said the SDLP.
It envisages the cost as being “modest”, and calls for “a review of available publicly-owned buildings” in the city.
It concludes: “During the next mandate, we would seek to bring proceedings of the Northern Ireland Assembly, both plenary and committee, not just out of Stormont and into Belfast city centre, but into cities and towns across the region.”