Hain adviser to concentrate on Hain deputy bid
One of Northern Secretary Peter Hain’s key advisers is leaving Belfast to concentrate on the Labour minister’s bid to become Deputy Leader, it emerged tonight.
Phil Taylor, who has advised Mr Hain on devolution issues in the North, confirmed tonight that he was taking unpaid leave from the Northern Ireland Office to concentrate on his boss’s campaign.
“It is true that I intend to leave at the end of the month which is when we hope to have a devolved government in place at Stormont,” he confirmed.
“I have been asked to help out in the campaign and that is what I will do.”
During his time in Northern Ireland as adviser, Mr Taylor has played a key role in a number of radical moves by direct rule ministers affecting a future power-sharing administration.
His boss Peter Hain has undertaken radical reform of the domestic rates system linking the bills to the value of people’s homes.
The British government has also controversially passed legislation abolishing the 11-plus, introducing water charges based on property value from next month and has proposed a scaling back of the number of government departments, local councils and other public bodies in the province.
Democratic Unionist leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, today announced as an Assembly Election pledge that his party will choose the Finance Minister’s portfolio in the next devolved government and insist that the water charges issue is addressed in Chancellor Gordon Brown’s economic package for bolstering power-sharing.
Mr Taylor has been a member of the Labour Party since 1994 and has been Mr Hain’s adviser for all of his Cabinet career.
