Naomi Long
East Belfast · Alliance Party · Northern Ireland
“Underneath the Facebook posts to say that he had passed away, people speculated with such comments as, "Probably high on drugs", "Probably drunk", and, "Typical boy racer". There was all of that speculation. It was hurtful to the family, and it was inaccurate.”
“There are circumstances that we need to consider and be careful of. I was told, for example, that, when the issue of good character references at trial was being looked at in New South Wales — Committee members may wish to look at this for themselves — one of the groups that opposed their removal was representative of domestic abuse victi…”
“It sets out the strategic direction adopted by the Department and key partners to tackle those appalling crimes and protect vulnerable victims of exploitation.”
“The provision seeks to provide protection, via legal advice and representation for complainants, against the use of non-relevant personal material and evidence of previous sexual history being used in the court process.”
“<BR /> <BR />On the wider issue of ensuring that a withdrawal of services never happens again, I think that most of us agree that, although everyone has the right to take industrial action, no one has the right to derail and hold to ransom the entire justice system in that way.”
“Those measures will go some way towards helping to support complainants and enable them to have input into the decision-making process about what records containing their personal and sensitive information are required to be shared with the defence.”
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Every one of 7,548 lines we hold for Naomi Long, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 151.
“I am not indignant if she does not support the amendment. I am just frustrated that she will not say that she does not want the age to be raised from 10 and be done with it. It just seems to me to be a weird construct to say that, on the one hand, she thinks it is dangerous but that, on the other hand, she thinks that it is not. On the one hand, she wants to go with it, but, on the other hand, she does not think that the Executive will deliver on it. <BR /> <BR />The only thing that we can really do tonight is decide whether we go ahead and do it or not. If we are not going to do it, we accept criminalising children at 10. If we are going to do it, we accept that we will have to make different provision for them between that age and whatever age the Assembly chooses.”
“We have said what the alternatives might look like, and we have said what can be done. I feel that the Member is searching for reasons not to support this as opposed to genuinely scrutinising what is in front of us. That is fine.”
“We covered those issues yesterday. The early intervention would not be affected. I listened to what Paul Givan said today. I sought confirmation on the engagement at school level. It would not be affected; the role of the children's panels and the work done there, for example, would not be affected; and the accountability for victims may, in fact, be increased on the basis that they may get restorative practice in place, which would be more beneficial.”
“If you are saying, "Don't do it; it's dangerous", that is fine. Take that position. Say that you agree with the DUP or that you agree with Doug, the UUP or the TUV that we should not raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility because the police are telling you that it is dangerous. That is fine. Say that. Do not make some pretence that it is a failure on my part to convince people who are not convincible about the issue. That is not fair criticism or accountability in the Chamber. If you do not think that it will work, which is, essentially, what you just said and is a new tack, and they are telling you not to do it, that is fine, but own the decision. You want to ride two horses. You want to say that you are in favour of it but not vote in favour of it. That is fine. We know that now.”
“There is no party in the Executive that will get everything that it wants through the Executive. That is the reality, and, if it was not the reality that you experienced in your nine months, I assure you that it has been the reality that I have experienced in my almost five years. No party gets everything that it wants. All parties become frustrated. Clearly, this is a point of frustration for me, but, if we were all to take the view that we will just take our toys and go home, we would not have an Executive, and you, along with everyone else, would be saying that we were failing to govern.”
“This is a Back-Bench amendment to a Bill that has many clauses that will benefit the people of Northern Ireland. I make no apology for wanting to progress my agenda insofar as I can.”
“We can look at ACEs and how to intervene on them. I can agree with Paul Givan and Mike Nesbitt on how we deal with child criminal exploitation and launch joint reports. However, we cannot agree on this one issue, and there is an opportunity for Members to nail their colours to the mast as to whether they are for the change or against it. With respect, the Member is making excuses for taking no decision.”
“The Member sat on the Executive for nine months, and she has sat in the Chamber all day today. On what planet can I go forward and do this without the agreement of the DUP? It has said clearly that, whether in this mandate or the next mandate, it will not agree to any change. I accept that the Member thinks that I have great powers of persuasion — I agree with her on that — but the truth is that I do not expect that I will shift the DUP from its clear position as stated tonight, backed with a petition of concern, to one where it will work on this. What I can do, and what I said I would do and what I have been doing, is work within the law to remove young people from the justice system by having a more progressive youth justice system, but that can take us only so far. We can do the trauma-informed practice.”
“— thousands of reports on why children engage in offending. The Department, through the Executive programme on paramilitarism and organised crime (EPPOC), produced a list of ACEs, reasons why children and, indeed, adults with high levels of ACEs are more likely to offend and details of what you can do to prevent that. The last thing that young people need is another report that nobody wants to do anything about, like the one in 2011. They would rather leave those young people dangling until they are the adults sitting in the Chamber making the decisions.”
“<BR /> <BR />The idea that nothing has changed in the 15 years since the report on this issue first recommended 14 as the minimum age of criminal responsibility is not true. To say that nothing has changed since David Ford proposed that we move to 12 is not true. To say that nothing is changing and that that situation will continue, irrespective of what happens with the amendments, would also be untrue. Progress is being made. The problem is that progress is limited by the fact that the children, ultimately, will be criminalised. Members are either in favour of that or against it.”
“First, I was not here 15 years ago; I was elsewhere. Over the past five years and during the Member's time in office and that of my predecessor David Ford, within the constraints of the MACR being 10, we have been deflecting people away from the justice system; providing a more trauma-informed approach; engaging with young people who are at risk of offending, as opposed to waiting until they have offended; and moving upstream to provide child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), in conjunction with the Department of Education but paid for by the Department of Justice in certain circumstances, for young people who are suffering from trauma and who may offend as a result.”
“The Member will recall that the most expensive interventions are late-stage interventions. That is the first thing. The cheapest and most successful interventions, with the best value for money, are early-stage interventions. When you take young people through court and criminalise them — even out-of-court disposals require a young person to go through the charge system — it costs money that would be better spent were it deflected, along with the young person, away from that kind of justice and into systems that would give them the support that they need in order to desist from offending. To me, that is the point. This is not just about the heart; it is also about the head. That would be a better value-for-money solution, even more so if, in the long run, those young people go on to live more productive lives.”
“As a result of Ray Jones's report, considerable work has been done with those in children's social services and youth justice to develop new mechanisms to deal with young people at risk of offending, so a lot of the groundwork has been laid. The Member will appreciate, given what has been said in the Chamber, that it would be foolish of me, as Minister, to drive forward further change until such times as there is legislative certainty. Some people want to put the cart before the horse, but, until we know that there will be change, it would be foolhardy for us to invest further in that aspect of the work. The purpose of not having a commencement date in the legislation, however, is to ensure that it does not become law until such measures are delivered. There is therefore no risk of moving ahead at a pace that the system cannot deal with.”
“I understand what the Member is saying. However, is he aware, first, that it was made clear by the DUP earlier that 12 would not have been acceptable and, secondly, that his amendment is also under the petition of concern as things stand? Therefore, it softened nothing and changed nothing, Doug. The truth is that we are in a situation here where it is the DUP's way or the highway. That is the space that we are in. Unfortunately, your former colleagues facilitated that.”
“There is a difference between legislative competence and competence.”
“That was what I found offensive yesterday.”
“The issue here is that, for example — the Speaker can correct me if I am wrong — the test that the Speaker does at introduction is to ensure that amendments are competent. However, a further issue around competency is whether we have the ability to legislate on these issues. Previous pieces of legislation that have gone through here were then appealed by the Attorney General on competence grounds and had to go to the Secretary of State or someone else in order to see whether they were competent. My understanding is that the Speaker, to be fair, does not do those checks. Yesterday, what I found to be unacceptable — I am happy to put it on the record again — is that it was insulting to suggest that the drafting that was done by the Bill Office was incompetent and to describe it as having been written:”
“Had we had a very clear "12 minus indictable offences", that might have gained some traction in the Chamber. The difficulty is that we are having this conversation in the context that the conversation was shut down too soon. That is a shame, because we could have made some progress in this mandate.”
“A number of Members have referred to the age of 12 as a potential compromise landing zone. I know that the Member opposite will say that that was not the intention and that it was a kind of last-ditch attempt to stop us if the petition of concern did not work. However, there was some substance to the amendment, because it gave clarity and said that it would be for indictable-only offences. With respect, the difficulty with your amendment — the one that you left on the books and did not withdraw — is that we have received legal advice that we cannot do that. What you have suggested is unworkable, and the Assembly would not have the vires to impose that on the PPS and others without having to go through a whole process with the Attorney General and so on.”
“Preferably all of them, if the Member has the figures to hand.”
“Can the Member also give us the figures for how many of those were prosecuted in court?”
“The Member said that nobody would change their mind as a result of the debate, but that is not true. There are elements of today's debate on which, as I said earlier, there would have been potential for compromise had the debate happened at the right time. Unfortunately, as with the petition of concern on this occasion, the use of the veto in the Executive took the matter off the table. Instead of trying to find consensus and being willing to move, which we would have been willing to do, others deny us the opportunity to do that not just in this mandate but, as has been said, in future mandates, even if all the other circumstances were to be in place.”
“Would it not be a tragedy if, at 10 or 11, we institutionalised a child to the point that they would prefer to be in an institution rather than at home with their family because the right supports were not in place when they were not in Woodlands?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He is correct, of course, that Woodlands is an excellent facility. I will certainly not contradict him on that point. Will he agree with me that a child of 10 or 11 being taken away from their family, their school and the environment in which they have grown up, rather than being supported in that environment to deal with their behaviours and, potentially, with the family issues that they might be struggling with, is still a traumatic incident for many of those young people? There is a concern that one of two things will happen to a young person in such circumstances. They will either be traumatised by the experience or, potentially worse, depending on their home circumstances and whether interventions are made there, they may prefer to be institutionalised than to live in a normal family.”
“They are at the more extreme end of sentencing; for an adult, for example, they could carry a life sentence.”
“I appreciate the Member's giving way. First, the point has been made that it was partly to do with being able to get sufficient political consensus to make progress on the issue. Secondly, we have talked all along about there being a balance between wanting to protect younger children who may be drawn into offending behaviour and the rights of victims. When it comes to the most serious offences, the balance may fall in a different place. The list is a recognition of that simple fact. That is not to say that the things that fall immediately below it are trivial, or that the things on the list are the only serious crimes, but those are particularly heinous offences and are recognised as such even in sentencing. For that reason, there was logic in saying that those should be carved out.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not have the Standing Orders in front of me, but I know from experience as a Minister that, if I misspeak in the House or provide false information, I am expected to return to the House and correct the record at the first opportunity. I raised my point of order to allow the Member for Upper Bann to correct the record in a contemporaneous fashion, not to disrupt the debate.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Member will be aware that there is an obligation on Members to correct the record when they speak in error. He has just said that the amendments to the Bill are 10 times the amount of the original Bill. That is factually incorrect. You can flick your papers all you want, but it does not change the fact that they are not 10 times the amount. In fairness, it also does not reflect the fact that his colleague brought quite a few of the amendments.”
“If we really want to get past this, let us recognise that our position has not shifted because of the shift in the balance of power in the Assembly. Our position has been consistent since 1998.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. The Member has been around these institutions for a long time. He knows full well that, in 1999, the late Seán Neeson and Stephen Farry penned a lengthy article about the problems with the Good Friday Agreement and foresaw much of the difficulty that we are facing now. Alliance's consistent position has been that the mutual vetoes — the petitions of concern — were open to abuse because their use had not been properly circumscribed in the legislation. At the beginning, there was an understanding between the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP on when they would be used, but there was no limitation on them in legislation. We said that they needed to be reformed and, preferably, withdrawn. Up until 2022, the Member's party had reform of the institutions in its manifesto, so let us not play silly games.”
“If that had not been closed at the Executive but a pin had been put in it to say, "Let's discuss it", we would potentially have got to a point at which everyone in the Chamber, or at least everyone who is in the Chamber at the moment, might have been able to find a point of agreement.”
“The Member and I have agreed almost too much this afternoon. We will have to address that at another time. On the failure to address the issue in a useful way, will the Member agree that, instead of having shot down the proposal in flames, if we had, for example, discussed Paul Frew's amendment to an amendment as a stand-alone amendment, a way forward could have been found? Instead, the DUP, as always, exercises its veto power, as it is intending to do through the petitions of concern. It should be engaging on the substance of the issue to provide reassurance. We, in fairness, have done that throughout the passage of the Bill.”
“Will the Member give way on that specific point?”
“<BR /> <BR />There are also models available across Europe for how we do that. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; we need only to go as far as Scotland or across the border into the South to see what can happen for those who fall under a raised age of criminal responsibility, as both have moved to 12.”
“I appreciate the Member giving way. One of the ways in which we could do that would be to look at the cohort below the current minimum age of criminal responsibility. As I have said, there are multi-agency response teams in place where the offending is serious. Where it is an individual incident, social services become involved, parents become engaged, and additional support will be provided, depending, obviously, on the scale of the offending. Models of that are in operation in Northern Ireland at the moment for younger children. We would need to ensure that, as you get to older children, there is more accountability, more opportunity for reparations to those whom they have hurt and more opportunity for them to take responsibility for their actions. There are models available; we are not talking in a vacuum.”
“It is not that there is no intent to do it or that we would not do it before commencement; it is simply that, if, as has happened, the amendment were shot down in flames, what would have been the point of expending money that I do not have on doing something that could not be delivered?”
“The reason is simple and, again, was set out in yesterday's debate. The Member is well aware from his other role of the constraints within which we operate in the Department of Justice. I could not afford to send my officials off to come up with a system that would have required a multi-agency approach, drawing in officials from all other Departments, particularly Health, on the off chance that the amendment would be made. <BR /> <BR />One of the reasons why we had the conversation that we had in preparation for the amendment was to recognise that it would not be commenced. For that very reason, there is no commencement date against the amendments that should, I will suggest, be supported. I cannot send my officials to do work that may prove to be nugatory. It is that simple.”
“We know that that happens, but we also know that a child of eight or nine cannot fully understand the consequences of their actions. The amendment is about extending those accountability mechanisms to a slightly older cohort who are mainly engaged in low-level offending. I hope that, if the amendment were to be made, we would work together to find those accountability mechanisms and make them work.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. He was here for a considerable part of last night's debate but perhaps not for the bit when I said that, were the amendment to be made, it would not be commenced until such time as we had put in place alternative accountability mechanisms for young people who engaged in worrying, distressing or harmful behaviour, so that we would have the right experts in place to deal with that potential offending behaviour and nip it in the bud while the young people were still young enough to change course. <BR /> <BR />The idea that there would be no accountability is one of the areas where there has been misinformation in the debate. There is no suggestion that there would be no accountability for a nine-year-old or eight-year-old child who, for example, stabs a teacher.”
“You did. You said that I did not want you to make your points and that maybe I did not want to hear them. You said that.”
“I acknowledge that, but my point was a procedural one. We have not previously seen one Minister intervening from the Back Benches in a debate that another Minister is leading. That is a procedural matter to do with how we deal with Executive business. If the Member has come here to try to imply that, in some way, I wish to silence him on the issues that he wishes to raise, I point out that he has members of the Education Committee who could make his exact points very competently, I am sure. The question here is about a Minister engaging in debate with another Minister in the Chamber, and that does not seem to me to be procedurally correct. I ask the Member to have some respect for the fact that I am not trying to impugn his integrity; I ask that he does not impugn mine.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe that this is unprecedented: not that a Minister would make a contribution to the business of the House as a Back-Bench Member, but that a Minister would intervene in that way on another Minister's Bill that is going through the House and say that he is speaking as a Minister. When a justice Bill is brought to the House, I am there to speak on behalf of the Executive on that Bill. I would like a ruling on whether it is in order for other Ministers to come to the Chamber and argue openly about the status of a Bill when Members of their party could make the party political points.”
“There is also significant evidence, as, I am sure, the Member will agree, that children who are subject not to abuse but simply to neglect will often test boundaries in order to see whether somebody will intervene to say, "No". In cases of neglect, those boundaries will often be tested to the point at which a child ends up getting in trouble with the authorities; whereas, in a regular family in which people are invested, the "No" will come much more quickly, the care will come much more quickly and the children can be deflected away from such behaviour. Even children who have not suffered direct trauma but have suffered neglect can end up being put into that category of offender when, in fact, they need more attention and more time and energy invested in them.”
“Does the Member agree that it would also help if the right supports were in place for vulnerable young people who are at risk of offending? One of the challenges is that, once a young person gets embroiled in the criminal justice system and in offending, it is very difficult to extricate them from it. Many of them, as you said, are care-experienced, and some will also be institutionalised to a degree. The problem is that young people are going absent from school and no action is being taken as social services are not equipped to deal with much of the pressure that they are under. If we had better teams of people working with vulnerable young people who are at risk of offending, we could reduce the number of victims and keep young people out of the justice system. That is what this is about.”
“As further evidence on that, as Justice Minister, I did a write-round, which I am compelled to do, on two issues, the first being equal protection for children and the second being the minimum age of criminal responsibility. While I had positive responses from a number of Ministers, it is correct to say that, to allow the Bill to progress to this point, those elements were not able to be included as ministerial amendments. Therefore, the idea that an Executive would be able to take through a youth justice Bill is, to quote, I think, the Member who said it, "for the birds".”
“It is a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week, when I raised the issue of appropriate language in the Chamber, I drew attention to the 2009 ruling of your predecessor William Hay, in which he said that not only the content of speech but the context of speech would be considered in deciding whether speech was appropriate. Last night, I raised a further point of order on the use of language by a Member saying out loud that Members in the House had spoken mistruths? That, as you will be aware, is contrary to the rulings of Erskine May, which have formed the basis of the rules of this House. I would like to receive some assurance that, while you may not answer those points of order today, they will, as valid points of order, be addressed at some point.”
“I ask the Member to reflect on and withdraw what he has just said. It was disingenuous. Sian Mulholland spoke at length about the impact on victims. I do not mind having robust debate, and I do not mind the fact that we disagree on the matter — we clearly do — but to misrepresent Sian's comments on victims is wholly inappropriate. Frankly, I expect better from the Member. He is normally decent and fair.”
“I thank the Member for giving way and for bringing some calm to the proceedings. The issue is not that rehabilitation matters only for young people — I agree with him on that — but it is that, for young people, it can have a more profound effect. They are in their formative years, and it can prevent a lifetime of offending behaviour. That was the point that Sian was making. Does the Member agree, however, that the other issues, whether accountability or reparations or anything else, can be dealt with in an environment that does not have to be a justice-based environment? We have seen that work well for lower-level offending. We are trying to expand the use of those deterrents and measures that will allow younger children in particular to turn their life around and to desist.”
“It is called standards of parliamentary debate.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for a Member to accuse other Members of the House to have spoken "mistruths" in the Chamber? I certainly know that, under Erskine May, it is not appropriate for somebody to accuse another Member of speaking "mistruths".”