Doug Beattie
Upper Bann · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“I absolutely accept what the Minister said earlier, which is that she would not have been able to get such a Bill out of the Executive. That is the sentence that you would have heard from me, Minister, had you waited a minute. I absolutely accept that that is the case, and I think that we all do.”
“Just a minute. Minister, I guess that I disagree with you, because I too did my work. I accept that I do not have the resources that you and your Department have, but I sat with the Public Prosecution Service and talked through this very thing, and it said that it was workable.”
“The Director of Public Prosecutions would look at the seriousness of the offence — death by dangerous driving, risk of harm to the public, serial arson, assault, sexual behaviour that is a danger to the public — and he would also look at the best interests of the child, because we have not got away from diversionary measures here.”
“Had James Bulger been murdered by two nine-year-olds, we would probably be having a discussion about the minimum age of criminal responsibility being nine, such was the anger in 1993 when that horrendous crime took place. All the ages are arbitrary, and we need to deal with that.”
“That raises the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. It is not what some people, who want it to be 14, want; it is not what others, who want it to stay at 10, want; but I believe that 12 is right. Why do I presume that a child can commit a criminal offence at 12 years of age?”
“In essence, however, that amendment would raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, apart from in the case of the offences in that closed list. It has been said many times, and I will not repeat what has been said, but the closed list does not make sense to me either.”
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“I thank the Member for the intervention. <BR /> <BR />I do not want to get into the game of saying that I am finishing and then not finish, so I am finishing. Last night became a blood sport in this place. I have to be honest. I have to say this, and I am being honest with everybody: it was a two-way blood sport; a three-way blood sport; a four-way blood sport. It was all over the place. We do not need to see that again. We are talking about a really important issue here. We are debating an important issue. There is an outcome, and I am willing to work to try to get people to agree on my amendment.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention and for raising my morale a little bit there. It is a real, fair point. There are people who may well see the amendment's merits, and, if those merits mean that we can raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility and still hold perpetrators of those serious crimes to account, there is something to work on there. That is what I intend to do.”
“I intend to use the 14 days to persuade. I may fail, but I will try. That means trying to persuade my former colleagues and the DUP's justice spokesperson and Chair of the Justice Committee. We can accept that we have failed, at the minute, to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility — for me, to 12 — but that does not mean that it stops. It does not mean that it has gone. It just means that we have to realign ourselves and try something —.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, we can all have a bit of a laugh at this as well, though it is a serious issue. <BR /> <BR />Minister, I have not given up on the age of 12. I certainly have not. Do you know what? We have 14 days. I have 14 days to persuade.”
“— from 10 to 14. The Ulster Unionist Party's signing is up to the Ulster Unionist Party.”
“Well, as I said at the very start, Minister, I would not have signed the petition of concern. I stand in this corner because of the principle that I have on this particular issue — along with other issues, of course. I take on board exactly what you are saying. However, I have to be honest: it was always going to end up like this because it is such a change —”
“— just to try to get something across the line. What I do not want to do is have the same debate next year, the year after or at a later stage, or have something that will corrupt our politics. I think that it already has. I will give way to the Minister.”
“While I understand the reasons why we are doing this through amendments, doing it in that way does not bring confidence. Having such a big jump from the age of 10 to the age of 14 was always going to result in kickback. I always saw that coming. That is one of the reasons why I tried to soften it. I did not want to have this conversation through amendments. However, that is where we find ourselves. I tried to soften that —”
“Thank you for the intervention. As I said at the start, we can disagree agreeably. Some will definitely want the minimum age of criminal responsibility to be 14. Some will want the age to stay at 10. I think that 10 is too young, so I proposed that it be 12. I will not be the person who stands here and says that my amendment does not need work. If it needs work, it needs work. I am happy to do that work. However, the principle is sound. <BR /> <BR />The reality is that we were always going to be in this space. We were always going to be in this space because of confidence. Whether we like it or not, we are in a closed bubble in the Chamber and not living out there and hearing what people think, but there is a lack of confidence.”
“I do not want to get stuck on this, because, actually, it has been a good debate, and I have put my point across. <BR /> <BR />Here is the thing.”
“You did, in fairness: that is exactly what you said. However, I also distinctly remember you saying — I am happy to check Hansard on this — that something that comes out of the Speaker's Office, having been agreed as an amendment to be debated in the Chamber, should not be viewed as not being competent. I will check Hansard.”
“Just a minute. Minister, I guess that I disagree with you, because I too did my work. I accept that I do not have the resources that you and your Department have, but I sat with the Public Prosecution Service and talked through this very thing, and it said that it was workable. I sat with the PSNI and talked through this thing, and it said that it was workable. I sat with the Youth Justice Agency and talked through this thing, and it said that it was workable. It is not easy and it needs development — you are absolutely right — but I think that there is a compromise that will help us raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 while, at the same time, still supporting the victims. If I have mischaracterised something that you said yesterday, Minister, then I just misheard it. I will accept that.”
“I thank the Minister. I am glad that she did not go down the road of saying that the amendment was not competent, having yesterday talked about never saying that what comes out of the Speaker's Office would be viewed as not competent or, indeed, that the drafters would do something that is not competent.”
“That was a fair point, and it made me go away and think. I am willing to work with anybody at Further Consideration Stage to come up with something that works.”
“The Director of Public Prosecutions would look at the seriousness of the offence — death by dangerous driving, risk of harm to the public, serial arson, assault, sexual behaviour that is a danger to the public — and he would also look at the best interests of the child, because we have not got away from diversionary measures here. Ultimately, that is what we are looking to do. We are not about criminalising more children. This is about ensuring that they get the support that they require and that we also support the victims of crime. <BR /> <BR />The last part of my amendment simply ensures that all interested parties in the youth justice system, including the PSNI, the PPS and the Youth Justice Agency, are prepared for the change from 10 to 12. I set a figure of two years — I think that you raised that, Sian.”
“I kind of accept that in part, but remember what we are talking about here. We are talking about a very small number of cases, not a raft of cases. We are not talking about thousands of cases. It could be something as simple as the police doing an investigation and sending a no-file prosecution file to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and he then accepts it and that is where it goes. We are not talking just about bad behaviour; we are talking about the most serious offences. That is why I tried to give the example of death by dangerous driving, which would be one of those offences.”
“The third part of my amendment gives the Director of Public Prosecutions the power to look at a crime committed by a child of 10 or 11 years of age and decide whether that crime should be prosecuted. As you can see, I am not giving a closed list of offences, but I am giving the director more latitude when it comes to the seriousness of the offence. Take death by dangerous driving as an example.”
“There will be adults who will tell children to take responsibility for their actions, knowing that they are below the minimum age of criminal responsibility. There is an important principle here that the police need the freedom to investigate. If that means making an arrest, the police should arrest. If it means taking biometrics, the police have to take the biometrics. If an 11-year-old burns down a derelict house, the police investigating the arson may arrest a child. In the course of that investigation, it may be proven that it was not that child but somebody else; or it may be proven that it was that child, who is below the age of criminal responsibility, and the case will go into a different process. The investigatory part of my amendment is incredibly important.”
“Had James Bulger been murdered by two nine-year-olds, we would probably be having a discussion about the minimum age of criminal responsibility being nine, such was the anger in 1993 when that horrendous crime took place. All the ages are arbitrary, and we need to deal with that. <BR /> <BR />The second part of my amendment makes it clear that the police must have the power to arrest and investigate children who are 10 or 11 years of age. The police have to do that for a number of reasons. The first reason is to make sure that it was that child who committed the serious offence. If the child is not arrested or investigated and their necessary biometrics are not taken, the police are not able to prove that that child committed the crime, and, likewise, they cannot prove that that child did not do the crime.”
“There is a real difference between an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old. We know that many children as young as 12 are already watching extreme pornography and, in some cases, acting it out. There was one case of non-fatal strangulation. <BR /> <BR />I do not want to criminalise children — I really do not — and I do not think that our system does so. However, while we are mindful of helping the child, we must also be mindful of the victim. We have to help the victim. For me, the sharp edge between 11 and 12 is the cliff edge. Statistics show that the crime rate doubles and triples between the ages of 11 and 12. Of course, I know that all ages are arbitrary: 16, 14, 12, 10.”
“That raises the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. It is not what some people, who want it to be 14, want; it is not what others, who want it to stay at 10, want; but I believe that 12 is right. Why do I presume that a child can commit a criminal offence at 12 years of age? We already know that 10- and 11-year-olds can commit offences, but there is a jump in the seriousness and number of offences committed by children when they get to the age of 12. Some children's behaviour becomes less manageable at that age: they have left primary school; their friend groups have become less filtered; they are more susceptible to external influences from other children and adults; and they may well have their first phone, which allows them to reach into the darkest recesses of the internet.”
“There is no one solution that fits all. The figure in Latvia is not three times the number here every year, but it is regularly three times the number here. Latvia has a principle of diversion, which brings me to the amendment that I have tabled. <BR /> <BR />Amendment No 86 aims to deal with the extremely low age of criminal responsibility — I have said already that 10 is too young — by setting a new minimum age of 12, while ensuring that there are measures in place to deal with serious offending by 10- and 11-year-olds. I do not have a closed list; it is just serious offences. <BR /> <BR />My amendment has four parts. The first part is clear:”
“The Woodlands facility, which was mentioned earlier by Peter Martin, has room for 48 offenders, but it regularly sits with about 10 or 12 between the ages of 10 and 18. That is a real positive. <BR /> <BR />Let me give you another example. People have asked what other countries are doing. Let me give you one that is quite close to ours. Latvia has a similar population size to Northern Ireland and a MACR set at 14; its incarceration level for 14- to 18-year-olds sits at three times that of Northern Ireland.”
“I know your background, and I cannot disagree with a lot of what you have said. However, the reality is that we still need to catch those people reasonably early. The point that I am making is that 10- and 11-year-olds are less likely to get involved in serious crime, but, from the age of 12 upwards — I will talk about that in a minute — there is more of a chance. That is where we need to have an intervention. If we have not intervened early, we may lose those people in the system. <BR /> <BR />Let me crack on and try to explain the point I am making. I am concerned about the size of the cohort that may no longer be engaged until it is possibly too late. We already ensure that incarceration of children between the ages of 10 and 18 is a last resort.”
“I will not go through them all, but I will pick one age group. Let us go for 12-year-olds: indictable prosecution, two; summary prosecution, 51; cautions, 14; informed warnings, 22; youth conferences, 34; and no prosecution, 71. The information is there. I am not trying to be smart in any shape or form. Please do not think that I am, but the information is there. The point that I am trying to make is that there is a real jump between the ages of 11 and 12. That is where my concern lies.”
“<BR /> <BR />The latest figures for 2024-25 show that the Public Prosecution Service received in the region of 500 files involving children between the ages of 10 and 14.”
“<BR /> <BR />Of course, 10- and 11-year-olds could also be involved in those offences, but it is less likely, and it could be dealt with through a more flexible youth justice system. Let me give you an example if I can. The number of files received by the Public Prosecution Service for 11-year-olds involved in sexual offences between 2022 and 2025 sits at 43. The number of files received by the PPS for 12-year-olds involved in the same range of offences is 123. Therefore, you can see that there is a real jump from the age of 11 to 12. The number of files received for driving offences for 10-year-olds sits at three; for 11-year-olds, it is three; for 12-year-olds, it is 13; and, for 13-year-olds, it is 28. Those files were received by the Public Prosecution Service.”
“I think that is why they are there. I do not think that it is a cynical attempt to assuage anger, but it does not what we want it to meet. To be clear — people have given examples — someone who is 13 and steals a car, drives it recklessly, hits another car, killing the occupants, or hits a child at the side of the road will not have committed a crime because it would be death by dangerous driving and that is not on the list. That is where the concerns are. <BR /> <BR />We are not talking about children's behaviours here; we are talking about serious crimes. That is the premise behind what is being said. Likewise, people have said the same about upskirting, downblousing and a range of sexual offences and vehicle offences. None would be viewed as a crime.”
“I do not believe that the Members who tabled it included that closed list just to stop outrage. Rather, I think that they were reacting to what the Public Prosecution Service said in its comments in the 2021 consultation, which is:”
“In essence, however, that amendment would raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, apart from in the case of the offences in that closed list. It has been said many times, and I will not repeat what has been said, but the closed list does not make sense to me either. For some people, raising the age to 14 while having the closed list meets the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's minimum call for MACR of 14. The UN also says, however, that that minimum age of 14 should come with "no exemptions". That is what it says, so we cannot say that we are trying to match what the UN is telling us to do by having the minimum age be 14 but disregarding its saying that there should be no exemptions at 14. <BR /> <BR />Amendment No 82 tries to ride two horses but falls off both.”
“It goes on to state, however, that children aged 12 or 13 can be guilty of an offence and then gives a closed list. That closed list of offences is the problem that has been raised time and time again:”
“<BR /> <BR />Amendment No 82 tries to overcome that issue by being explicit in setting MACR, stating:”
“Charging someone is the outcome, however. A child of any age would therefore be able to be arrested, investigated and go through the whole criminal justice system but not be charged. For me, the two amendments do not set out what we want. I know without a shadow of a doubt what the policy intent is, but I do not think that those amendments achieve that, because a child of any age could be given an informal warning — a community resolution notice — which would go on their record and be discoverable by the police. I therefore cannot support amendment Nos 79 and 81, with the substantive reason being, of course, that I do not support the minimum age of criminal responsibility's being 14. That is OK. I support its being 12. We can disagree, but we can do so agreeably.”
“I simply cannot support amendment Nos 79 and 81, for two reasons. I believe that 10 is too young, but I do not accept raising it to 14, because I think that that is too old. I will explain why in a minute, but, to my mind, amendment Nos 79 and 81 do not really set MACR. Rather, they remove it. Amendment No 79 states:”
“I absolutely accept what the Minister said earlier, which is that she would not have been able to get such a Bill out of the Executive. That is the sentence that you would have heard from me, Minister, had you waited a minute. I absolutely accept that that is the case, and I think that we all do. Do I think that that means that the issue has gone away? No, it has not gone away, because the reality is that someone will probably introduce a stand-alone private Member's Bill in the next mandate. That is where, in all likelihood, we will go. That is probably not a bad thing, because it would lead to exactly what I said needs to happen: it would get the discussions going so that we might look at the intended and unintended consequences. <BR /> <BR />I will speak to some of the amendments. I will try to be really brief.”
“The matter is so serious and fundamental to how justice is provided in Northern Ireland that I believe that it deserves a stand-alone Bill, much like the one in Scotland. You can stick your hands over your face, Minister. I will come to you in a minute, if I may. Scotland introduced the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Bill, which is now the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019. It allows for scrutiny. Having a stand-alone Bill would have given the Assembly the ability to scrutinise fully the issue of the minimum age of criminal responsibility, including the intended and unintended consequences, and allowed the public to have confidence in the decisions that we made on the issue.”
“In fairness, Minister, what I am saying is that this is what I think. I think that, after all the screaming and shouting, few Members will change their minds and say, "Actually, 14's a bad idea; we're going to stick with 10". That is the point that I was trying to make, probably clumsily — I apologise. <BR /> <BR />I wish that we were not approaching this substantial subject through a series of amendments.”
“Just one minute, if I may, Minister. <BR /> <BR />Ten is too young. I have believed that for a long time, not just since the debate started. When I became an MLA, I thought that 10 was too young. I do not have a degree; I do not have a thesis. I am standing in this corner of the Chamber partly because of my principles on the issue, and, therefore, I will approach it for myself and look at it in primary colours to get my point across. <BR /> <BR />I will give way to the Minister.”
“It has been great. <BR /> <BR />The amendments in group 6 are on complex, nuanced issues. I have seen really good knowledge and understanding of the matter across the Chamber, along with lived experience. Members had other jobs prior to coming here, and they have brought their experience with them. That is why it is such a robust conversation: we all take a principled approach to this. I will be honest and say that I do not think that any Member's principles will be changed by any of the arguments; we need to put that point across.”
“The Member has been concluding for about 25 minutes.”
“How long would it take the PPS, the PSNI and the Youth Justice Agency to be ready or what could be a significant rise in the minimum age of criminal responsibility?”
“It will not get everybody's support; that is just a fact. Therefore, we have to make it as good as we possibly can. However, the one thing that we can all stand up and agree on, no matter what corner of the House we stand in, is that the Irish Government have not lived up to their responsibilities. They have not done their duty. We need the First Minister and the deputy First Minister to call on them to start acting on legacy, because they have not been doing so.”
“To that end — you may or may not support me on this — it is worth having a review of both organisations. <BR /> <BR />Where do we come to at the end of what I have talked about? It is this simple: we need to make sure that we have a mechanism that can be supported by the majority of victims, the majority of survivors and most of society.”
“It is hard to explain it to people, but the bottom line is that soldiers will have made mistakes — I absolutely accept that — but will have thought that they were acting in the right way when they made mistakes. There will be soldiers who made mistakes and knew that they were making mistakes and that they were doing wrong: if they did so, it is absolutely right that they should be pursued through the courts and the justice system. <BR /> <BR />I will finish on the Dillon finding, which, I think, was raised as a Matter of the Day. We certainly debated it, and I do not want to go over old ground. However, I have a genuine concern that both the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission took a partisan view on the Dillon lawsuit, and that goes outside of what they were set up to do.”
“If it is not workable, I will be happy to join the chorus and say, "I'm not going to support that". However, we are not there at this moment. <BR /> <BR />Other parts of the Bill are a little more contentious, such as the protections for military veterans. There are a number of protections in the Bill for military veterans, but let us be absolutely clear that the Government have lied about those. The protections are not just for military veterans; they are for everybody. There will be protections for terrorists in the same way as there will be protections for veterans. For me, that creates an equivalence that I cannot live with, and that is why we are aiming to change it. That is an important point for us to really drive home.”
“We have tabled amendments on the definition of a victim; the addition of sex-related crime as a named harm, which we have debated here and on which there is cross-party support; the disqualification of anyone with terrorist affiliations from sitting on the victims and survivors advisory group or any other legacy body; and the need to make sure that acts that were lawfully performed by members of the armed forces will not be deemed as unlawful. That is how we are trying to shape the Bill. To everybody who says, "Let's get rid of Labour's legacy Bill", my question is, "What would you replace it with right now?". At the end of the day, we might say, "Let's get rid of it", but, at this moment, we are trying to shape it in order to make it workable.”
“I remind everybody that the ICRIR was set up in such a way that there would be no prosecutions at the end of it. However, under the Labour Government's Troubles Bill, the ICRIR will become the Legacy Commission. It will transform into that, and it will have prosecutions at the end of it. I fully accept people saying, "I don't like the new legacy Bill", but the ICRIR, which will transform into the Legacy Commission, is working on about 300 cases. I believe that the first report should be out at the end of this month or, certainly, by the middle of next month. <BR /> <BR />We in the Ulster Unionist Party have been trying to shape the Labour Government's Troubles Bill.”
“For the Irish Government to say, "Nothing to do with me, guv" is fundamentally wrong. Nobody should be saying that. Even if you disagree with me and the premise of what I say, you must agree that the Irish Government should live up to their responsibilities on legacy. That is why I believe that the UK Government have a case that could and should lead them to initiating an interstate case against the Irish, who have done absolutely nothing on legacy. We have to agree on that: they have not done anything on legacy. <BR /> <BR />I have a fundamental problem with the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), not because of the latest report that referred to its management and how it worked. It is looking at something like 300 cases at present, so it is working, but there are problems with it.”
“When we talk about the Irish Government, we have to remember that the vast majority of attacks along the border and elsewhere came from the sovereign territory of Ireland, with people coming into the UK to murder UK citizens and then going back to Ireland, which they saw as a safe haven.”
“Nor would the desktop reviews by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) have been part of the Stormont House Agreement. If someone had been left limbless, blind, burned and in a wheelchair, the Stormont House Agreement states that they would not have got an investigation. Some may not call that an amnesty, but I call it an amnesty. <BR /> <BR />I will focus on what the Irish Government said. In 2014, Michael McDowell, who had been the Minister for Justice, made it clear that the Irish Government had made a conscious decision not to investigate actions from the Troubles once the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was agreed. He said again in 2021 that that was the case. The Irish Government therefore clearly admitted that they had given amnesties and would not conduct investigations.”