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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“How do I know that? I was on the FICT for three years. I was part of the discussions for three years. I know for a fact that nobody would agree a code of practice. There is not one in the report.”
“in the FICT report. Guess what? There is no proposed code of practice in the FICT report. What it refers to is "a possible code of practice". It goes on to say:”
“Let me try to see whether Members really want to debate and really want to see whether we are on the right side of this. The motion states that it:”
“I will get into that in a moment, if that is OK. <BR /> <BR />I want to stick with the theme that I support flags not being flown around places where public services are delivered, such as hospitals, health centres, leisure centres and libraries. We had an issue at Craigavon Area Hospital, where flags were up all the time at the roundabout, but people have worked hard to get them removed. I do not know whether that will happen this year, but people worked hard. <BR /> <BR />Here is the rub to this whole debate. Are we here to listen and really make a judgement or have we all turned up with our pieces of paper and already made a judgement before anybody opened their mouth to say anything? Before I uttered a word in the debate, I was told that our amendment could not be supported.”
“Let us not disrespect either. Do not let anybody misappropriate anybody's national flag.”
“That can be done under the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 in exactly the way that we all put our posters up on lamp posts, sometimes keeping them up there for up to two months. Why not? <BR /> <BR />I also support the notion of flags going up on a specific date and that we all know when they will come down again. They should come down at a specified point. I do not support the burning of any flags. I do not support the burning of national flags. I have spent my life in the service of my country, and I have stood beside coffins draped in the Union flag: I do not want to see it burned. In the same way, I served with people from the Irish Republic who were buried with their coffins draped in the tricolour: I do not want to see it burned either.”
“They attempt to legitimise those who went out to murder and create mayhem. Even today, they are an insidious and malign influence in our community. Those who found themselves in a terrorist organisation or a paramilitary group during the dark days of the Troubles must look and realise that, if they do not want our children and grandchildren to live through what we went through and make the mistakes that were made during the Troubles, they should not fly those paramilitary flags. They can remember their dead: just do not do it at the expense of victims. <BR /> <BR />I like the idea in the motion of lawful authority for the flying of flags. That would give lawful authority to those who put them up and to where they are put up, so that they can do it safely.”
“It is the same as the call-in that we had on Ards and North Down Borough Council about flying the Union flag over war memorials. That is really important to our community, yet it was called in and stopped. That creates a fracture in communities. Here we are with the FICT report, with all its chapters, as I have just discussed, and we have pulled out a chapter that singles out flags. Flags: national flags, GAA flags, football flags, commemorative flags, Orange Order flags and Ancient Order of Hibernians flags. Are those flags more intimidating than murals of terrorists wearing balaclavas or holding guns or memorials to terrorists who terrorised? Flags. <BR /> <BR />Let me be direct: there should be no flags of any kind to paramilitaries — none at all. They are offensive and illegal.”
“Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. <BR /> <BR />Flags. The Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition lasted for over three years, produced a report with 17 chapters and over 180 pages and cost over £800,000, yet this debate is about flags. There is so much more to the issue than flags, and we need to consider all of that. Let us talk about memorialisation, for example. The number of murals and memorials to murderers far outstrips the number of memorials to victims. They are up there 365 days a year. Victims have to walk past them 365 days a year, yet we are not discussing them. Why? Flags. <BR /> <BR />There is a sense — I hope that I am wrong — that the motion is trying to find fracture points in communities. I hope that it is not.”
“Thank you for your answer. I get that we are still in the really early stages of Intertrade UK, so it is good that you are engaging, and thank you for that. Looking forward, you clearly put in a Budget bid for InterTradeIreland. Have you done the same for Intertrade UK, working on the principle that it is roughly the same type of budget?”
“Sorry, Mr Speaker. I had headphones on and did not hear you. A question was asked about the budget, and I will ask it again. What is the budget likely to be, and has it been factored into the Budget that was announced recently?”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. He answered a bit of my question, but some areas are already at capacity, with owners having to install their own septic tanks at a cost that is maybe just shy of £10,000, and that is increasing the cost of social housing. Will the Minister consider a scheme to match fund so that we can ensure that social housing can continue to be built in areas where we are at capacity?”
“I welcome the information that you have given, Minister, in regard to Charlotte's law. Will the Minister also commit to looking, as part of the sentencing Bill, at the sentence reduction model for those who wait until the very last moment to admit guilt?”
“If you do not do it, they are purely words, and words are absolutely no basis for government. I ask them all to reflect on that. I have also written to the Justice Minister to ask for her adjudication on that issue.”
“Its Ministers refused to uphold the pledge of office; that pledge clearly states that they will support the police and the courts, but they did not. Some have said that this is the time for an apology, and I am someone who says that, when you give an apology, it is up to the victims and others in wider society to decide whether to accept it, but the reality is that an apology would be hollow, and this is why: you cannot spend 10 years failing to engage with a process to give information to the victims and families, and then apologise afterwards. It is simply not right. <BR /> <BR />We have an opportunity now to start engaging and giving information to the families about this. We have an opportunity to make sure that we adhere to the pledge of office that we make when we become Ministers.”
“I have written to the Secretary of State to ask him to have an inquiry and to make it public, because the people need to know. People need to know about the secret discourse between the coroner and the Irish Government. They refused to allow the families and their solicitors to attend when the information was given. That was not transparency. We needed that transparency to give confidence to the families. The lack of it is what led to nine of the families withdrawing from the process. We need to address that. <BR /> <BR />We also need to address the words of the coroner, who said that this was a sectarian murder perpetrated by the IRA and its political representatives. Its political representatives were Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin refused to engage with the coroner's court or with the courts.”
“The Kingsmills massacre of 5 January 1976 was truly appalling, sectarian murder. To be lined up, shot in the back and felled to the ground, some wounded, only for somebody to go along to shoot them in the head is unimaginable. It came on the day after the appalling murder of the members of the Reavey and O'Dowd families, and we cannot forget that. However, that is not an excuse, because this was planned well in advance of those murders. We cannot cherry-pick on this. Both were appalling. All were appalling.”
“The answer is yes, of course, I have, as has everyone else. Everyone who has read it is coming up with a different interpretation: 90 MLAs with different interpretations. That does not answer my question. My question is this: which subject matter experts and businesses have you spoken to about what the long-term effects will be? Please, list them for me.”
“I will raise two points. First, an applicability motion is different from an EU regulation on geographical indicators for craft and industrial products. I said that the regulation needed to be scrutinised, not the applicability motion. Secondly, please list the firms that you have spoken to and asked about the effect that this will have on them in the medium to long term — not today but the medium-to-long term — a list that you can stand over.”
“Thank you. I knew that the answer would be very much to the point. Will the Commission look at bids to run events that could not get cross-community support? If we do not want this place to be a cold house for certain groups, we need to look at other means of doing that. I will give a clear example: some military veteran groups feel that they cannot get cross-community consent to hold an event here. Will the Commission look at that?”
“Thank you, Minister. That was not a challenge; it certainly is not my party's position of intent. I spoke to the vice chancellors of Ulster University and Queen's University Belfast, who are really concerned about the number of student places in Northern Ireland. We haemorrhage an awful lot of students overseas. Does the Minister have a plan to increase student numbers?”
“There is no scrutiny, it is bad legislation, and you could not vote for it.”
“Yes, and is it not great that the Member has the ability to use the mechanisms of this place to express that point? That goes back to our position on what we should have been doing with the Windsor framework a year ago. We did not do that, so we never had a say, and we are therefore still doing a bit of catch-up. <BR /> <BR />I do not want to labour the point, but I have to be clear to the House, and we have to be honest with ourselves: some people will vote no on this because it is EU legislation; some people will vote yes on it because it is EU legislation. However, we have to stop and think about it for a moment and ask whether we know the effects of this on businesses in the short, medium and long term. If the answer is no, then you cannot vote for it. I cannot vote for it because of that reason.”
“I thank the Member very much. That gets to the point about the in-depth knowledge that we need to have. That is the premise of what I am saying. So far, in the debate, I have heard, "I believe", "I think", "I hope", "It should", and, "It might". I have not heard, "It will". There is no "will" out there, and there is no, "This is what the legislation's going to do," because we do not know. <BR /> <BR />I am in no doubt —”
“It should look at this. There was a period during which we knew that this was coming up — we had two weeks — and I believe that we should have scrutinised it then. We did not. Have we learned nothing? In the long term, bad legislation will be bad for Northern Ireland. I am not saying that this is bad legislation, but it could be. This is a great example of how not to do legislation in Northern Ireland.”
“I think that the Member has got me slightly wrong. There are 90 MLAs here. Every one of those 90 MLAs can look at this and take a view on how it works, but where is the in-depth scrutiny? With any other law that would apply to Northern Ireland, we would have people giving evidence to Committees to make sure that we understand how it will affect them in the long term. That is the point that I am making, and we simply have not done that. How on earth can we vote in favour of something that we have not properly scrutinised? We could scrutinise this and suddenly realise that it is good for Northern Ireland, or we could scrutinise it and realise that it is bad for Northern Ireland. We do not know. <BR /> <BR />I have heard the argument that the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee should not look at this. I disagree.”
“Thank you. The Member is absolutely right that this did not sneak up on us. The Ulster Unionist Party MLA Steve Aiken raised it on the Floor twice over two weeks. He also raised it with the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee and TEO. The Member is, therefore, absolutely right that this did not sneak up on us, but we still did not scrutinise it; we are still none the wiser. The people standing up in this debate — myself included — are scrabbling for things to say, because we do not know the depths of this in the short, medium or long term.”
“<BR /> <BR />At short notice, the motion appeared in the Order Paper on Friday when a large proportion of party leaders and Ministers were in Washington celebrating St Patrick's Day. That is fine, but we still have not had the scrutiny that is required.”
“We need to use the mechanisms of the framework to challenge any issues that arise, and that is what we have today from my colleague from Upper Bann. He is using the mechanisms within the Windsor framework. We said that the DUP should have used them a year ago. <BR /> <BR />It is good that people say, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". In this case, I think that the opposite is true. Clearly, there are issues with the EU legislation on geographical indications, but what are they? Where was the scrutiny? There has been no scrutiny. Where were the experts in the subject matter to tell us the long-term effects of this? Where are the businesses telling us, "This is good" or "This is going to be bad"? What are the long-term implications of this EU regulation? We do not know, because there has been no scrutiny.”
“This debate on EU regulations on geographical indications for craft and industrial products had a starting point, and that starting point was Brexit, which was always going to be destabilising. It created customs posts in our ports, and it has created trade barriers. From that Brexit, we got the Northern Ireland protocol, which was not a serious and sensible solution, as we pointed out in October 2019. It was never going to work. That begat the "son of the protocol", the Windsor framework, which was not the starting point that we wished to have. <BR /> <BR />Our approach to the Windsor framework has been clear. We need to provide governance and leadership, and we now have an Assembly to do that. We need to maximise the opportunities within the framework, and we are working on that together.”
“I thank the Minister. Minister, in dealing with wider legacy issues, have you written to your counterpart in the Irish Government expressing your disappointment that they will not hold an independent inquiry into the Omagh bombing?”
“Minister, you will know that I have raised the issue of victims' and witnesses' experiences of the Northern Ireland criminal justice system. Will you engage with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) to make sure that cases of domestic abuse and sexual crimes, including stalking, are contained in its reports?”
“A judge has already agreed that point, yet the Policing Board has ignored that judgement. This is now moving towards the courts yet again, and that did not need to happen. All we need is to address the issue through the regulations that govern police officers who are injured on duty. <BR /> <BR />The suffering of these police officers has been compounded by the failure of the Policing Board, and the Justice Minister must act to rectify that. It cannot continue, and a review of the workings of the Policing Board, as called for by my colleague Mike Nesbitt, needs to put this right.”
“Their injury happened while they were in service, but their diagnosis, because it was a mental health injury, happened a number of years later. That is what happens with psychological injuries: they do not manifest themselves at the time. Their effects are not immediate. However, it was an injury as a result of their service. <BR /> <BR />At present, a qualified doctor — a specialist medical practitioner — diagnoses the injury on duty, but they then go on to give an award and a start date. That should never be the case. The qualified medical person should simply make a determination that the person was injured on duty. From that moment — this is the important part — the regulation should kick in, and the regulation clearly states that the award should be from the day on which an officer left service on retirement.”
“We often talk about helping those who suffer from mental health injuries and say that those injuries should be treated no differently from physical injuries. We also often say that we must support those who have protected us through the years, but the reality is that it is a difficult issue, and we seem to turn our backs on it. <BR /> <BR />Therefore, I want to raise an issue that was first raised by my colleague Mike Nesbitt last week. A group of former RUC/PSNI officers who were injured on duty are fighting to have their injury-on-duty pension award dated from the day on which they left service on retirement. These are men — at the minute, it is men, but the issue could clearly affect women — who were unable, through injury, to complete their service.”
“The Minister will be aware of the negative impact that on-street car parking charges have on small towns and villages. What consideration will he give to helping those communities?”
“<BR /> <BR />While satisfaction rates for the adult witness service and the young witness service are relatively high at 60% overall, it is crucial to recognise that those figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) on the victim and witness experience of the Northern Ireland criminal justice system, do not, for some unexplained reason, include the victims and witnesses of domestic abuse and sexual crimes. That is incredible, and it is a glaring omission, considering the unique challenges faced by those individuals and their heightened vulnerability. It is time to confront that glaring disparity head-on. Victims and witnesses, regardless of the nature of the crime, deserve to be heard and supported throughout the legal process.”
“Almost one fifth of victims and witnesses wait over six months for an official update. Shockingly, 11% report receiving no official communication whatsoever. There has been a serious decline in the proportion of witnesses reporting that they were kept informed by the criminal justice system, plummeting from 68% to 58%. Equally troubling is the revelation that a significant number of witnesses are unaware of the sentences that are handed out to the perpetrators in their cases. In 2022-23, only 73% of victims, overall, knew the sentence, and the corresponding percentage for witnesses was lower.”
“I have been watching with interest the campaign on our TV screens in regard to the Victim Charter and the Witness Charter. That brought me back to an incident with one of my staff, who witnessed the attempted abduction of a young woman and had the courage to go to the police about it. Her experience after giving that evidence has not been as good as it should have been, so I want to delve into the figures on what happens to our victims and witnesses once a crime takes place. <BR /> <BR />While it is encouraging that 77% of victims and witnesses report being provided with the name and address of the officer in charge of their case, just one third — 41% of victims and 24% of witnesses — are officially informed about the progress of their case within one month of giving a statement to the police.”
“I welcome the information leaflet on the Troubles permanent disablement payment scheme, which has gone to every household in Northern Ireland. However, it is a UK-wide scheme: what are we doing to reach people in Guildford, Hyde Park, Deal and Birmingham?”
“I am willing to talk to anybody inside or outside the Chamber and to those who are in favour and those who are against. Until we get all the views, we will not know the position.”
“This is about sitting down, thinking it through for the long term and capturing all the voices that need to be added to the discussion. <BR /> <BR />We know that the Belfast Agreement had its flaws. It was balancing the unbalanceable, after so much conflict. However, we do not want to fall into the trap of just screaming, "Reform, reform, reform!", without stopping to really think through what reform will mean in the short, medium and long term. I am up for having that discussion and do not think that we should be afraid of it, but that does not mean that I am open to changing every single aspect of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement; it is still the bedrock of government in Northern Ireland. However, I am certainly up for having that discussion.”
“I am quite comfortable with the word "exclusion". The reason that I say "exclusion" is that there are people in the Chamber who absolutely do not support the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement as it stands. It is important to say that, if we do not listen to those voices — if we try to push them away — we will not get to a full understanding of our society. I am quite happy to stick with the word "exclusion". <BR /> <BR />What I do not want is another St Andrews Agreement. The St Andrews Agreement was a carve-up between two of the large parties, behind closed doors. It was a quick fix, and it did not work. It has left us in a worse position. The UK and Irish Governments were complicit in that; they just wanted to get this place up and running and nothing more. Quick fixes will not work: pull the thread, and the whole thing could unravel.”
“I think reform is about negotiation and agreement of an agreed position that takes into account all the political players, including independents, the TUV and People Before Profit, and civic society. All of them have to feed into this, because, remember, it was the people who voted for the 1998 Agreement, and it is the people who need to have a say in what direction we go next. Just because we do not like somebody's point of view does not mean we should exclude them. I will not support exclusion in any shape or form, but it does not look like —”
“The system allowed it, but you have to ask why the system allowed it. The system allowed it because, in 1998, we were trying to stop ourselves from killing each other. That was the focus. We focused on peace and we got peace, but the politics did not fit into place. After the Belfast Agreement, there should have been amendment into the future through collaboration and negotiation. We did not get that, apart from a few scrappy changes that did little to stabilise the Government and keep it from being collapsed at the whim of just one party. <BR /> <BR />What does reform look like in my mind? Everybody will have a particular view of what reform is, and we could debate every single one of those all day long, but that is not what we are here to do today.”
“The Irish Sea border is still there, the European Union still has input into what happens in Northern Ireland, checks of goods arriving into Northern Ireland still take place, and the custom posts are still there. During those two years, our public services crumbled to the extent that some of them cannot be fixed in the short to medium term. We have to be mindful of that. So, no, I will not give cover to those who collapsed these institutions and maintained boycotts, but I promise to work with them, as well as with the Opposition, the Alliance Party, independent Members, the TUV and People Before Profit. <BR /> <BR />It is the thrust of having a conversation about reform that I support in the motion. Should one party have a veto over devolved government, 25 years after Good Friday Agreement? Absolutely not.”
“I support the motion. I fully understand that it is worded as it is because Members are trying to get the maximum support possible. However, I cannot stand here and give cover to those who caused suspension over five of the past 10 years. <BR /> <BR />It is important that we say it as it is. We had three years of a boycott by Sinn Féin over a financial issue. Are we better off after that boycott? Are we likely to have another renewable heat incentive (RHI) situation? The reality is that it could be just around the corner. In fact, the rot in our public services set in during those three years. There were then two years of boycott by the DUP over the Northern Ireland protocol. That boycott achieved nothing whatsoever of substance.”
“Thank you, Minister, and best of luck to you in your new role. People know that I have been pushing the issue for some years. We simply cannot allow our historical wealth to be destroyed in this manner. My question is reasonably simple. Are you willing, along with the historic environment division, to meet the Save Knock Iveagh campaign group to discuss bringing that historical site into the care of the Northern Ireland Government?”
“I hope that, today, we can change that, and that other Departments can look to see what they can do, in a joined-up manner, to move this forward and support our Justice Minister in respect of the youth justice system and criminal justice system. At the end of the day, society will gain if that happens.”
“Absolutely. Your point is about prevention. It is always better to prevent than to deal with the aftermath. I am 100% with you on that. <BR /> <BR />As I come to the end of outlining the motion, I will say that being proactive is important. It is important that Departments share and pool budgets to get the outcome that we want. We can literally save people and money if we act early, before people end up in the criminal justice system. Once people are in the criminal justice system, it is incredibly important that we take action to stop them reoffending so that we can get them out the other end. <BR /> <BR />Speech and language therapists do not get the credit that they deserve. They are not spoken about as often as they should be. The resources are not there for them to provide the outcomes that we want them to.”