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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“<BR /> <BR />We took a guy in his 80s, who had kidney failure and heart disease, and brought him to court. Some will say that that was in the public interest and some that, in hindsight, maybe we should not have done that. However, it is not hindsight, because the case was made that this would have a detrimental effect on his health and, as we see, it did.”
“All nine were either solely or in part about the security forces. Not a single one of the nine was in regard to terrorist action. We found that Dennis Hutchings's case was elevated above all others by the Director of Public Prosecutions, not through a PSNI case file. We have to look into that. We need to examine it, to be fair to the family so that they can understand why this case was elevated. We need to understand what new evidence elevated this case above all others. We need to find out what public interest brought this case forward. We need to make sure that we stop this perpetual lie that Dennis Hutchings was up for murder, because he was not. There is no evidence to suggest that. It was not even being brought forward in the court case.”
“People need to understand, or find out, why his case was elevated above all others. Why did his case suddenly end up at the top of the pile, along with others? This goes to the heart of some of the issues that we have to deal with in a difficult legacy process that is affecting the present. <BR /> <BR />I engaged in the issue of Dennis Hutchings as far back as 2016, when I was the justice spokesperson for the party. I wrote to the then Director of Public Prosecutions to find out why so many military personnel were being subjected to investigations. I am not talking about the wider investigations; we can talk about those statistics all we want. What I found was that, under section 35(5) of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, nine legacy cases were referred by the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time.”
“I hope that this Matter of the Day can be debated in a manner that befits the issue at hand. The first thing that I need to do is to pass on my condolences to the family, colleagues and friends of Dennis Hutchings. I also pass on my continuing condolences to the family of John Pat Cunningham, who deserves truth and justice. Now, however, Dennis Hutchings also deserves truth and justice.”
“They feel that they can get away with it. We all need to deal with it. We should not just stand and accept it. We have to tackle and challenge it. I have to do that for my MLAs, my councillors and my staff, and I have to do it in consultation with other party leaders for the other MLAs and councillors in politics in Northern Ireland. We all need to stand together. <BR /> <BR />Today, we remember Sir David Amess MP and his life. Let us stop the angry, negative messaging that is out there and that is leading people to murder. That is what we saw on Friday.”
“We all know that there is an issue with the safeguarding of people who are involved in politics. As a party leader, I have a duty of care to look after my MLAs, my councillors and, in particular, those who work for us in constituency offices. I spoke to one of my constituency staff this morning. A young female and a single mother, she told me that she feels physically sick at times from the targeted hate and bullying that comes via the phone and email and on social media. <BR /> <BR />She is not alone. I have had placards forced into my face and people have followed and shouted at me. I always said to myself, "Do you know what? This is part of the job", but, actually, it is not part of the job. There are people out there who feel empowered to be angry. They feel empowered to abuse at will because they can stay anonymous.”
“I join the rest of the Assembly in passing my condolences to the family of Sir David Amess MP, his friends and his colleagues in the Conservative Party and across the wider political divide, who seem to have had the utmost respect for him. I did not know Sir David, but it is clear that he was committed to those whom he had served for nearly 40 years. He was kind and open, and he had an affinity with some of the issues that faced wider society, including animal cruelty, warm home schemes and the effects of endometriosis. Those are just some of the things that he looked at. <BR /> <BR />Sadly, his real need to reach out into the communities that we represent, which we all face, led to his brutal murder. It was a brutal murder of a man who was simply doing a constituency service, speaking to the people whom he represented.”
“What is your part to be played?". Their answer is silence. Every single time, their answer is silence. <BR /> <BR />The motion as it stands is right, as it focuses on the Irish Government. They are there for a reason. That is not to say that the British Government do not have questions to answer, but it means that we can focus on the Irish Government at times. That is what the motion does, and that is what I will support.”
“We will never get all the information. <BR /> <BR />We have heard about Ian Sproule. He is not the only one. There are many out there. In 1972, Corporal James Elliott was kidnapped, taken across the border into the Irish Republic, brutally tortured and murdered after two days. His body was booby trapped, put on the border and left there. They arrested people not for his murder but for putting a bomb on his body. I wrote to the Irish Government to ask them why they had not gone any further in dealing with that issue. In the same way, I wrote and spoke directly to Micheál Martin, Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney and their Justice Minister, asking what the Irish were going to do. I asked every one of them, "What are you going to do in regards to legacy, as you allow us to sit in this House and tear strips off each other?”
“Call it what you will, but you need to own up to it, because that is what you agreed to. I have been saying that since I came into the House in 2016. <BR /> <BR />We have to look at the Irish Government, because the Irish Government are not innocent players. We cannot allow them to say nothing in case the halo slips. We are all critical of the British proposals. The UK proposals are wrong, but the Irish Government have done nothing and brought nothing forward. They are doing nothing for victims. There were thousands of attacks that came from Irish soil into Northern Ireland to murder and maim our citizens, and they have done nothing to address that, apart from the Criminal Justice (International Co-Operation) Act 2019. Let me explain something. Before any investigation, the Irish Government will redact the information before we get it.”
“Everybody stands up and claps the Stormont House Agreement. The Stormont House Agreement does not give justice to victims who were injured in the Troubles if there was no fatality. The limbless, the blind, the burned, those in a wheelchair and the psychologically damaged do not get an investigation, purely because they had the audacity to live. That is an amnesty for the perpetrators. <BR /> <BR />Under the Stormont House Agreement, people who had an Historical Enquiries Team (HET) desktop review do not get an investigation. The Stormont House Agreement is geographically fixed, which means that, if a person was kidnapped in Northern Ireland, taken across the border into Ireland, tortured and murdered, they do not get an investigation. That is not dealing with legacy. That is an amnesty.”
“Yet, three MPs from the DUP supported a statute of limitations in 2018. If it was not for this Member's intervention, they would have still supported it, because it led to an amnesty. We have to be careful. <BR /> <BR />The motion continues:”
“I thank the Member for tabling the motion for debate. We have had lots of discussions here and elsewhere about legacy, and nobody is going to close the gap between the different directions from which we view it, whether that is blaming the British military police and Government, blaming loyalist or republican terrorists, blaming the Irish Government, the Irish police and the Irish military or blaming a political party that excused and promoted murder. We will all look at it from various directions, but one thing is clear: we cannot have an amnesty. We cannot have a statute of limitations. We are all agreed on that. <BR /> <BR />Let us dissect the fine words that we are hearing, shall we? The motion text speaks of regarding:”
“Taking the Minister up on that economic vision, what is the value of tourism to the economy?”
“Minister, thank you. I know that a huge effort has been made to bring the scheme forward. Like you, I welcome it. <BR /> <BR />I have spoken to many victims about this, and there is still a degree of confusion out there about who should or can apply and what effect it would have on other benefits that they may receive. Particularly as it is a UK-wide scheme, will there be any form of advertising or media campaign to try to reach out to people so that they can understand the issues and problems?”
“That is right, and I think that the Minister expects us to delve into her Bill. I would not expect her to want us to do anything other than that. At the end of the process, we must make sure that we have a Bill that works, can be applied and does not just sit on the shelf where nobody can use it because it is too complicated. It is incredibly important. I know that the Chair and the new Deputy Chair will guide our Committee in making sure that we add value to the Bill and make a positive input.”
“is incredibly important. I look forward to seeing the detail of that. <BR /> <BR />The Minister talked about amendments that she will propose, such as the abolition of the rough sex defence and the extension of existing revenge porn provisions to include the threat of publication. People probably think that that is a throwaway line, but it is not. Just threatening somebody by saying, "If you don't do what I say, I will publish this" is coercion at its absolute worst, so that line is really important. Of course, provisions to widen the scope and to strengthen the laws about the abuse of trust of our elderly, of our young and of those who look to us for support are important. <BR /> <BR />There is a lot to do on the Bill. We will dig into a lot of stuff, and I have no doubt that there will be many amendments.”
“The Bill does that, notwithstanding the very real points that Sinéad raised about finding out people's motivations for doing that. I know, however, that some people do that and say, "Well, I was just having a bit of a laugh". <BR /> <BR />The amendments to provisions in Northern Ireland regarding human trafficking are also incredibly important. I have spoken previously about human trafficking and told people that I saw the origins of human trafficking in Bosnia and Kosovo. I saw how they farm young girls in warehouses and traffic them across Europe, with some of them ending up here. It is harrowing to see that. Imagine what it is like for them: absolutely and incredibly harrowing. The provision to:”
“<BR /> <BR />My genuine concern is that all that will be lost if the Assembly falls. Please think about what we are doing here; think about the long term; think about our children. I do not want the Bill to fall and children to suffer because of something that we as adults can sort out. <BR /> <BR />There is provision for the creation of the new offences of upskirting and downblousing. That is not a giggle. It is not what kids do for fun and games, saying, "I will just take a quick picture up the skirt or down the blouse". It is not that. It is absolutely humiliating. The sooner we get away from allowing people to think, "I was only having a laugh" or "It was only a bit of banter" or "It was only a giggle", the better.”
“<BR /> <BR />On child exploitation and sexual offences against children, we can all agree that children are incredibly vulnerable and we must do all that we can to put laws and protections in place to look after our children. I am concerned about anything that stops us being in a position to do that. Of course, in the Bill, the Minister has laid out provisions to replace legislative references to "child pornography" and "child prostitution", so that we do not make anybody believe that the child is in any way complicit. Those provisions also include live-streamed images, a definition of exploitation for sexual purposes and the creation of the new offence of adults masquerading as children, which is also extremely important. By strengthening that, we will help to protect children.”
“Pre-charge anonymity for defendants is important, as is the continuation of anonymity of complainants for 25 years after death, and the increase in the penalty for a breach of that anonymity sends out a clear message to everybody that they should adhere to what the court has said. The exclusion of the public from serious sexual offence hearings is really important, and I absolutely support it. We all know about the Ulster Rugby rape trial. Never mind the outcome, we all know that people attended the court hearing purely to hear the details for their self-gratification. Some people will say that, by stopping people going into the court, we are not showing justice to be open and transparent, but I wholeheartedly welcome that measure. It is the right thing to do.”
“I commend the Bill. It is the right Bill at the right time, but there is an awful lot more work that we will all be doing in this regard. Knowing the Justice Committee, I am sure that it will look at the Bill in great detail, and I have every confidence that the Committee will do that. <BR /> <BR />One of the problems when you talk late on in a debate is that you tend to repeat what everybody else is saying. I do not particularly want to do that, but the Chair has outlined the Bill pretty well, where we stand on it and what we need to do with it. However, I would like to raise a couple of issues that I have concerns over — not necessarily the Bill itself but what is likely to happen and some of the other issues in that regard. <BR /> <BR />I commend the recommendations of the Gillen review of sexual offences, which are in the Bill.”
“What we have now is not workable, and nor is the Stormont House Agreement.”
“<BR /> <BR />We have to remember Tom Oliver, who, I think, was mentioned by a Member. His family deserves truth and justice. However, was it not Gerry Adams who said that it would be unproductive to put the people who were guilty of his murder behind bars? Was it not Mary Lou McDonald who said, only last year, that the campaign of terror was justified? Members stand up and say that they are supporting victims. There is a hypocrisy in this place that is absolutely astounding. It comes from all quarters. It comes from quarters from which I would not expect it to come and quarters from which I would expect it to come — the quarters that excuse, condone, promote and eulogise the murder and maiming of our citizens. <BR /> <BR />Let us be honest; let us widen the lens. We need to look at this, and we need to look at it properly.”
“Thousands of attacks to maim and kill our citizens emanated from Ireland, across the border, and the perpetrators retreated across the border, but the Irish Government are not investigating. Where is their Historical Investigations Unit (HIU)? Where is their legacy investigations branch (LIB)? What are they doing? The answer is "Nothing". I ask the all-Ireland party across the House this: "How many times have you raised that in the Dáil? How many times have you asked why they are not doing more about legacy and the attacks that emanated from this soil into Northern Ireland and further afield?". If you are not asking those questions, you are failing as well, because silence is as bad as putting forward these recommendations. Putting forward nothing is as bad as putting forward these recommendations.”
“Of course the Member agrees: if that is what they want, that is what they should get. I am talking about the societal issue. I am saying that society is relegating attempted murder. We should not relegate attempted murder, and we should not allow the perpetrators to get away scot-free. Let us also remember that the Stormont House Agreement was a political construct. It was not victims and survivors but political parties who put into the Stormont House Agreement. <BR /> <BR />I will raise the second issue. What have the Irish Government done? I can stand here and say to the British Government, "You're wrong on this. Your Command Paper is wrong. I support the Command Paper being taken away and being redone", but I cannot say that to the Irish Government, because they have not produced a Command Paper. They have produced nothing.”
“There are those who say, "Yes, but the police can investigate it. The police cannot investigate article 2, but they can investigate article 3". However, I wrote to the police about article 3 and non-fatalities, and they said that there is no binding legal obligation on the PSNI to proactively re-examine those cases. There would be nothing. That is a fact.”
“That is the agreement, in detail, that they wanted to submit in 2016. Members can read it, and it will tell them exactly what I have just laid out. All of those people would not get an investigation, so the perpetrators would get away scot-free. We have relegated attempted murder to a misdemeanour, and people here support it as best practice. That is not acceptable.”
“If you support the Stormont House Agreement, you support a de facto amnesty, and you do. Under the Stormont House Agreement, if you were left limbless, blind, burnt, in a wheelchair or psychologically damaged, you do not get an investigation. If you were kidnapped in Northern Ireland, taken across the border, tortured and murdered, there would be no investigation. There would be no investigation for those in Birmingham, Warrington, Dublin or Monaghan. That is what the Stormont House Agreement says. If you had a Historical Enquiries Team (HET) desktop review, you would not get an investigation. That is the Stormont House Agreement that, everybody tells me, we signed up to. For those who say, "No, we can change that", here it is in my hand. That is the agreement from 2016.”
“I thank the Minister for moving the motion. It is an important debate, and it is right to have a recall for us to debate the matter. <BR /> <BR />On the main thrust of the issues at hand, we all stand together. Certainly, the Ulster Unionist Party does not support a statute of limitations or an amnesty; in fact, as far back as 2017, we warned of what a statute of limitations would lead to. We have been clear that, be you a soldier, policeman, terrorist, member of the public or politician, if you break the law, you should face the law. Everybody deserves the opportunity to get justice. It does not mean that they always will, but we cannot take away that hope. <BR /> <BR />We must also challenge those who spin lies or untruths or try to push out that they are cleaner than everybody else.”
“I thank the Minister. As he has identified, this is an important service for women. We are talking about a relatively small amount of money: £150,000 for the year. The health service is under pressure with regard to waiting lists and the mental health strategy. I do not have a follow-on question, but I take on board what the Minister has said.”
“I thank the Minister. He is right: I had a fascinating meeting with the commission. We discussed one of the criteria for extra tax-varying and revenue-raising powers, which is the stability of the institutions here. What is his assessment of how stable we are? I am not asking whether the institutions will be toppled. Will our instability prevent our being able to use extra tax-raising powers?”
“Those are simple words, but the George Cross has, in its lifetime, been given on only three occasions. The first was given to Malta for fighting Nazi fascism, the second to the RUC for fighting terrorism and the third to our brave NHS staff for fighting the global pandemic. <BR /> <BR />For those who do not know the George Cross, it is a simple medallic recognition in the form of a silver cross. In the middle is a depiction of St George fighting the dragon, which is our NHS fighting the dragon that is COVID-19. Around it are the words "For Gallantry". Nobody, whether they like the UK's national award system or not, can stand up and say that our NHS staff do not need to be recognised for their gallantry.”
“I will park that, because that is absolutely right: our NHS has been underfunded for many years, and that needs to be dealt with. However, today, from Her Majesty The Queen came these simple words:”
“The NHS is an extraordinary institution. Those who work for it are our doctors, our nurses, our care workers, our paramedics and our drivers. They are those who do the laundry, the domestics and the people who clean bottles in sterilisation units. There is a range of people that stretches out to our general practitioners and even to our pharmacists. They are incredible, and they are incredibly brave. For the last 18 months, they have been fighting a battle on our behalf against a pandemic that has taken lives and liberties. Who can forget the images of exhausted doctors and nurses in our NHS as they fought to keep people alive? The NHS is truly incredible. <BR /> <BR />Of course, we could spin this to say that the problem is that we need more funding and resources for our NHS.”
“I thank the Minister for his answer. The tourism sector is massive, and visitor attractions are incredibly important. They come both large and small, and I guess that we all focus on the large visitor attractions. How do we get funding and support to smaller visitor attractions such as the War Years Remembered Museum in Ballyclare? The museum is important to that area for tourism and for footfall, yet it does not seem to be able to get that support. Will the Minister look at that?”
“I thank the deputy First Minister. There have been difficult times, of course. Part of New Decade, New Approach talks about the racial equality strategy. We have a framework in place, but, considering that 80% of Belfast-born teenagers from ethnic minorities want to leave the city due to racial attitudes, is there something that can be brought forward to try to address what is clearly a failing strategy?”
“Of course, the Ulster Unionist Party and I will work with them, as we will with every Minister. I will work with every political party — large or small — and every independent Member to make sure that we do what is right for Northern Ireland. I will work with every MLA. However, we have to set our focus on the people of Northern Ireland and on making this a better place for them. <BR /> <BR />I will not get into sticking my boot into anybody across the Chamber regarding where we are now and how we got here. That would not help. What will help is getting this done today and getting on with the business that we are paid to do and that the people expect us to do. That is key. I hope that we can all unite in trying to do exactly that.”
“I do not want to see ransom politics being the thing that holds us to account. I want to see collaborative politics, where we all see the problem in front of us and work to try to find a solution to it. We all want our people to wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose and to go to bed at night with a sense of fulfilment. To get there, we need to work together. We can have our disagreements if we want to have them, but, at the end of the day, let us set our sights on a target to make Northern Ireland a good place to live, where people want to work, get educated, bring up their children, and call their home rather than leave at the earliest opportunity. <BR /> <BR />I congratulate Paul on becoming the First Minister, and I congratulate Michelle for continuing as the deputy First Minister.”
“I feel like I should have written something down for this extraordinary day, but I do not want to work for the extraordinary day; I want to work for the everyday. That means tackling the waiting lists, which we keep mentioning: 335,000 people who feel abandoned and let down by our actions. It also means working for the people who are coming off furlough, the people who are on waiting lists for housing, the people who cannot get housing, the people who cannot afford housing, the people for whom no housing is available, and the people who are concerned about the education of their children and the state of our education system. That is what all of us need to be working on. Ninety MLAs need to be united in working in that regard. <BR /> <BR />I no longer want to see identity politics being the thing that drives us in the Chamber.”
“It is noticed politically, and it is noticed by society, in general, not just in Northern Ireland, but further afield. There was lots to be done, but not all of it was completed. I will say this, though: that was a fine final speech. She could have made much mischief in the House — there could have been much for us all to scream and shout about — but she did not. She set a very clear path. <BR /> <BR />I finish by saying this to Arlene Foster — wife, mother, daughter: good luck in the future. Spend time with your family, look to your interests, and stand up for women in public life. That is incredibly important. You may have started in the Ulster Unionist Party and finished in the Democratic Unionist Party, but you will always get a nice cup of tea if you come to visit us.”
“First Minister, thank you. Thank you for your service; thank you for your commitment; and thank you for your sacrifices. I know that there have been many. We are both unionists, so we have a lot in common, but we also differ on certain things. However, we do so in the right way and in the right spirit to achieve the same purpose. You have carried yourself with the utmost dignity, even when that "et tu, Brute" moment came from those whom you would have called your friends. You held yourself with incredible dignity. <BR /> <BR />If there is something that I will reflect on in the months and years ahead, it will be how our First Minister went through this crisis, and the many other crises before, holding her head high. She should be very proud of that. It is noticed.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise for getting a little bit carried away but when you stand up against these criminals and somebody tries to belittle you for doing that, you may just get a little bit passionate. <BR /> <BR />I will finish by saying quite simply that this is good legislation to deal with criminals, paramilitaries and criminal gangs on our streets. I will be supporting the Minister in this, and in rigorously ensuring that it is applied through her offices.”
“I was not anywhere near that parade when it happened and did not see anybody with a balaclava”
“Of course. I am sure that the Member will have heard me say on multiple occasions that it is not tenable to have people walking through the streets in balaclavas. It is not tenable to have people in the gutters in balaclavas murdering citizens of this country. There is no point trading insults across the Chamber when you know full well that I am not standing supporting anybody who wears a balaclava. You know full well that I do not support paramilitaries in any shape or form, you know full well that I have received threats from loyalist paramilitaries, and you know full well that there are also republican organised crime gangs out there. So, play your games if you want, when I am making a positive point about what our Minister is doing to tackle criminals.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Proceeds of Crime Act is a tool in dealing with crime, be that through paramilitaries, criminals or organised crime gangs. It is just another tool. However, it is simply untenable that we would not support this to be able to tackle those individuals. Accredited financial investigators are key to this because this crime gets more complex each day. Every time that they try to show that what they have has been gained legally and as they try to launder money or sell on goods, it is important that those accredited financial investigators, along with the PSNI, have the tools to hold them to account. We cannot have criminals in our society, not working, standing there in their Armani suits with their gold watches and BMWs.”
“I shall be brief. This is a good day for justice. This is a good day for tackling crime and those who make a living from criminal activities. The Ulster Unionist Party has always been strong on justice. We have always been strong on supporting victims. We have always been strong on tackling crime, and we have always been strong on tackling the causes of crime. We will stand with our Justice Minister to rigorously force this through to make sure that we can engage these criminals where it hits them hardest, which is in their pockets, in their bank accounts, and in the fancy cars that they drive around our streets in and the fancy watches that they have on their wrists while the victims of that crime sit at home in fear because of what is happening to them.”
“I thank the Minister for a positive statement. It is clear that a lot of work streams are going on, and that can only be welcome. I was interested in the update on the JATF and how that is working, particularly in relation to forensic science. Without labouring the point, following on from what Sinéad Bradley said, for a lot of people, low-level crime is what is really important. Those big set pieces are really important, but the burglaries are really important to them. What danger is there that we could lose, for example, cross-border biometric information sharing or cross-border biometric data retention? Do we think that we have protocols to protect that so that we can counter a lot of the low-level crime?”
“I thank the Minister for the work that her Department has done on the permanent disablement payment scheme. It is really appreciated. Does the Minister believe that payments will start to be made in this financial year?”
“The police replied that they had no obligation to investigate when there was no fatality. <BR /> <BR />We cannot support the Stormont House Agreement. That is what is in the motion, and that is why we cannot support it. I know that we are the only ones. Some Members may agree with me and others may not, but I am being truthful and factual, and we cannot support the motion for that very reason.”