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.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,482 lines we hold for Doug Beattie, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 25 of 30.
“It is that twin approach that is the real problem, and, sometimes, we do not really get it until somebody spells out exactly what it means for that individual civil servant. Remember, Prison Service employees are civil servants. <BR /> <BR />I have another example. A female prison officer was diagnosed with a depressive illness and anxiety in October 2019. In November, occupational health diagnosed severe reactive symptoms stopping her ability to function effectively at home and work. She was referred to PRRT for treatment and assessment in December 2019, had a dismissal meeting on 18 February 2020 and was found unfit to work again by occupational health on 9 March. She finally got the PRRT consultation on 24 March but then was dismissed from the service on 3 April through inefficiency.”
“You would think that, if all those things are in place, we would be helping that prison officer with a mental health illness to come to terms with his mental health and get him back to work. However, it does not work that way because, as we are doing that with the prison officer and sending him to jump through all those different hoops to help him with his mental health illness, the Northern Ireland Civil Service HR is going through its own routine of contacting him after 20 days to tell him that he has been absent for 20 days and that it is taking note of that, and, when he returns to work, he will be given a written warning, or, if he does not return to work, it will be dismissal.”
“It is an abject failure of leadership, a lack of understanding of the moral component and a laissez-faire attitude to our Prison Service. <BR /> <BR />Yet, we have structures in place to help individuals in the Prison Service who have mental health issues. We have the prisons' well-being programme. Each prison has a well-being officer who helps the officers. We have a welfare support service for our prison officers, occupational health and Inspire, which is somewhere that people can be sent to. We have the Police Rehabilitation and Retraining Trust (PRRT), where individuals can be sent to help them with mental illness. All of those things are in place.”
“<BR /> <BR />Let me give, if I can, please, the Assembly an understanding of what I am talking about. Here is an example of a prison officer who went off sick with stress and anxiety. While sick, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a debilitating disease. He fought hard to get himself in a place where he could return to work, which he did. When he returned to work, he got his return-to-work interview, as you would expect, from the Northern Ireland Civil Service human resources department. They accepted that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and that he had done everything that he could to get back to work. Yet, they issued him with a warning, a warning for inefficiency. I am staggered that we do that. Is that really how we treat someone with a mental illness?”
“Somebody could have a mental health illness, have to go off sick and end up with a two-year written warning. The people whom it affects by far the most are those who work in our Prison Service. Those individuals' mental health issues stretch from anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They are individuals who are in the most stressful Civil Service job in Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />Our Prison Service makes up about a third of the staff in the Department for Justice, and yet they get roughly two thirds of the written warnings. Of those written warnings, a quarter are for people who are suffering from a mental health illness. What are we saying? We are saying, "You have got a debilitating mental health illness, and we will give you a warning for inefficiency". Inefficiency? Scandalous.”
“I am in no doubt that every person sitting in the Assembly today, every Member who is not sitting here today and every party in the Assembly understands the impact of mental health on our society and on individuals. I am in no doubt that every person sitting here is a champion for mental health in all sections of our society. We shout about that often enough — I certainly do, and I know other Members do too — and we get our pictures taken talking about mental health and how we should do things better. Yet, here we are with our civil servants, for whom we are responsible, getting a written warning that lasts on their record for two years, if they are diagnosed with a mental health illness. That is absolutely obscene, and it affects the whole of the Civil Service.”
“I thank the Member for asking the question, which is really important to us in our constituency. I thank the Minister for her answers so far. It is all well and good talking about 500 possible job losses, but what on earth did we do about the 350 job losses at the same company two months ago, when non-contract workers and agency workers were dismissed? Nothing was done to support them. Did the Department not see this coming, Minister, when that happened?”
“It is acknowledgement and recognition that they went through it; it is that young man who went through it in the '70s and '80s — in a time when he could not go out because his area was controlled by paramilitaries — being listened to. That is what was happening over that period. We sometimes forget what it was like between 1969 and 1998. We may have 800 victims registered, but there could be more. There will be a cost, and we will have to absorb that cost, but we definitely must ensure that our communication plan is in place.”
“So, it is incredibly important that when the legislation is enacted, we do something to reach out to those people who were abused so that they know that they can claim over the next two years, because I would not want to see, one month past that two-year point, somebody coming up and saying, "I was abused", but they are outside the window. I really hope that our communication plan is in place for that, and I think that we have time to do that. I am in no doubt whatsoever that the Minister will be on top of that. <BR /> <BR />For the individuals affected, it is not just about getting money for the criminal damage that they suffered through the abuse.”
“I thank the Minister for bringing forward the motion. This is an incredibly important motion, and I hope that we all get a chance to look in and understand it. Mental, physical and sexual abuse by somebody within one's own household is an insidious crime, and those people from 1969 to 1988 who were abused like that have been largely forgotten. I have been engaging with a young man who was sexually abused by his mother between 1976 and 1984. She was brought to court on 15 counts of sexual abuse. This is real. This is live. <BR /> <BR />We have 800 people who have registered for this scheme, but what concerns me slightly — and I know that the Minister will take action with regard to this — is that the new legislation only gives them two years to claim.”
“I cannot stand here and support the violence that happened afterwards: I cannot, and I will not. All such violence does is create more dead, more devastation, more injured, more victims. We need to remember George, if we are going to support the people who want justice for him.”
“The images beamed around the world of George Floyd being restrained by a Minnesota policeman — pleading with that policeman to take his knee off his neck, fighting for breath and, ultimately, dying — are truly horrific. The police officer who perpetrated that was, rightly, arrested and has, rightly, been charged with murder. He will go through due process because he shamed his office on that day. However, it is more disturbing that three of his colleagues stood and watched while it happened. They are as much to blame as the officer who pressed his knee on the neck of the man who was lying helpless on the floor. <BR /> <BR />George Floyd was a man of colour. He was a black man in a racially charged US where black men are more likely to die in this way, but I did not see a colour; I saw a man — a helpless man murdered on our screens.”
“I thank the First Minister for coming to the Assembly to answer these incredibly important questions. This data breach was absolutely devastating. It has created incredible harm to people whose anonymity was the only armour that they had in their long fight for justice and recognition. Through incompetence, that has, for many, been destroyed. The response is wholly inadequate, because a letter dated 23 May that says, "If you have any questions for my office, get in touch on 26 May" is an inadequate response. <BR /> <BR />Therefore, given that the Executive Office is the sponsoring Department, can the First Minister outline the data-breach protocols in place? I do not mean information management; I mean what protocols should have been followed, once there was a serious data breach of the kind that we have just seen?”
“The issue of money is so unedifying. This is a UK-wide scheme. Innocent victims in Birmingham, Manchester, London and Warrington are entitled to the payment in exactly the same way as people in Londonderry, Belfast or Armagh are entitled to it. The UK Government have to put some money in, but we also have a responsibility here in our Executive. There has to be a conversation between our Finance Minister and the Treasury. We have to pay our way; we have to put our share in. That is what is not happening. There is no conversation, and that is a disgrace.”
“That is truly disgraceful. We knew that this was coming down the line. <BR /> <BR />We can have arguments here, and we will have arguments. I absolutely see where people will have a different point of view to mine on who and who should not get it. I can never stand up and say that a perpetrator is entitled to the pension. I am sure that people will understand why I am willing to say that, why I have to say that, why I will always say that: innocent victims always have to come first. I accept that other people will have different views. Let them have different views. Let them put their case across. My view will not change. <BR /> <BR />The issue about money is not a side issue, but it is not the main issue. The Executive Office did nothing in regard to this, absolutely nothing. It is shameful. They need to take the blame for this.”
“There are lots of arguments about who should and should not get this pension. I have a view on that and will give it a minute, but the big issue for me is that nobody took any action to get it set up. The lead Department was supposed to be nominated on 24 February: it was not. The board to deliver it was supposed to be set up: it was not. Nobody was telling victims that it was not on track. We asked the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), the Executive Office and the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS), and nobody knew where it stood. It was not until about nine days before it was supposed to go live that somebody came out and said that it was not happening. That caused huge distress in the victims community, massive distress. We still do not have a lead Department and still do not have a date for when it will be set up.”
“Victims are being victimised all over again.”
“I apologise for missing the start of this Matter of the Day and for missing most of the contributions, which I am in no doubt were extremely worthwhile. <BR /> <BR />This has been a bad week for victims: it has been a bad week for the victims' payments scheme, and it has been a bad week for the victims who are involved in the historical institutional abuse data breach.”
“I raise this issue in brevity, if I can, because there is a real concern that, as we go into this LCM, we have not put our own house in order in dealing with issues like that. We are not enforcing court orders in this jurisdiction, and that will only get more complicated when we start to look at cross-jurisdiction issues.”
“I have a constituent who has sole custody of his children but has not seen them for six years because the case is lost in the courts, with endless legal aid allowing it to go on in perpetuity. Indeed, in speaking about his review of civil and family law, Lord Gillen stated:”
“I thank the Minister for bringing this forward today. It is a technical LCM but an important one. We are in free fall now until 31 December and we cannot just let these things roll on; we have to address them now. It is right to address them now. <BR /> <BR />I absolutely support this LCM, but I want to extrapolate a little bit, if I can. The 1996 Hague convention on child protection improves the protection of children in cross-border disputes and helps resolve issues around custody and contact with parents for children who live in different parts. We have our own problems in Northern Ireland, because breaches of court orders in relation to family proceedings are never really enforced.”
“I will be very brief. The point that I am trying to make is that there is real pressure on parents now, because registration opens on 14 May. It is a financial commitment that they have to buy into, because it is £50 to register for the transfer test and £75 if you do not register on time. Therefore, given the flux that we are in — I understand that we are in a flux; it is not a criticism — is there any way that we can make representations to waive the cost of registering for the transfer test for this year?”
“I thank the Ministers for their statement, which is a very human one. We can all relate to what they have said. I welcome the way that the Executive are working together. My colleague and party leader, Steve Aiken, made it absolutely clear that cohesion is what we need. There are some people whose sole purpose will be to find fault with the document. Therefore, I hope that you do not find that my question is about finding fault; it is not. <BR /> <BR />It is welcome that you say that this is not calendar-led, but how do you square that with the Department of Education setting the transfer dates on 21 November, 28 November and 12 December, while the registration for those transfer dates starts on Thursday? How does that sit with your claim that it is not calendar-led?”
“We will support the Justice Minister in all that she is trying to do in achieving that and, at the same time, we will, along with the Chair and the deputy Chair of the Justice Committee, make sure that the Bill is scrutinised so that the end product meets what we want it to meet and that we have the resources in place to make sure that it works for victims.”
“The Member is absolutely right. I did not want to get too sidetracked from what we are talking about in regard to the Bill, but the Member is absolutely right; if we do not look at that resource, we are going to fail in what we are trying to achieve here. To see that our police force has been cut more than any other police force in the United Kingdom is difficult to watch and has an effect on morale. <BR /> <BR />As the Ulster Unionist Party's justice spokesperson, I can stand here and wholeheartedly say that we will vigorously support the domestic violence Bill.”
“We need to make sure that we can resource our police force, not just in numbers but in skills and in training so that they can take this on. Once we put this into statute and it is out there, the process does not end; we have to make sure that we can apply it and do so properly so that we can help the victims of domestic violence. If we do not, it will just be a piece of legislation that is sitting getting dusty in a corner somewhere. So, we must make sure that we resource our police force correctly.”
“Where we must scrutinise our police force — and we do; they are one of the most scrutinised police forces in the United Kingdom — we must be careful to not undermine them, because if we undermine the police force, we lose their credibility. If they lose their credibility among victims, there will be a trust issue, which we do not want. <BR /> <BR />The other issue that we must be really mindful of is that we have cut our police force to the bone; we are asking them to do more and more, and when this Bill is passed there will be more work for our police officers to do, yet we are cutting their funding. So, we must look at the resource issue. Dolores mentioned other agencies that need resources — of course, it is all about money — but the police cannot be forgotten.”
“Much of the abuse against males is due to their older children physically, verbally and financially abusing them, which is something that we must look at. We must promote the men's advisory project; somewhere that they can go to get help, get advice and get one-on-one counselling. Again, that is not promoted as much as it should be, and we should be doing more in the Assembly to try to promote that. <BR /> <BR />Moving on briefly to my very last point — I did say that I would be brief — how do we resource this once it has all been put in place? Who are the people dealing with these issues? For the most part, the police deal with it first. I have seen how the police deal with it, and it affects individual police officers.”
“So, there is a place for a commissioner, whether it is a domestic violence commissioner or a commissioner for the victims of crime; I would rather go for the latter. <BR /> <BR />I am really pleased that people have talked about domestic violence against males, because all too often that is forgotten. Paul Givan brought out the stat that one in three domestic violence crimes are perpetrated against men. In a previous life, I had dealings with men who had been subjected to domestic violence. It is insidious and strips them of their dignity. While we all know that the vast majority of people who fall foul of domestic violence are female — and we do not belittle that — we have to always ensure that males are not forgotten.”
“<BR /> <BR />There is a discussion to be had about a commissioner, whether it is a commissioner for domestic violence or a commissioner for the victims of crime. I have mentioned this before, and I do not apologise for mentioning it again, but we need a commissioner for victims of crime in general. If we look at it, we can see that we have a Children's Commissioner, and children are subject to domestic violence so there is a link there. We have a Commissioner for Older People, and older people are subject to domestic violence as well. We are going to have a mental health champion thanks to our Health Minister, Robin Swann, and a long campaign fought by my colleague Mike Nesbitt. Of course, the police deal with the homicides that come out of domestic violence.”
“The Justice Minister alluded to speaking to statutory agencies about what we are doing about the increase in domestic violence now, and I would be keen to hear a little bit more detail about what that actually means. What is actually happening? What is the Justice Minister doing right now as part of this COVID-19 crisis? <BR /> <BR />There are some general points that I would like to mention, bearing in mind that we are going to scrutinise this. I absolutely agree with Paul and Linda that there is time to really get into the weeds as regards this, and we will do so in the coming months to drive this forward. I really hope we can do that and have it put into legislation by the end of the year.”
“There is a point behind that, which is that off-licence sales of alcohol have increased threefold since we went into lockdown. So there is a real problem in the here and now, because alcohol feeds domestic abuse in that environment. It is something that we have to look at, because domestic abuse has increased since we went into lockdown, and 90% of children in a violent home know that violence is taking place; 75% of those children have seen the violence taking place and 27% have been the subject of that violence; they have had violence perpetrated against them. That is the here and now that I am talking about. <BR /> <BR />Justice cannot just sit in a holding pattern as this goes on, while we all wait for this Bill to come in. We have to do something.”
“I thank the Justice Minister for driving this Bill forward. Certainly, her words painted a very vivid picture of domestic abuse and domestic violence, but I guess none of us really knows just how bad it is unless we have been intimately involved with it. <BR /> <BR />I want to make some general points, briefly, about the here and now, the Bill itself and what will happen in the future. I remember reading a tweet, not so long ago, which I found mildly amusing. It said:”
“The military can provide a role 1 medical facility to help the Department of Health. They can provide a tented testing facility so that we can test people for the virus. They can provide logistical drivers, and they can provide support for our water industry to ensure that our water supply is secured. <BR /> <BR />Let us not throw this away or let us not just throw this in the direction of the Justice Minister. This is something that some of us might have to suck our teeth on, and I get that, but this is something that we might have to do to safeguard our society, which is going to be incredibly changed at the end of this process. Therefore, if we put our bickering aside and reach out to one another for the next number of months, possibly longer, maybe a year, we can get ourselves through this.”
“I am pleased, and I want to relay this to the Minister, that, having raised at the Committee for Justice this morning my concern about a course that is starting today for 20 prison officers, particularly my concern about social distancing, the Director General rang me, no more than 20 minutes ago, and explained the measures that they are putting in place to make sure that social distancing can take place. People are taking it seriously and I am glad that they are. <BR /> <BR />When we talk about Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA), everyone looks to the Justice Minister, but people need to understand that it is not just about the Department of Justice. If the military are called on by the Northern Ireland Office, it will not just be to support the Department of Justice.”
“It is about making sure that we do not spread fear and panic. <BR /> <BR />I am really happy to hear that, on prisoner release, the Justice Minister has been absolutely clear. She is absolutely right: the first thing is safeguarding. We must safeguard our society. If we have to release prisoners — we may well have to — she is right not to release those who could cause safeguarding issues for our society or, indeed, release people who will put pressure on our health service, which will already be overstretched.”
“We just need to look to Italy to see how bad it is there, with 800 deaths in one day alone. We should not think that we are immune from that, and people who do not understand social distancing need to look in that direction to understand just how bad it can get. <BR /> <BR />We talked about how we deal with death and about our death-management plan. My question is: have we engaged with the National Association of Funeral Directors? It buries about 6,000 people a year in Northern Ireland within three to four days and it believes that it has the capacity to bury up to 30,000 people a year within three to four days. Part of this is about taking away fear and panic from people who feel that they will not be treated correctly whenever their loved one dies or they fall sick and maybe become deceased themselves.”
“Thank you Minister for giving us the briefing and answering questions. We are in extraordinary times, and we have some extraordinary measures coming down the road at us. They are things that we never thought would happen and many of us will be rightly fearful about those extraordinary measures, but they are necessary. I must echo the Chair of the Justice Committee's comments. He is absolutely spot on about this. He and the Justice Minister have my support and that of my party in doing whatever we need to do to fight against this terrible virus that is afflicting our society. <BR /> <BR />Nobody should be standing today as unionist or nationalist, socialist or republican. It does not matter if you are Irish, British or European; we are all part of the human race. We do not stand in splendid isolation.”
“Will the Minister give his assessment of the resilience of the local health service in facing what many agree will be the biggest health emergency in generations?”
“I thank the Minister for his answer and I want to go on record to thank the Minister, his staff, scientists and healthcare professionals for all that they are doing in combating COVID-19 on our behalf. I will condemn, all day long, anyone who refers to them as "a shire of bastards".”
“No, I do not. Therefore, the leadership of our Executive and the Assembly remains in question.”
“The standard that you walk past is the standard that you accept, and we walked past it. The DUP walked past it, and Sinn Féin walked past it. Do I accept the First Minister's genuine apology? Yes, I do. It was gracious, and it was humbling. Do I trust that this will not happen again?”
“The issue with Máirtín Ó Muilleoir is, I have to say, truly scandalous. He did not just go out and give a running commentary to somebody who is unaccountable and unelected but asked him for permission to act. That is what he did: he asked for permission to act. That was shameless. It is shameless to do that when you are in a position of authority. <BR /> <BR />The issue with spads is well known and affects us all. We need to work on that. Mr Allister will bring forward something later, and we need to get behind it, because we need to fix the issue with spads. There are also issues in our Civil Service, but I do not think that it is right or fair that, whatever comes out of the report, we at the very top of the ladder fire it down to the people at the bottom and say, "We will take disciplinary action against you". That is grossly unfair.”
“We have already said that we should work cross-departmentally. We are working cross-departmentally on COVID-19; we should have done so with RHI.”
“Maybe we need to look at John Adair's action-centred leadership model, which includes task needs; setting objectives and planning tasks; allocating responsibilities and setting performance standards; the group needs of communication, motivation and discipline or the individual needs of coaching, counselling, developing and motivating. Those are all key elements. <BR /> <BR />I can look to the DUP, and I am not trying to score points but making a genuine point. I can look to Sinn Féin and say exactly the same because they failed also. Michelle O'Neill, as Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, promoted the scheme and not once did she scrutinise it. It is not enough to say, "It's not my Department": we have to scrutinise what we put forward to the people, regardless of which Department it is.”
“It was not just her failure — there were many other failures — but it was her failure. The inquiry considered that the Minister, in presenting the regulations to the Assembly and asking for its approval, should have read them herself, not least because, in the inquiry's view, to do so was a core part of the Minister's job. It was in her competency, and, within her competency, it was failure. <BR /> <BR />Leadership was the issue here. We are all leaders of some shape or form and are responsible people in some shape or form. Therefore, we must take responsibility for when it goes wrong, not just step to the side and pass it to somebody else.”
“He went on to say that junior civil servants responsible for the scheme were under-resourced and not adequately supported; in fact, the person who was responsible for the scheme had absolutely no experience of setting up a scheme similar to this and had only 1·5 staff to deliver it. That is a failure in leadership. For me, no matter which way you distil the whole thing, it distils down to a failure in leadership. Of course, we will try to pass the buck as far down the ladder as we can so that the people at the bottom will get all the disciplinary issues and those at the top of the ladder will get away with saying, "I'm sorry. I made a mistake". <BR /> <BR />As the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister, Arlene Foster was responsible for the leadership of her Department, so it was Arlene Foster's failure.”
“I am mindful of the tone that we should take today, when we are all dealing with other things. The RHI is a complex issue, and I have tried to distil that into just one thing to help us to move along. Albert Einstein reportedly said that, if he had only one hour to save the world, he would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution. We could use that with COVID-19, I have to say. However, with RHI, if we had spent more time defining the problem, we would not have spent so much time picking up the pieces of where we got it wrong. <BR /> <BR />Sir Patrick Coghlin said that the renewable heat incentive scheme should not have been adopted.”
“Kellie, you mentioned other vulnerable people, and I take that point, but I am just dealing with older people here. The answer to that question is that there absolutely should be. There must be an offence of assault against older people because they are so vulnerable, and I hope and think that that review will reflect the anger of society and say that older people do deserve a certain type of protection that they do not presently get in our society. We are all going to be old at some stage, and some, including my children, will say that I am already old, but it is not about us growing old but those who are there now. We must take action to protect those people. Therefore, this is a good motion and the right motion. It is a motion that we all have to support, but, more than that, it is a motion that must result in some form of action.”
“Question 54 asks whether there should be:”