Michelle Guy
Lagan Valley · Alliance Party · Northern Ireland
“It can be seen from those quotes that the issue impacts on girls in a real and practical way. If they feel too uncomfortable to be in school, it is impacting on their access to education. If they hold back in PE or while playing at break or lunch, what does that say to them about how we value exercise and sport?”
“Essentially, he was saying that we had to draw the line somewhere, and the automatic right of girls to be allowed to wear trousers is where that line has been drawn. <BR /> <BR />Some will play down the issue and say that it is relevant in only a small number of schools.”
“When I explain what the legislation would do, the reaction from people is almost always the same. They ask, "Are you seriously saying that, in 2026, girls can't wear trousers in school?". The answer is that they do not have that right.”
“The Assembly should support the Bill. I again ask the Minister to save us time by simply updating the statutory uniform guidelines. I find the DUP position of enabling the Bill to progress to Committee Stage while its Minister is against it to be quite bizarre.”
“<BR /> <BR />I question why that basic request from girls and young women is being denied or is deemed to be unimportant. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that some people — mainly men — still want to control what women wear.”
“I take the Member's point. Ultimately, however, the person who could make the change is the Minister, and he has decided not to. Saying that schools have a choice or that they have autonomy does not absolve the Minister from his ultimately having responsibility to be able to make that change.”
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“Does the Minister accept that evidence shows that systematic phonics, rather than systematic synthetic phonics, is the best approach to teaching literacy in schools?”
“Minister, where a school and a sports club share facilities that require an upgrade, do you routinely direct them to the Education Authority's minor works funds?”
“How is he working alongside the Economy Minister so that our schools and colleges work in partnership?”
“Although many of the changes that we need were in the 14-19 framework that was published in 2022, little has happened. Take reforming careers advice, or even just one aspect of that: a careers portal. I found a recommendation that dated back to 2013. Twelve years later, from what I understand, the Department is still only scoping what that would look like. <BR /> <BR />I reiterate our appreciation to those who tabled the motion for giving us an opportunity to speak on the issue. I will highlight a few matters and would appreciate it if the Education Minister would consider them in his response. Is he considering changing the funding formula? Through the curriculum review work, will he make bold changes to ensure that our young people get a greater variety of choice and opportunity?”
“We need always to reiterate to our young people that a learning pathway that enables them to make a valuable contribution to society and allows them to pursue a life that they want is far more important than where that learning took place. <BR /> <BR />In this changing world, learning will continue throughout life. Those who responded in the aftermath of the storm last week and continue to do so are a perfect example of that: skilled professionals, some with academic qualifications and others having gone through traineeships and apprenticeships, working in essential roles, without whom the lights would not be on, our water supply would still be off and our roads would be blocked. <BR /> <BR />To see that transformation, we need action.”
“They would mean changing the funding formula that results in colleges and schools competing for students, not through any fault on their part, I should add, but simply because they operate in a system that embeds that. It would require coordination, collaboration and a serious review of workforce needs but would go a long way to achieving parity of esteem between academic and vocational pathways, which has been spoken about for decades but is still very much lacking in our society, unlike in countries such as Switzerland or Germany. <BR /> <BR />The world has moved on. Our economy has changed, and employers' needs are different. The academic route will remain the right choice for many and essential for particular roles, but we all know that an academic qualification today in no way guarantees the job or career that someone wants.”
“in order to provide a wide range of choices. Some schools already do that, but if done at scale, it would be transformational: it would broaden the experience of all students to ensure that young people could make better-informed decisions on their future post 16 or post 18. The aspiration is to give our young people an awareness of and the option to follow academic, vocational or technical pathways or a mixture of pathways. <BR /> <BR />The motion references children and young people in general terms, but we should ensure that we acknowledge the specific needs of and challenges faced by young people with special educational needs (SEN). The cliff edge faced by young people with SEN post 19 is one aspect that requires urgent provision. The reforms needed would be challenging to deliver.”
“I thank the Members who tabled the motion. We have tabled an amendment that broadens the motion's scope and acknowledges that this is another issue that requires Departments to work closely together. This should be an energising debate that focuses on giving young people the best opportunities that we can. We have the chance to do something transformational with learner pathways for our young people. Whilst I appreciate that the scale of transformation needed is unlikely to be completed in this mandate, the Education Minister and the Economy Minister have the chance to set us on that path. That requires vision and action. <BR /> <BR />The independent review of education made clear recommendations that outlined what that vision could be. It said:”
“Our public services cannot withstand another collapse. We must show the public that we are capable of coming together to do that work now, in a moment of stability, and not as the outworking of another crisis negotiation. It would be a significant moment, demonstrating actual political maturity and commitment to governing this place, if we could produce agreed reform proposals. A first step would be to agree our amendment, which proposes actual mechanisms for reform, rather than just sentiment. Alliance is up for the work of reform. I guess that we will see who else is.”
“If we can make our institutions more sustainable and make them function more effectively through reform, we are eager to get started. <BR /> <BR />The reform proposals noted in our amendment are modest. They remove vetoes that prevent us from having a Government and vetoes that can be deployed in government to frustrate the functioning of our democracy. Tomorrow, the Assembly Executive and Review Committee will make a third attempt at agreeing priorities. The leader of the Opposition and I have signalled that we want institutional reform to be progressed through that Committee. The First Minister recently indicated that Sinn Féin reps will endorse that work. I hope that we can get consensus from all parties. The real measure, however, of commitment to reform will be to see an output from the work of AERC.”
“Thank you. <BR /> <BR />I do not sit on the Executive, so I cannot confirm that for you. <BR /> <BR />Our advocacy of reform is not to secure a win for the Alliance Party; it is because we need political stability to restore confidence not just in the institutions per se but in those of us who occupy and operate them. The Alliance Party's focus on reform links to a wider vision and aspiration: to make Northern Ireland the best version of itself for everyone who lives here. For us, no opportunity to do that is limited by adherence to an overarching constitutional objective. If we can make this place better by exploiting the benefits of dual market access, we are ready to make that case. If we can get a grip of our health service by committing to transformation or working across this island, we are up for it.”
“We have added specifics from our suite of reform proposals, which we tirelessly advocate. Our party leader wrote recently to the UK and Irish Governments about reform to try to make progress on the issue.”
“The motion references the Executive's "promised legislative programme". The SDLP has been in every Executive since the Good Friday Agreement bar that in the past year, so it knows well that legislation takes time. It takes preparation; it requires consultation; and, in the context of a reduced mandate, it takes real determination to get it done. I make no apologies for highlighting that the only two Departments to bring forward substantial Bills so far are Justice and Agriculture, the two Alliance Ministries. <BR /> <BR />I know well that delivery is how we start to regain the trust of the public, but delivery requires stability, so we must end the cycle of crisis and collapse through institutional reform. On that aspect, our amendment adds something that the original motion lacked: substance.”
“The restoration of the institutions a year ago was welcome. Any sense of relief, however, was tempered by the scale of the damage inflicted by collapse on already fragile and struggling public services. Waiting lists went up; transformation programmes stalled; policy development was shelved; and challenges facing education, infrastructure, policing and our environment were allowed to escalate over time. The DUP opted to wager our public services against the thin hope that the EU and the UK Government would U-turn on a Brexit agreement that took years to negotiate. The DUP lost that bet, and we all had to suffer. <BR /> <BR />We have no issue with the overarching premise of the motion. We want the Executive to deliver. We want to restore public confidence in democracy here.”
“I am sure that the Minister will agree that controlled schools deserve capital investment, as do all schools in Northern Ireland. However, he will be aware that the news story that broke over the weekend has called into question, once again, his credibility. The question that the public expect me to ask him directly is this: Minister, did you influence in any way prioritising that investment over other schools that also require minor works?”
“The Minister will be in the Assembly today to answer questions, and he will be at the Education Committee on Wednesday, where we will press for answers and full transparency on the issue.”
“As a member of the Education Committee, I visit schools in my constituency of Lagan Valley weekly. They are all crying out for investment. The story that hit the media at the weekend about £710,000 being invested in a football pitch legitimately raised concerns. I make it clear that it is not about individual schools: every school and every child deserve great facilities where children are safe and warm and can be educated. The fact is that we have an Education Minister whose credibility is under scrutiny once again. It is right that the question should be asked and answered of whether the Minister exerted any influence on the prioritisation of that project over others.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement today. Has he any plans to mainstream the social inclusion model developed through the shared housing programme to empower residents to be resilient to paramilitary influence and to encourage social mixing?”
“That creates an inequity in access to childcare, which is a policy gap that needs to be closed. <BR /> <BR />No one is naive to the financial challenges that face our Executive. The budget allocated for childcare and early years must be viewed as an investment. It is one that we would be reaping the rewards of now if we had acted sooner.”
“There are flaws in the system that we have now, and it has become almost sacrilegious to point that out. I sat at a round-table event yesterday and heard from parents who are fearless, angry and passionate about the fact that we are not doing enough to help disadvantaged mothers. It is our job to speak up for the people who have been excluded from the scheme. The current scheme helps those who are in a job and eligible for tax-free childcare, and those parents deserve support. However, it excludes parents with children of school age who need childcare. It also excludes parents who are on Universal Credit and those who are in university or doing training. If you are a parent at university and you want to embark on a career or further your career, you are not entitled to the same support as those who are entitled to tax-free childcare.”
“Many mothers, in particular, will have experienced asking for reduced hours or a flexible work pattern, requests that are accepted begrudgingly. They will be told that having a reduced work pattern is a privilege. They will get reduced hours, but they will also get a reduced salary and reduced holidays. Strangely, they will often not get a reduced workload. When we talk about encouraging women back into the workplace, we need to be mindful of that and make sure that we have, yes, the right technical policy interventions but also the right workplace culture. When my kids were really small, I would have benefited from the subsidy scheme that we now have. Working parents deserve that support. <BR /> <BR />The issue of crippling childcare costs is not new. It has been around for a long time, but we have not addressed it quickly enough.”
“We debated a motion on childcare last week, during which I spoke about the need to be sensitive in the language that we use. Referring to full-time carers or parents as "not working" is disparaging. There are implications in those words. They suggest that those people are not making a contribution or do not have ambitions, and we know that that is not true: they make a huge contribution to our families and society. It is important to respect different circumstances and ensure that we do not create stigma or judgement when we talk about those people. <BR /> <BR />I worked in a career, and I progressed to the point where I was managing a team and a budget. However, it came to the point where paying for childcare and taking unpaid leave to cover school holidays meant that I was just about breaking even.”
“If the Minister could offer an update on that work in his remarks to allay any concerns about undue delay due to ministerial friction, that would be welcome. <BR /> <BR />The Executive's package of interim support for early years and childcare prioritises specific interventions to ease acute pressures. Childcare is part of our social and economic infrastructure. Delays in delivering the business support scheme must be addressed urgently to stabilise the sector and ensure that we do not risk jobs and provision in our childcare sector.”
“However, remedies to meet recruitment challenges such as pay and conditions, training and investment in special educational needs and disability (SEND) support belong in a comprehensive early years childcare strategy, which we are still waiting for the Education Minister to publish. Successful delivery of that strategy will require cooperation between Ministers, particularly the Education, Economy and Health Ministers. I hope that the motion does not signal a breakdown in the working relationship between the Education Minister and the Economy Minister, because, in addition to the business support scheme, we need those two Ministers to work together to deliver on other objectives, such as, for example, post-19 provision and SEN provision, which is of particular urgency.”
“The Economy Minister has been asked to account for that, and I am eager to hear that update, because, if providers increase their fees to cover the rise in National Insurance contributions that is due in April this year, we are at risk of negating the financial relief that some parents are finally feeling. An intervention that is similar to the model that was used to support parents should be looked at for providers, but it should be conditional on improving staff pay and ensuring quality provision. <BR /> <BR />I pay tribute to all our childcare workers. They are an undervalued workforce of highly skilled and dedicated, caring professionals.”
“We endorse the model that was adopted for the subsidy scheme, and it reflects our policy proposals. We are hopeful that we will see that model of support being expanded to include school-age children as a minimum. <BR /> <BR />As the proposer of the motion highlighted, childcare is an ecosystem, and our childcare providers are a vital part of it. The motion rightly draws attention to the business support scheme for childcare providers that forms part of the package of measures that the Education Minister announced last year, which, disappointingly, has not been progressed.”
“I underscore to the Minister the fact that supporting and incentivising flexible working, along with career support for women who re-enter the workplace, is vital in order to complement initiatives such as the childcare subsidy scheme and the expansion of the number of full-time preschool places. <BR /> <BR />The £50 million that was allocated to childcare through the Executive's draft Budget is a welcome and necessary investment, because, for too long, inaction and the collapses of these institutions have held back delivery on childcare, with support for our parents in Northern Ireland falling far behind that in other parts of these islands. Since our Government were restored, it is welcome to see support for investment in high-quality early learning and childcare policy. That policy area unites us across the Chamber.”
“I will make a point that is perhaps not said often enough in debates when the framing is about parents going back to work. Stay-at-home parents are still working. In fact, they are doing a very tough, demanding and, often, lonely job. As a mother who was in a part-time role for a number of years, I assure you that I was still very much working during those years; I was just being paid part-time. I underscore that point in relation to other caring roles more generally: unpaid work is still work. <BR /> <BR />The critical point in relation to childcare is that, for many parents, having a job simply does not pay, because childcare costs consume their wages. In Northern Ireland, the childcare subsidy scheme has been a welcome first step to making childcare more affordable. The approach is right, but the scale is not yet sufficient.”
“I am happy to take any opportunity to talk about high-quality, affordable childcare. It is such a vital issue for families, our wider economy and parents. Affordable childcare gives back to parents, particularly women, a level of freedom: the freedom to choose to remain in paid employment, when they become a mother, or to return to the workplace.”
“Thank you, First Minister. So that I understand your answer correctly, will you support the Assembly and Executive Review Committee taking forward, within its remit, work on the reform of the institutions?”
“We can only presume from that that you requested and received other legal advice to help you make the decision. Will you publish that advice for review, please?”
“Please excuse my voice, Mr Speaker. It is not the best today. <BR /> <BR />Minister, you contend that you turned down the integration proposals because of legislation. Your officials, in their recommendation to approve, said that they did that in the context of:”
“I thank the Minister for her answer. Will she give an update on the PSNI workforce recovery business case?”
“Thank you, Minister, for your statement. SEN transformation is anxiously awaited by parents and schools. I am sure that the Minister will agree that children have to be at the heart of any action that is taken. We have only two years left in the mandate: what difference will there be for children at the end of the mandate from what they are experiencing now?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. I welcome the consultation on serious adverse incidents. My constituents report to me that their issue is the fact that they do not feel heard and that it takes years for them to get any response. Will that actually change as a result of the consultation exercise?”
“Thank you for the answer. You mentioned that security arrangements are reviewed as and when. Is there a particular time frame within which that happens? Does it happen on a regular basis?”
“Minister, the Act confers powers on your Department to make regulations to determine how Departments come together to pool resources. Do you intend to make such regulations?”
“I thank the Minister. I join everybody in welcoming the investment. A recent report said that only 13% of our kids got the recommended amount of physical activity, so this is really worthwhile. Is the Department collecting data on whether schools are delivering the minimum two hours a week of PE to ensure that we have some way of measuring the effectiveness of the investment?”
“Will the Minister provide an update on the future plans for the Dromore Central Primary School site?”
“Fair play to you, Minister, for fronting up today when you are not feeling so well. <BR /> <BR />The Minister has mentioned some of the groups that are involved in the cultural working group. Will he give us an idea of all the groups that will be involved in that working group and how they were selected?”
“What opportunities does the Minister envisage as a result of decarbonisation?”
“In April, my colleague Sorcha Eastwood led an Adjournment debate on the Maze/Long Kesh site. In that, the First Minister remarked that you would get options from the board on how to proceed to unlock the potential of the site. What options did the board provide you with on how to unlock the potential of the site, and how will you proceed?”
“I echo the comments that have been made in welcoming the statement. Oliver McGreevy, whom the Minister has just mentioned, used to be a neighbour of mine. I know him and his family well. I cannot describe the shock that I felt when I heard what had happened to Oliver. I cannot even imagine what his family was going through. It will provide such reassurance to other families with kids with heart conditions like Oliver's that that life-saving resource will be in their schools. <BR /> <BR />How will schools be contacted ahead of the defibrillators being rolled out? Whom do they get in touch with, if they have any questions?”
“How are those numbers affecting resource pressures in the Prison Service?”
“How is the Minister targeting or focusing on the perpetrators of abuse against women and girls?”
“<BR /> <BR />Finally, evidence shows that the framework for those aged nought to three gives children, including our SEN children, the chance to thrive and reduces the need for more resource-heavy, costly interventions later on. The aspiration for such a framework must be child-centred and universal to have the greatest possible impact.”
“What drives further delivery in early years cannot have a purely economic rationale. Affordability and making sure that parents have the chance to go out to work is essential — absolutely — and I am relieved to hear other parties finally moving away from the disastrous 30-hours model, because seemingly affordable childcare is of no use to anyone without provision. A core funding model for providers, with conditionality to guard against the setting of a fees target to aim for, can help to ensure that we do not end up pitting our parents against providers. To ensure quality, that model can allow providers to pay trained, vocational staff appropriately and provide them with the opportunity for a career.”
“Democratic accountability requires that I make those points because those collapses have, undoubtedly, contributed to how overdue support to parents and the publication of a childcare strategy are. We anticipate the consultation to be early in 2025, and, after 10 years of development, our expectations are high.”
“Absolutely. I point in particular to Employers for Childcare, which has done an awful lot to develop the evidence base that will inform the strategy. <BR /> <BR />Those of us who are passionate and sincere about continuing momentum in this space must be accurate about how we frame the debate. A narrative is being pushed that is not quite accurate, which is that the interim steps produced by the Department and a priority around action are delaying the production of the full strategy. The strategy is about a decade in the making. There has been ample time for the measures to be brought forward and implemented as part of the wider strategy, but successive Education Ministers have not prioritised the strategy. Since 2017, we have had two periods of collapse of the institutions.”
“It must be extended to include school-aged children and those on universal credit. Members who took the opportunity to question departmental officials at the last Education Committee were encouraged to hear that the Department is considering that as part of the development of the full early years and childcare strategy.”