Jon Burrows
North Antrim · Ulster Unionist Party · Northern Ireland
“It is invasive for someone to be cross-examined by the person who has caused them grave trauma and great hurt — the person who has victimised them. Cross-examination can be done by legal counsel, which is sound.”
“It is adversarial for good reason, but there are really important things that we can do when it comes to process, the system, dealing with cross-examination, disclosure and character references. I hope that we have a victims and witnesses commissioner who is the loudest and strongest voice for victims.”
“I agree. I rang one of the victims on the evening after the conviction and apologised. Even though I had no role over Mr Campbell, I said that I was ashamed that that man, Lloyd-Lavery, was ever employed by the party or by an MLA and ashamed that the man who gave him a character reference was a former chair of our party.”
“I welcome the Bill. It is long overdue, because our justice system in Northern Ireland is tilted towards the interests of suspects and perpetrators over and above the interests of victims and the general public.”
“There is always a balance to be struck between the rights of an unconvicted person who has been accused of a crime and the rights of the victim, and we need to get that balance right. We should never forget that there have been miscarriages of justice in our country down through the years.”
“<BR /> <BR />The Education Minister should have included the measure in the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill. That would have achieved it far more efficiently, but it was not done.”
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“They talk about the buildings and the crisis that we have due to the number of pupils with special educational needs. They talk about the fact that we cannot attract males into the teaching profession. You talk about stress: the biggest stress that children face these days is from social media and screen time. That is what we should be discussing today, not this false debate on academic selection. <BR /> <BR />We should give people maximum choice: levelling up, not levelling down. This debate is, at its heart, an ideological one. It looks down on schools that are not grammar schools, instead of saying that all schools can be excellent schools and there are many different pathways through life that give people the choice and the opportunity to reach their full potential.”
“Those schools feel that they need someone to champion them, and, as a unionist representative, I am happy to do that. <BR /> <BR />We also need to talk about the stigmatisation that we bring about by having this discussion on selection. The notion that selection is bad reinforces the fear that, if you do not pass the 11-plus, you are somehow lesser than the people who pass it. Many non-selective schools in systems around the world still have streaming. That can involve a degree of informal selection that lacks the objectivity and fairness of a selection process. <BR /> <BR />It also comes down to choices. We are spending our time debating selection. Whenever I speak to parents and pupils in schools around the country, that is not what they talk about. They talk about the state of their schools.”
“No, I will not give way. <BR /> <BR />They include Mary McAleese and, of course, Ms Flynn”
“No, I will not give way any further. <BR /> <BR />In West Belfast, Mr Sheehan's constituency, St Dominic's Grammar School has produced wonderful pupils who have been some of the brightest minds of our country.”
“There are various pathways. I will come back to that in a moment. <BR /> <BR />This man will not tell girls in my constituency that they cannot choose to attend St Louis Grammar School or Dalriada School. That is their choice. If they want to aspire to that, I will support it. <BR /> <BR />I will champion Catholic grammar schools, which have been let down by political representatives who do not champion them. I served in Derry/Londonderry — whatever you want to call it — for many years. I saw the social mobility of people who went to the excellent Catholic grammar schools in that city. Look at what St Columb's College has produced: Seamus Heaney, John Hume and Phil Coulter.”
“The principals had great pride in telling me that many of the parents choose not to send their children to a grammar school, even if they have passed the selection, but to Bangor Academy and Sixth Form College, because it is an outstanding school that is bucking the trend and the perceptions of non-selective schools. <BR /> <BR />The party opposite talks about choice and the right of girls to choose to wear trousers, which is one that I agree with.”
“I will not give way at the moment to the Member who told me to "Shut up" on the radio this morning. <BR /> <BR />Let me talk about choice. Recently, I was in primary schools in Bangor, where many people told me —”
“I oppose the motion not because I defend only grammar schools but because I defend all schools and the right of everyone in Northern Ireland to have choice. That is number one. The bedrock of our democracy is that people can choose. That, of course, is ideologically inconsistent with much of what the Members who tabled the motion believe in. They would admire many communist and Marxist states. Choice is important.”
“Did the Member enjoy a grammar-school education? Can she give any insight?”
“Does the Minister agree that a lot of the Churches that are thriving at the minute are outside of the four main Churches, and that it is important that they have input into how RE is taught in schools?”
“That was the man who said it. No wonder he thinks that it is not relevant to people out there. <BR /> <BR />People will wonder what we are doing in this place today, wasting time and wasting money when someone could have said, "You know what? Don't act like that again. If you do, it will be dealt with more seriously". For all those reasons — that it is disproportionate, punitive and unnecessary — we will be voting against the sanction.”
“There is a context here. Many people will know that this is a place in which a Member said, "Victory to the Palestinian Resistance", hours after babies were mutilated, women were raped and people were taken hostage and killed. That was found not to be a breach.”
“Anyone who believes in human rights — we often get lectured on them by those on the other side of the House — would have to be convinced that the sanction is necessary and that nothing else can address the Member's conduct other than to exclude him for two days, when other sanctions are clearly available.”
“<BR /> <BR />The other point to make is that looking at this as someone with an insight into professional misconduct, I wonder why a bonus breach was found, which was of rule 10. In many ways, that is what is called "double counting". There is nothing fresh in the breach of rule 10 that does not apply to rules 15 and 13. It is just an additional, made-up bonus breach. We have to see that in the significant context that proportionality, when it comes to fundamental rights — this is about the fundamental right of freedom of expression — includes necessity.”
“The fact that there has not been a repetition of the behaviour would suggest that, even if we believed that the conduct had been proven, the least serious sanction would be to note that there had been bad behaviour, not to exclude someone for two days. <BR /> <BR />Members on the other side of the House often talk about human rights and equality. Article 10, which is about freedom of expression, gives the most substantial protection to — guess what? — political speech. The jurisprudence is so clear that, particularly if a Member of a legislative Assembly is talking about something of public interest, it has to be the most egregious breach to justify a sanction, let alone removing a Member for two days from representing — whom? — his constituents in North Antrim.”
“No, it was given in private, but I think that it was repeated afterwards. <BR /> <BR />There was a prompt apology; in fact, the apology's being prompt is about the only prompt thing in the whole incident, which has cost a lot of money and time. <BR /> <BR />There is also the much-established principle of proportionality running through all of this, which is that you are supposed to choose the least punitive sanction that achieves the purpose of imposing any sanction. The Committee has jumped to one of the most serious sanctions without fully demonstrating why the other sanctions were deemed to be inappropriate.”
“The second factor — the commissioner referenced it — is that this happened early in Mr Gaston's career in the Assembly. There has been no repetition of the conduct, so that is a mitigating factor when we look at the appropriateness of the sanction. The third factor is that there was a prompt apology. Again, that is something that is recognised across disciplinary regimes for all regulated professions as a mitigating factor.”
“With so many pressing issues in our society, I wonder what the public will think as they watch us spending so much time and energy dealing with a matter that happened so long ago. I will cut to the chase, because Mr Gaston has, I think, accepted that his conduct was suboptimal and not becoming of a Member. I will focus on the issue of disproportionality, because that is the nub of the matter. <BR /> <BR />I used to run a disciplinary regime, and there are clear objective factors that can be applied to determine whether conduct is disproportionate or proportionate. The first is the seriousness of the issue that was being discussed. It was a serious issue, as Mr Buckley pointed out. It concerned issues of safeguarding right at the heart of our democracy.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Has it been considered — I imagine that it has been — that there is a potential PSNI investigation of matters that are linked to the debate? Is there any need to consider pausing the debate to allow that investigation to be exhausted?”
“Does the Minister agree that it is important to recognise that many controlled schools are de facto integrated, that they are a welcome space for everybody, that that should be acknowledged and that we should not lose sight of that? They are not Protestant schools; they are controlled schools, and many are very integrated as it is.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. <BR /> <BR />The U-turn might have been safe, but in the run-up to this you were asleep at the wheel, Minister. You talk about the rates having to be evidence-based. What evidence did you have to justify the original decision to support Reval2026?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. It is a fact that we have the lowest unemployment rate not just in the United Kingdom but on the island of Ireland and across Europe. That is a good news story. The Member should know it and should be out there showcasing it and encouraging more businesses to come here, because we have an outstanding skilled workforce.”
“<BR /> <BR />We need to remember that we are more prosperous in the UK and that we can cooperate North/South, but let us leave ideology out of it and work hard for the good people of Northern Ireland. I shudder to think of a Sinn Féin Minister for anything having powers to raise more revenue and waste that money.”
“Unfortunately, too much ideology is brought into such debates. <BR /> <BR />I note the depth and strength of the UK economy. We should never lose sight of the fact that the relationship with our greatest trading partner goes east-west. Not only is that where the bulk of our trade is, but we are part of a United Kingdom with a domestic market of £60 million, instead of somewhere with one of only a few million. That is why groceries are cheaper here than down South. It also means that, when the global shocks that have been talked about happen, as they did in the credit crunch 20 years ago, our economy has resilience, because the broad and deep UK economy can help it through those shocks. That is why it was benevolent of the United Kingdom to lend the Irish Republic £3·25 billion on favourable terms to help to bail out its economy.”
“Rather than look for more powers, we should use the good influence that we have to extol the benefits of Northern Ireland and encourage people to invest. We should not use ideology to discourage foreign investment. The motion is ill founded. In particular, it will cause many out there — those who get out of bed to go and work hard and who already have tax taken out of their pay packet — to shudder, because, even though this place is unreformed and does not show a willingness to find savings and spend wisely, it would have more powers to raise revenue. <BR /> <BR />My party has no ideological objections to working with our good friends in the Irish Republic and having real economic cooperation, but it is not about creating an all-island constitution. It is about raising prosperity for everybody North and South.”
“What impact does that message have on the morale of people here and the confidence of those who might inwardly invest?”
“There is a failure on the part of many parties in the Assembly, particularly Sinn Féin, to sell to the world the benefits of the Northern Ireland economy. I never hear anyone shouting from the rooftops that we have the lowest unemployment rate in Europe; that we have a vibrant and highly skilled cybersecurity sector and fintech sector; or that we feed a quarter of the people of the United Kingdom through our excellent agri-food industry. Unfortunately, Northern Ireland gets called a basket case or, even worse, as it was by a former Sinn Féin Member, as an s-h-i-t-hole.”
“No, I will not give way yet. The public are being short-changed by the Executive. There is only one thing that is worse than being short-changed and that is being taxed more and short-changed. That is why it really is worrying to think that Members would think that there is any public appetite for giving us more powers. We need to demonstrate that we can spend money wisely and deal with problems, rather than always blaming someone else. <BR /> <BR />The other big concern that I have with revenue-raising powers is that many Members subscribe to Marxist-type ideologies. The last thing that they need is more power to tax, spend and cause problems. <BR /> <BR />I will add one other thing that does not require any new powers whatsoever.”
“I will keep it short, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, because my colleague Diana Armstrong made excellent points that were full of facts and devoid of ideology, which is refreshing, given some of the contributions. <BR /> <BR />The proposers of the motion failed to read the room when they proposed that extra tax-raising powers be brought to this place. The people of Northern Ireland have no trust in the performance of this place: it is held almost with contempt because of its failure to spend money wisely, fix problems, transform public services or deal with waste.”
“Does the Minister agree that some of the frustrations in areas such as Drumtara are because the community sees problems but are not quite sure with whom to raise them? Sometimes they should be raised with the Department for Infrastructure, sometimes with council and sometimes with the Department for Communities. Can assistance therefore be given to communities to make it clear whom they should contact about the bread-and-butter issues that they face and are seeking help to address? Can some clarity be given about the different pathways and the most appropriate agency for them to contact?”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. The Washington Ireland Program (WIP) has benefited many people here by bringing on emerging leaders in Northern Ireland. Are there any opportunities either to build on the success of that or to get more people from Northern Ireland on to that programme?”
“Can the Minister provide any data that demonstrates improvements in cost-effective prescribing by our GPs?”
“I look forward to reading the final version of the guidelines. It is an example of practical politics that works for our people that pupils will have the right to wear a coat of their choice to school. On the issue of practical politics and school uniforms, will the Minister give an assurance that he supports the right of girls who wish to wear trousers to school to do so, just as ladies can do in workplaces up and down the country?”
“I am thankful that we had people like Mary Bradley in our politics. It was a privilege to meet her when I did. I send my condolences to the party, to Mary's friends and family and, of course, to the friends and family of Joe Byrne.”
“We take that for granted now, but, when Mary served, that was not always the case.”
“As I went through my police career, I was inspired by Mary Bradley and her like, who gave of their time and energy, at considerable risk to themselves and their families, to serve democracy and to hold dear to the idea that one can have a passionate belief that is contrary to what someone else believes but can still be courteous and civil with them and never think that violence is the right thing.”
“One thing that I will say about Mary is that her passion for her community was loud and clear, but there was a dignity and a fairness about her that exemplified the SDLP's approach to politics. Mary would contact me and then follow up on it if she thought that something had to be challenged, but she would always ring me or my colleagues and ask for the facts. If you were fair with Mary, she was always fair with you. <BR /> <BR />There was something very old school about Mary Bradley. I pay tribute to that genuine sense of public service, to which we should all aspire.”
“I extend my condolences to the friends, family and colleagues of Mary Bradley and Joe Byrne. I met Mary many times when I served in the city. Like all the SDLP representatives there, she exemplified service, dignity and courage. It was not an easy time to be an SDLP politician, particularly in a place such as Londonderry, or Derry: whatever you want to call it. Many times I was at their homes, speaking with them and helping them when their houses had been attacked and they had come under threat. Aside from her commitment to public service, she therefore showed courage to stand up and serve at a time before everyone supported policing, when times were very dangerous indeed. <BR /> <BR />Mary was part of a great team, alongside the likes of Gerry Diver, Thomas Conway and Mark H.”
“The officials either did not have the power to answer or answered wrongly.”
“That is a decision. It was not a referral elsewhere. That happened in your Department. You were not there then, but you have been there since. I seem to know much more about what is going on in the Department of Justice than you do. I call on the Police Ombudsman to resign. Confidence in her comments is in tatters. Will you please explain why you did not make it transparent that your Department had received a resignation and clearly bungled it?”
“When the resignation was tendered to her Department, the response — I have it — was not, "We have no vires to take it"; it was:”
“The motion is dangerous and unconstitutional, and we are right to oppose it forthrightly.”
“It seems as though we have failed to learn the lessons from our past and from Brexit. In this place we should be joining together and asking, "What can we agree on, so that we can lobby to change the invidious and iniquitous Irish sea border? On what issues can we can come to a consensus as a body so that we can then go and make representations?". We do not do that, however. The motion is a divisive stunt and party politicking by a party that wants to cause endless problems in Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />When we deal with economic issues, we should welcome investment such as the Bank of America investment, but we do not. That is the reality. Alliance has made a mistake here. It has fallen into a trap set by Sinn Féin. We in the Ulster Unionist Party have thought with our heads and not our hearts throughout.”
“I am dealing with the democratic deficit: the real one.”
“Thank you. <BR /> <BR />The biggest democratic deficit is that people in eight out of 19 constituencies in Northern Ireland are represented by Sinn Féin MPs who do not go to Westminster. It is all right for the ones who voted for Sinn Féin but not for the rest of the electorate, who only get one choice of MP. Here is the thing: what could they be doing at Westminster? Making a contribution to the assisted dying Bill, lobbying about the family farm tax, making representations about veterinary medicines or, like our party, putting amendments down to the Legacy Bill — the Troubles Bill — that mean that those who committed sexual crimes in the name of the IRA can be investigated by the Legacy Commission.”
“I have committed that I will not paint any of their faces again. However, that is a trap that they fall into. <BR /> <BR />Let me deal with the democratic deficit. The biggest democratic deficit in Northern Ireland is —”
“Thank you. We will come back to that in a moment. <BR /> <BR />The motion is about supporting a united Ireland. The Alliance Party has fallen into a trap. I do not want to paint them green, white and gold; they never got over me painting them yellow on Facebook”
“Members of the Dáil, who sometimes have more sense, would not waste their time debating it. They would realise that they have more important things to do, like build infrastructure for young people like those from Friends' School Lisburn, if I recognise the uniform, who are watching from the Gallery.”
“I am not going to give way. I will towards the end. <BR /> <BR />Ms Ferguson, I think, said that people in Northern Ireland did not endorse Brexit. However, people in Northern Ireland have not supported this stunt. This is a constitutional change, yet it has no support from the people of Northern Ireland, only the arrogance to think that we in the Chamber can make a decision that is constitutional and rests squarely with the people of the United Kingdom as a whole. It is a constitutional issue. <BR /> <BR />Let me deal with this. Frankly, for MEPs to write to the president of the European Parliament to say that we should have observer status is little different from me writing to Catherine Connolly and saying, "Dear President, I think that Ireland should join NATO. It should join the Commonwealth".”
“However, the Ulster Unionist Party, to its credit, before I was in it, thought through the implications of Brexit with its head and not its heart and realised that it was going to be particularly difficult for Northern Ireland, as it came to pass. I credit my colleagues, before I came into the party, for that. <BR /> <BR />Majoritarianism is worrying. A signal is being sent by many in nationalism and now Alliance that majoritarianism suits when they are in the majority, otherwise we have to exercise cross-community consent.”