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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“If a woman in Northern Ireland meets someone, they may have a different name, the police will not have published their mugshot and she will have no idea with whom she is striking up a relationship. Instead of empowering and educating women about whom they might be getting into a relationship with, we withhold information that we could legally provide. <BR /> <BR />For all the work on strategy, what we need is a criminal justice system that is on the side of victims and provides the space, once they make a report, for them to access the housing support that they need, to rebuild their credit rating and to have all the things that men have denied them in the first place. We need to get serious. The justice system is too slow, too soft and too often on the side of the suspect rather than the victim.”
“It should be the case that, if someone is convicted of domestic violence, they cannot change their name. We have a system in which people will be repeat abusers. They will befriend new victims, and those victims will have no idea of their background. We need to better promote the law that gives victims the right to come forward and make a request of the PSNI to see whether their partner has engaged in domestic violence. The Department of Justice should be promoting that. It does not help when the perpetrator can change their name. The PSNI, for which I am an advocate, still does not do enough to publish the mugshots of convicted domestic violence perpetrators.”
“They put off pleading guilty until the very end, hoping that a vulnerable victim will pull out, because victims often do not have the resilience to carry on. Instead of providing an exemplary sentence for people who plead guilty at the last second, the justice system still rewards the last-minute plea. The system is not just slow but soft. Sentencing is not tough enough in cases of domestic violence. There is a revolving door of bail at court. The victim who needs to pluck up the courage to report someone who has controlled and abused them for years needs to know that, when the police turn up, that person will be locked away for a sufficient time for them to make a new life, but that is not the case. They live in fear that the person will be released on bail. <BR /> <BR />There are big gaps in our legislation.”
“I extend my condolences to the families and friends of Ellie Flanagan and Amy Doherty. People have tired of slogans, straplines and hashtags about dealing with the epidemic of violence against women and girls. The Executive Office has a strategy that is clearly not working, but even the best strategies take years to take effect. Changing cultural and behavioural norms takes years. That is why, in the intervening period, we need a justice system that deals decisively with domestic violence and violence against women and girls. We do not have that. <BR /> <BR />It is no coincidence that we have the slowest and softest justice system and the highest rate of femicide in the United Kingdom. Domestic violence perpetrators exploit the slowness of the justice system in particular.”
“We are happy to debate international affairs that are of no relevance to the people of Northern Ireland, but when the safety of people from Northern Ireland who are living in the Middle East depended on it, some Members could not discuss those international affairs. This place needs to change urgently.”
“This is not a dig at hard-working, front-line civil servants, but when I asked how many members of the Civil Service, given that they have been collectively underperforming, have been marked as underperforming in the organisation, I was told that it is 24 out of 24,500, which is less than 0·01%. <BR /> <BR />This is a Chamber, of course, that talks about international affairs — Gaza; Venezuela. We are supposed to talk about international affairs that affect the safety of citizens here. When there was a security briefing about how to get our citizens back home, the Minister who calls herself the First Minister for all ran for the hills.”
“<BR /> <BR />Recently, I have been exposing the fact that some people owe hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Department for Communities for benefit fraud. Twenty of those people have repayment plans that are simply £1 a week. One of the debts will take 770 years to pay off. That is ludicrous. There is a Northern Ireland Audit Office report that says that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is vastly underperforming. When I asked Minister O'Dowd who is responsible for the line management of the head of the Civil Service, he replied, "I don't know".”
“When it should cost a school £1,000 to paint a wall, it is costing £4,000 because of rip-off procurement, but a simple trusted trader scheme could save a huge amount of money. <BR /> <BR />The lack of accountability in our Executive and our Stormont Assembly is astonishing. I recently asked the Executive Office who was responsible for ensuring that the Police Ombudsman got security clearance vetting when there was an incident at her home. The Executive Office told me that it was the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice told me that it was the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has now replied to me, saying that it is the Executive Office. Round and round it goes, but where it stops nobody ever knows.”
“Since I have been in this place, I have noted that although the people of Northern Ireland enjoy relative peace now, they do not enjoy the full prosperity and first-class public services that they deserve. That is mainly because of the rank incompetence of some people here and the incessant blaming of the Brits, as we have just heard from a Sinn Féin Member, for issues that lie directly within the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly. <BR /> <BR />I will give you some examples that would make an episode of 'Yes, Minister' seem too far-fetched. As I said yesterday, it costs some schools hundreds of pounds to change a light bulb because of rules that prevent a caretaker working above a certain height, and schools are charged a call-out fee. Procurement is ripping off the public left, right and centre across all public services.”
“Head teachers tell me that painting a room costs four times as much through procurement than it does through getting in a local trusted trader to do it. I know of a case in which it cost hundreds of pounds to change a light bulb, because it was over a certain height and could not be done by the caretaker. If we were to have more common sense, we could find more money to support our classroom assistants.”
“We need to ensure that they are given support and are not being injured in schools. I know of many classroom assistants who are being injured, particularly by young children in P1 and P2 who have become dysregulated. We need to ensure that our classroom assistants have the right equipment and training, such as Team Teach, to enable them to deal with those difficult situations well. If we are going to have children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, which many schools and classroom assistants support, we need those schools to have facilities such as sensory rooms and the right number of staff. <BR /> <BR />I will return to the issue of cost. We have enough money if it is used wisely. Unfortunately, procurement in schools is an absolute rip-off.”
“I pick up consistently from teachers, principals and others that they feel that the pace of change is overwhelming and they need more time to adjust to that change. I hear that in every school that I go to. <BR /> <BR />The second thing is that we can, I think, afford to pay our classroom assistants more, and we need to do that. There is a big issue with the retention of classroom assistants, and that is because they do not get the pay that they deserve. They reach the end of their pay point abruptly. In England and Wales, they do things such as giving classroom assistants extra money for taking on extra responsibilities. It is sometimes not a huge amount of money, but it acknowledges their continuing professional development. It is vital that that then leads to more retention, which saves money and prevents disruption.”
“A good classroom assistant is worth their weight in gold, but their pay and conditions are very much not golden. It is vital that we support them, recognise them and ensure that their vital contribution is acknowledged in our education system. With the significant rise in special educational needs in our schools, we need more classroom assistants, not fewer. <BR /> <BR />I want to make a couple of key points. First, although our institution is often glacial in its pace when producing legislation and outcomes, I recognise that Minister Givan has the bit between his teeth and is pushing things forward. I agree with some of it and disagree with other parts, and I call it as it is.”
“Has the Minister ever informed the House that, on 13 January 2026, there was an opportunity to come to an arrangement with the Criminal Bar Association on the accelerated review? I welcome the fact that the CBA is now dealing with priority cases, but an offer was made to it on 13 January, and it was happy to take on priority cases at that point. The Minister insisted, however, that that could happen only if it fully resumed its work. We therefore had weeks of missed opportunities to deal with those priority cases.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I support many of the Minister's proposals. I do not take a party political view, but I do have concerns — concerns that parents and young people have expressed — about the removal of coursework and AS levels. The concern is that that will increase young people's stress levels, as well as the stakes. <BR /> <BR />Another concern that I have heard directly from teachers is that removing AS levels may not reduce teacher workload, because they will have to compensate with summer mock exams to get a good marker on the progress of pupils who are studying for A levels. Minister, what percentage of the young people and parents who were consulted supported the retention of coursework and AS levels?”
“Does the Minister agree that we have the best farmers in the world but it is a particularly taxing and toiling profession? Will the Minister provide an update on the work of the farm families health programme?”
“It has decimated the reputation of the Police Service by falsely accusing it of being incompetent and sectarian and of spying on people and then criticised the PSNI for not recruiting people from Sinn Féin's community. We need positive leadership from Sinn Féin, not positive discrimination. Last week, Sinn Féin traumatised victims of sexual crimes during the Troubles by comparing the rape and abuse of young women in our community to the prison security regime during the Troubles. <BR /> <BR />You are offending and hurting people, promoting division and failing Northern Ireland. I want you to work to make Northern Ireland a better place, and I ask you to please stop this strategy and get back to making Northern Ireland work.”
“<BR /> <BR />Sinn Féin refuses to go to America at a critical time to promote Northern Ireland but is happy to go to China, which is a communist state. It says that it will not go to America because of human rights abuses, but it will go to China, which has a hand that drips blood from crushing dissent when persecuting Christians. Of course, we then have Sinn Féin's position on other international matters: pro-China, pro-Russia, pro-Iran and anti-Ukraine. In Sinn Féin's mind, Ukraine is not allowed to defend itself. <BR /> <BR />Maybe it is in policing, justice and security that Sinn Féin is at its most morally moribund. Last weekend, its leader, Mary Lou, hailed a man who blew up five people in a pub, yet Sinn Féin votes to exclude a man from this Chamber for saying the word "breathe".”
“It also means that businesses are not able to get planning permission to expand, yet the Department for Infrastructure has sent back £133 million of an underspend. <BR /> <BR />That ties in with Sinn Féin's general view on the economy. The Finance Minister proposed rate revaluations that would have decimated the pub and hospitality sector, putting some pub rates up by 500%. Was that incompetence, or is there a deliberate strategy to undermine Northern Ireland business? In fact, we see that all the time. Instead of talking up the fact that we have the lowest unemployment in Europe, vibrant sectors in cybersecurity and fintech and are attracting banking jobs from around the world, Sinn Féin calls the Northern Ireland economy a basket case.”
“I need to deal with an elephant in the room, which is whether Sinn Féin is committed to promoting Northern Ireland and dealing with reconciliation or is promoting decline and division. I say that because Sinn Féin's conduct in recent months has been so consistently inept that one wonders whether there is a deliberate scorched earth strategy in place. <BR /> <BR />I will start with the basics. The roads are an absolute mess, with potholes everywhere, yet the Infrastructure Minister has called not one meeting to deal with that. I found that out by asking a question. The "First Minister for all" blamed the potholes on climate change. The infrastructure around our sewerage system is creaking. That means that we cannot build new homes for our young people and that house prices are going up as the supply and demand is distorted.”
“In correspondence to us, the Department of Finance states that £0·6 million was allocated to Northern Ireland, but it cannot explain where the money was spent. Can you shed any light on that?”
“When we get down to the core issue, it is about the rule of law and whether we are all subject to the same laws. Citizens are forced to obey the laws that this place passes. Will the Minister support all republican murals and billboards erected without planning permission being taken down or removed? Yes or no?”
“Minister, you are managing a TB crisis instead of leading the farming community out of it. There was a lot of jargon and management speak there, but there are solutions. When are you going to grip the situation, provide strong leadership and implement the solutions to get us out of this preventable cycle of herd closures and people awaiting compensation?”
“That is really a non-answer, because you are still prepared to have the Economy Minister go to China, a regime that drips in blood, crushes dissent, is a humanitarian abuser and oppresses Christians. You are happy to have a senior member of your party shake the bloody hand of Beijing, but you give false reasons for why you will not attend the White House.”
“A lot of the opponents are rattled by some of my contributions. I have criticised every party in the Chamber, which you would know if you had listened to the interviews that, you say, you have. I have pointed out issues that I have had with the Democratic Unionist Party's judgement at times. I will go where the facts are and where the evidence is. It is entirely possible to oppose the motion but also support high standards and condemn unequivocally the disgusting rioting that took place in my constituency and elsewhere. I called for the police to be firmer and to release images more quickly —.”
“<BR /> <BR />There are many things for us to do in this place, and driving up standards is one of them, but this is wasteful, self-indulgent and unnecessary.”
“No, I will not give way. <BR /> <BR />We have a situation in which the standards commissioner, who has been subject to at least two pieces of legal advice since, litigated a Facebook post that was sent at the request of the police. We come back to the issue of whether the post could have been drafted better and been more precise and whether there is any learning. I am sure that there is learning. However, here is the reality: those who tabled the motion have done a lot worse. <BR /> <BR />I note that the Alliance Party now supports reform of this place with a role for the Irish Government. That was a strand one issue even during the 1998 negotiations. The Alliance Party is now going down the line of saying that it is a strand two issue, which reveals where its politics have drifted to.”
“For example, when the Minister said that he was not consulted about the decision, she says that that is a criticism of not being consulted and that the party would not have gone along with the decision that was made. There is no evidence for that.”
“No, I will not give way. <BR /> <BR />The issue is that the report polices omissions, which is difficult. Yes, we should be empathetic, but should every post be interpreted on the basis that you should follow factual information with empathy? If I posted tonight, "A road in my constituency is closed because of a fatal road traffic collision", could I be policed for not also saying, "and I have empathy with the family affected"? We are going down a dangerous road. There is confirmation bias throughout the Commissioner's report. She makes the classic error of saying, "X was said, and my interpretation of X is the following" without giving objective supporting evidence.”
“I used to give expert evidence on reports, one of which proved that Sinn Féin had politically directed the former Chief Constable, who lost his job as a result. However, there are significant things about this report. First, conduct and misconduct reports are supposed to look at wilful and dishonest behaviour, not innocent errors — if you call it an error.”
“I come to Sinn Féin. We have seen Mr Sheehan's conduct. Sinn Féin is the party that took part in Bobby Storey's funeral and still says that it was OK to murder people in the past but wants to litigate a post. One of my colleagues said that the post was clumsy. Could it have been drafted better? Did it leave some people wondering, 'What is the meaning of that?". That is for learning after the incident. No one is seriously suggesting that the Minister wilfully tried to whip up tension; it was about looking at something that happened in the heat of the moment in a difficult situation and asking, "Can we collectively learn from how we communicate during a very difficult situation?". That was the reasonable and proportionate thing to do. <BR /> <BR />When I read the Assembly Commissioner for Standards' reports, I am deeply concerned.”
“Yes, but since. He was a councillor then, and he was an MLA later.”
“As we talk about standards and breaking the law, we turn to the Alliance Party. In 2018, an Alliance councillor was caught drink-driving. The party rewarded Mr Patrick Brown with promotion to the position of MLA.”
“I will come to the conduct of Mr Lyons in a moment, but the motion reeks of double standards. Matthew O'Toole stood up and talked about accountability. In 2024, one of the senior members of the SDLP wilfully and knowingly took part in an illegal parade through the middle of Londonderry. The SDLP took no disciplinary action. That was a breach of criminal law that was sent to court. He has now accepted effectively a caution. No action was taken. I see that Mr O'Toole does not want to look me in the eye, and I am not surprised.”
“The issues that my colleague has in Health and those that exist in Justice, Infrastructure and across the board are huge, and we are spending more time debating motions like this one. If we are not dealing with non-binding motions, it seems that we are dealing with litigating and arbitrating over words or posts. People in the real world will be wondering what on earth we are doing.”
“This motion is wasteful self-indulgence on the part of the Opposition and reeks of double standards by those who support it. It also makes a case for some cultural reforms, but not the sorts that are being envisaged, nor for the same motive, as Mr O'Toole pointed out. <BR /> <BR />Of course, it is wasteful when we have so many things to deal with in Northern Ireland. The standards commissioner costs £600 a day. That is why I would not complain about being told to "shut up" on the radio. Frankly, I would rather that £600 a day be spent on fixing potholes than on litigating words that have been said. It is wasteful because of the pressing issues that we have in Northern Ireland.”
“Thank you, Minister. Do you agree that, if students from Northern Ireland were more able to stay here and study here, they would be more likely to take up employment here and help treat the people of Northern Ireland in the future?”
“However, what struck me about Philippa's family in the days after her death was that, when they spoke to the media, her father, who had served before her, in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, told the world's media that he had brought Philippa up to treat everyone the same and that he was proud that, when she went out in uniform as he had done, she left politics and people's religion behind. <BR /> <BR />I pay tribute to Philippa so that she is never forgotten; that she is always remembered. She was a wonderful human being. It is important that those who serve never forget those who served and never came home after their shift.”
“So many people contacted us to say that they no longer saw the police as behind armoured glass, in armoured cars and wearing body armour but as human beings. In that sense, Philippa's legacy is a powerful one. <BR /> <BR />I have stayed in touch with her family of late, who still feel profound grief. It is worth noting that, when headlines move on after a crime, it is easy to forget the profound grief that the victims and families feel. They mourn Philippa every day. Tragically, they lost another daughter last year to cancer.”
“I pay tribute to a fallen former colleague who died on duty in Londonderry at this time 13 years ago. Philippa Reynolds was on patrol in the dead of night, when most of us, including me, were asleep. Her car was T-boned by a stolen car driven by career criminal, Shane Frane, and, we believe, Philippa was killed instantly. I had the painful duty of bringing Philippa's family to see her remains in Altnagelvin Area Hospital. <BR /> <BR />Philippa was a beautiful human being and a brilliant police officer. After her death, it became clear that the vivacious photograph that was released of Philippa changed a lot of perceptions of the police in 2013 in a city that still had an ambivalent relationship with the police.”
“That seems astonishing when we are talking about accountability. It is a bit like the situation with the ombudsman. Nobody really knew who the ombudsman was accountable to: was it the Secretary of State, the King, the Justice Minister or the Executive Office? Are we unclear as to who the head of the Civil Service, who earns an eye-watering, six-figure salary, is directly accountable to and who performance-manages said head of the Civil Service?”
“We need to change; we need to stop focusing on things in Gaza and around the world and to focus on things here in Northern Ireland.”
“A report that could give you the nub of an answer in a concise, precise and relevant way is dressed up and camouflaged with hundreds of words, when actually, at the end of it, you cannot understand it. I have gone through some education. I have three degrees, and I cannot understand it. Actually, I have a degree in one of the things that was being discussed. <BR /> <BR />Let us cut the mumbo jumbo. Let us cut the claptrap. Let us have a system that rewards those who turn up, rewards merit and says to those at the top of the organisation, "You get eye-watering salaries. You're paid more than anyone here. Do your job or find a different job." We need to have real accountability at every level but also real reward for those who are working.”
“We shirk from those in Northern Ireland. I listened attentively to someone on the radio recently talk about performance management for people in the Civil Service in England being much higher than here. People do not want to have uncomfortable conversations. If your performance is not good, why is that? Is there a welfare issue? Is there an issue with training? Is there an issue with your level of engagement or commitment? That is a culture that needs to be brought in at all levels. Skill people up to have those conversations. <BR /> <BR />I want to say one final thing about the Civil Service, about that very senior leadership and how it transcends in what I have seen since I have come here. Committee after Committee, report after report: mumbo jumbo. It is full of flannel.”
“Yes, there are issues with stress, with demands and with making sure that there is good, supportive leadership, but the way that sickness is calculated can often be perverse. One day's sick is one incident, and seven days' sick is one incident. I have spoken to people who have said to me in all honesty, "There was no incentive for me to come back to work any quicker. If I am going to go sick, I might as well get my seven days out of it". We must have a system that properly measures whether you have hit a point of unsatisfactory sickness absence. <BR /> <BR />We also need an entire culture of training people in how to have proper sit-down conversations around issues of welfare and performance.”
“<BR /> <BR />In a second, I will come on to how we record and measure sickness, because there is a perversion in that system, but my second point is about how we reward those who turn up time and time again. I have spoken to many people who have said, "I have not taken a day off in 10 years, and that has never been acknowledged". If we want to change the culture, it is important that we acknowledge those who turn up and that we reward and recognise that. Likewise with promotion: I do not know the inside track of the Civil Service, but I know from experience in the Police Service that there is often a feeling that we have got our promotion system entirely wrong. The wrong people get promoted, and it is not done really on merit. <BR /> <BR />I want to talk about sickness and one reason why you might have high levels of sickness.”
“<BR /> <BR />Let me say with real sincerity that there is an absence of real accountability in the culture in Northern Ireland. That has maybe come from our peace process. Sometimes just existing and not excelling is OK. We need to have real accountability as a culture in the Civil Service and in all aspects of our public life so that there is proper performance management. You can still be compassionate with sickness — I have had periods of sickness and have battled hard to overcome them — but there is a lack of real accountability around issues such as performance, absence management and honest conversations. Those need to be trained in our Civil Service at all levels of line management. That is the first thing.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sorry that I was a little late for the start of the debate. <BR /> <BR />There is no doubt that we need strong leadership and real change in the Civil Service. I echo what everyone else has said: the motion is not a criticism of the hard-working men and women who are the rank and file of the Civil Service. It is about culture and about senior leadership, but I want to start with political leadership. It is unhelpful for any type of transformation if the Stormont institutions are not in existence for a period of time. That is not helpful. The lack of focus, particularly on this side of the Chamber, on issues not in Northern Ireland is not helpful. These are the deep-down issues that we need to be focused on, and I want to make sure that I acknowledge that.”
“Yes, absolutely. Anything that we can do to remove the cliff edge on selection will remove the stress. That is why I have concerns about removing AS levels, which come later in secondary schools. The cliff edge can be detrimental to well-being in the school. <BR /> <BR />For all those reasons, I oppose the motion. I support choice. We can better serve all our pupils and their parents across Northern Ireland and give them that choice.”
“We need to better support children who go through selection, offer them more pastoral support and destigmatise the issue of passing or failing. It is not about that; it is just a different pathway in your life.”